Can Republicans Win Without Minorities?

Ronald Brownstein makes the case that considering how poorly Obama did with traditionally Democratic leaning subcategories of white voters, Republicans will be hard pressed to win without making inroads amongst minorities:

Obama, for instance, lost noncollege white men -- once the brawny backbone of the New Deal-era Democratic coalition -- by a crushing 31 percentage points, the widest deficit since 1984. He lost married white men and married white women by the largest margins for his party since 1984. He lost whites nearing retirement by the widest margin since 1988, and white seniors by the most since 1984. Among older working-class whites (those without college degrees age 45 or older), he faced even larger deficits than Mondale did against Reagan. Likewise, the analysis shows, Obama lost white Catholics, once considered perhaps the single most decisive swing group, by a larger margin (19 points) than Mondale did. Obama didn't sink to record deficits among two other GOP-leaning groups -- college-educated white men and noncollege white women -- but he lost each by around 20 percentage points.

Even among the portions of the white community generally open to Democrats, Obama's performance flagged. After running essentially even among single white men in 2008, he lost them by 8 points in 2012 -- the party's weakest showing since 2000. His margin among white single women (ordinarily one of the Democrats' best groups) fell from 19 percentage points in 2008 to just 6 in 2012, the party's smallest advantage since 1988. Likewise, after carrying college-educated white women his first time, Obama lost them in 2012 by 6 percentage points, the party's biggest deficit since 1988. His overall deficit among white women spiked to 14 percentage points, double the level in 2008 and the biggest shortfall the party has faced since Mondale. Among whites younger than 30, Obama fell from a 10-point advantage in 2008 to a 7-point loss in 2012. Among whites in households with a union member, the exit poll found, Obama edged Romney by just 2 percentage points.

I think it is interesting how weakly Obama did with white Catholics, when he came out almost breakeven amongst all Catholics.  His support from Hispanic Catholics, and Hispanic Catholics' increasing percentage of total Catholics made up a significant difference in a traditional swing demographic.

I think the ways Republicans have targeted issues of interest for minority voters, like immigration and voting rights, are inherently self-defeating.  They push positions that motivate a small percentage of their base, but are seriously important to affected minorities.  The minority groups hear the disdain that Republicans and their base hold for the minorities and their key issues.  This gets these groups out to the polls.  Considering that Voter ID laws appeared to motivate more blacks to participate in the 2012 election, Republican efforts to further restrict access to the ballot box seem foolhardy at best. 

My great fear is that Republicans will succeed in convincing more and more white voters to support them, and our already polarized political atmosphere will become more toxic still by further injecting the bile of American history, race.  Nothing will be worse for our civil society than having our politics devolve into a headcount among races, with little or no attention to society as a whole.  I am hopeful that as more young people gravitate to our center cities, they will be able to find ways to interact in mutually economically beneficial ways with the urban poor, and maybe make beneficial changes to these cities.  It is a long shot, but it would be a very good thing.