I read an interesting article last week, written by California pollsters Stephen Kinney and Matthew Jason with the California branch of Public Opinion Strategies.
According to their research, voter registration among LATINO voters is 57% Democratic, 19% Republican, 20% Independent, and 4% other; among ASIAN voters, it is 30% Democratic, 29% Republican, 39% Independent, 2% other; and among BLACK voters, it is 83% Democratic, 8% Republican, 9% Independent.
Only among WHITE voters does the GOP in California have a registration advantage, it being 42% Republican, 40% Democratic, 14% Independent, 4% other. When this group was broken down by gender, Republicans had a 46%-31% registration advantage among white males, while Democrats had a 48%-39% registration advantage among white women.
Not only has the California GOP been unable to persuade a sufficient number of women or minorities to register Republican and vote for their candidates, it is interesting to note that the GOP has also failed in electing a significant number of Republican women or people of color to congress or the state legislature.
And this is during a decade that has seen the largest increase in the number of women, Latinos and Asians being elected to partisan office in this state’s history.
Lets start with the 53-member California CONGRESSIONAL delegation, which last year saw the election of 34 Democrats and 19 Republicans.
Among the 34 Democratic members of the House, 19 (56%) are women. Among the 19 Republicans, ALL BUT ONE are white males, the SOLE exception being Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs.
The CA Democratic Caucus also includes seven Latinos, three African Americans and two Asians. On the GOP side, there are ZERO Latinos and ZERO Asians.
In the 40-member California STATE SENATE, 25 are Democratic and 15 are Republican.
Among the 25 Democratic senators, there are 13 males (52%), of which only FIVE are white males. Among the 15 GOP senators, all but two are white males, being joined by Mimi Walters, the sole woman, and Abel Maldonado, the sole Latino.
There are eight Latinos (32%), two African Americans, and two Asians in the Senate Democratic Caucus.
In the 80-member STATE ASSEMBLY, 51 are Democratic and 29 are Republican.
Among the 51 Democratic assembly members, 35 (69%) are male (14 being white) and 16 are female (7 being white). The Caucus also consists of 17 Latinos (33%), 7 Asians (13%) and 6 African Americans (13%).
Among the 29-member GOP Caucus, 26 of 29 are males, ALL OF THEM WHITE except for Van Tran, a Vietnamese-American. There are three women, ZERO Latinos, and ZERO African Americans.
California’s total population is 43% white (non-Hispanic), 36% Latino, 12% Asian, 7% Black (2007 figures).
California Republicans can argue all they want about whether or not the state GOP is too conservative. But certainly a political party that has allowed its elected representatives to be so overwhelmingly dominated by individuals of the same ethnicity and same gender will not anytime soon be able to obtain the majority support that is required to govern this very large and very diverse state.