KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The racial dimension in U.S. politics is often overlooked but crucial, particularly as demographic shifts reshape the electorate.
- White voters’ share has declined from 81% (2000) to 67% (2020), while non-white voters have grown, driving racial identity politics.
- The Republican Party has become a political home for white voters, further highlighted in Trump’s 2016 and 2020 elections.
- Immigration and identity issues are pivotal in defining political alignments.
- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the US will become a “minority-majority population” by 2043, with all the political cleavages that this entails, given the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) pedigree of the U.S.
- The 2024 presidential election will be a turning point, deeply shaped by these demographic and racial changes.
The racial vector is often overlooked in analyses of American politics, typically eclipsed by considerations of class, education, and economic standing. However, the upcoming U.S. presidential election on November 5, 2024, provides clear evidence that ignoring the racial dimension is a mistake. The demographic shifts and transformations that have emerged over the past few decades demonstrate the growing significance of race as a defining factor in the political landscape, making it crucial to reassess its role in shaping electoral outcomes.
One key element supporting this argument is the increasing political mobilization of white identity, which has become more prominent as the white share of the electorate diminishes. In 2000, white voters constituted 81% of the electorate, but by 2020, this figure had dropped to 67%, marking a 14% decline over two decades. At the same time, non-white voters increased their share from 19% to 30%, an 11% increase. This trend is expected to continue, and by 2043, the U.S. is projected to become a minority-majority country according to the U.S. Census Bureau — the significance of this reality cannot be underestimated politically. As white Americans see their demographic dominance waning, the political salience of racial identity has intensified. This demographic shift has led many white voters, particularly those without a college education, to increasingly align with the Republican Party.
Following the 2008 elections, and after two presidential terms by Barack Obama, the first African American president in U.S. history, the 2016 election of Donald Trump highlighted this shift. While conventional wisdom holds that Trump’s rise was driven by economic discontent, particularly among working-class voters, a closer analysis reveals that race played a more significant role than is often acknowledged. White voters across various demographic categories overwhelmingly supported Trump, not just those from lower-income or less-educated groups. In fact, Trump received more support from white voters of almost every type compared to George W. Bush in 2000. This included white men and women, white Christians (Catholics, Evangelicals, and Protestants), and even white voters with higher incomes.
The election results from 2016 also showed a clear racial divide: while less-educated white voters backed Trump, less-educated non-white voters overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton. Αfrican Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans without a college degree voted decisively for the Democratic candidate, revealing that race, rather than education, was the more significant factor across the electorate as a whole. This trend continued into the 2020 election, with Trump again winning a majority of white voters but losing decisively among non-white voters.
The focus on racial identity in politics has been further compounded by the increasing political polarization surrounding issues of immigration and identity politics. For example, immigration became a top priority for Republican voters in the years following the 2008 economic crisis, surpassing even the economy in importance for many voters. By the time of Trump’s successful campaign in 2016, immigration had become the defining issue for a large portion of the Republican base.
As the U.S. approaches the 2024 election, the racial vector will undoubtedly play a critical role, even if this is often unacknowledged in mainstream analyses. The long-term demographic trends point toward a further decline in the white share of the electorate, with corresponding shifts in political alignment; the consolidation of the Republican Party as the “white people’s party” in a United States that is en route to the 2043 minority-majority population milestone has inestimable implications. Meanwhile, the intensification of identity politics, including the politicization of race and ethnicity, is likely to shape voter behaviour in ways that traditional economic analyses fail to capture.
Political analyses often include America’s all-too-obvious culture wars and identity politics: from the alt-right/social justice warriors divide to the woke/anti-woke dimension, as well as Black Lives Matter and anti-immigration stances. Yet all these are epiphenomena; the hard facts of the racial dimension of American politics have been persistently overshadowed by other factors, but are now impossible to ignore. The demographic transformations underway in the U.S. are driving a political realignment that is increasingly defined by racial identity.
The upcoming 2024 election will serve as a pivotal moment in this ongoing transformation, as voters grapple with questions not just about the economy or education, but about the very identity and future of the United States. Ignoring the racial vector in this context is not only shortsighted but fundamentally misrepresents the forces shaping the future of American democracy.
*Dimitris B. Peponis is the author of The End of the Great Deviation: From Ukraine and the Pandemic to the Shaping of the New Global Order (Topos books, in Greek).