From the Washington Examiner
. In 1980, Reagan won white voters 56 percent to 36 percent, with third party candidate John Anderson taking 8 percent of the vote. He ended up beating Carter by 10 points and winning 44 states.
Romney wins white vote by same margin as Reagan did in 1980 landslide
Actually, John Anderson, a Republican who lost to Reagan in the primaries of 1980, won 8% of the vote in the general election. Most of his vote would likely have gone to Reagan so those percentage comparisons with Romney don't work from 1980 to 2012.
The Republicans are losing elections because many conservatives, mostly whites, are staying home because they're tired of their priorities being ignored.
You could make that argument....that whites are staying home. But the bottom line is this: Whites are a shrinking part of the overall population....including the voting population. This especially true here in CA where white are now less than 40% which has had the effect of turning CA into a solid blue state. Not even Ronald Reagan could win in CA with current demographics in this state. And what is happening in CA is happening across the country. And Republicans are being pushed out of all of the metropolitan and urban areas. Here in CA we (Republicans) no longer win in San Diego, the Inland Empire, Fresno, San Jose, Stockton. We are close to losing Orange County, we are now losing in Ventura and Santa Barbara. We get absolutely annhilated in the SF Bay area and LA. But this jusn’t in CA where we are now losing big in urban areas.
Take a look at Texas. Sure it voted GOP in the last election, and probably will for the next several election cycles at least. But there are some warning signs: Whites are now just under 50% of the population in TX. Wiit unti whites are below 40% in Texas, you will see that state turn purple then red. In the last election, Obama carried Harris County (Houston) and Dallas County-—the state’s two biggest counties——GWB and RR easily carried both these counties back in the day. The GOP vote in Texas as in CA is being pushed out of the big metro areas and into the hinterlands. Here in CA nearly all of our (few remaining) GOP elected legislators (congressmen, assemblymen, state senators) com from remote and rural corners of the state as the Party has been effectively pushed out of all of the coastal areas and big metro areas. I see the same thing happening in Texas and elsewhere. I am not in favor of compromising our conservative principles. I am adamantly opposed to illegal immigration and have witnessed first hand how it has destroyed my once great state. I am concerned about the GOP’s weakness in most of our nation’s urban areas and I do believe the US is going the way of Europe. And I wish we could reverse these disturbing trends. Not even a pro-business articulate candidate promising progrowth tax cuts and decent private sector jobs and energy independence can win any more. It is all about the raza and all about who can promise to give away the free stuff at the expense of others. It is all about reparations baby——here in obamanation.
Supporting white priorities will expose the GOPe to withering criticism from the MSM that they don't know how to rebut without sounding "insensitive."
So they literally have no idea what to do, now.
Anderson’s voters were socially liberal suburbanites, many of whom now vote Dem. Even in looking solely at white America, this is a vastly different country than the one in 1980. If you were 30 in 1980, you are now 63.