Center for American Progress – Patrick Oakford – January 6, 2015: “In the wake of the 2012 presidential election, Republican elected officials and conservative political pundits publicly bemoaned the party’s failure to connect with and win over voters of color. Furthermore, they conceded that a failure to fare better with this demographic in future elections would carry dire electoral consequences and doom the GOP’s chances of winning back the White House. Some may view the Republicans’ wide-spread success in the 2014 midterms as an indication that the GOP’s concerns immediately following the 2012 presidential election are no longer applicable. However, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that midterm elections have historically had low voter turnout rates, and ultimately, the voter makeup of the electorate in midterm years has been very different than in a presidential election. Therefore, the upcoming 2016 election provides the first test case of the Republicans’ post-2012 election predictions. Since 2012, these demographic challenges have only grown more acute. As people of color become an ever larger share of states’ electorates, the political implications for both parties comes into even sharper focus: In 2016, to win the presidency—as well as many U.S. Senate races—candidates will need to secure substantial support from voters of color. The demographic changes in the United States are far from being fully realized: Not until 2043 will people of color make up a majority of the U.S. population. Despite the seemingly long trajectory of these changes, the political implications are already being felt in many states. By 2016, demographic shifts will be influential in states such as Florida, where voters of color are an increasingly significant share of the electorate, as well as in states such as Ohio, where elections are close and growth among voters of color is rapidly outpacing the growth of the non-Hispanic white electorate. This issue brief identifies what the American electorate is projected to look like in key battleground states during the 2016 elections, and based on those projections, identifies the potential electoral influence of voters of color. This is accomplished by estimating the racial and ethnic makeup of the 2016 voter-eligible population and then demonstrating the potential political impact of demographic changes by conducting two election simulations. The first simulation assumes that, across all racial and ethnic groups, voters turn out at the same rate and have the same party preference as they did in 2012. In the second simulation, voter turnout rates are again held constant from 2012, but racial and ethnic groups are assumed to revert to the party preferences they exhibited in 2004. Voter turnout rates are held constant from 2012 so as to isolate the electoral impact of demographic changes at varying levels of party preference. If turnout rates among voters of color are higher in 2016 than those used in these simulations, then the electoral effects will be greater than those presented here. Conversely, if turnout rates fall, then the magnitude of the political effects will be dampened.”