Sorry, but old white conservatives are not "dying off"

So let's be clear. There is little question that the baby boomer generation has been dominant voting force over the past several elections. The baby boomers arguably were the driving force behind the elections of Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Donald Trump. There is a serious argument to be made that the only President in recent times whose election was driven by voters (other than the boomers) was Barack Obama.

So are the boomers getting older? Of course. The current age group of the boomer generation is 52-70 years old. However, with most healthy Americans living well into their 80s and 90s it's going to be a while before these boomers die off.

More to the point, the boomers were raised by a generation of lunch pail Democrats, tied heavily into labor, working class, and other non-social liberal issues. Currently those are the Americans who are passing away and thus falling off the voter rolls. Older voters dying off is at best a wash for Democrats, and at worst a small disadvantage that they hope to offset with new voters.

So let's look at some statistics:

• White voters 2012 - 72% of the electorate
• White voters 2014 - 75% of the electorate
• White voters 2016 - 71% of the electorate
• White voters 2018 - 72% of the electorate
• Voters over 44 2012 - 54% of the electorate
• Voters over 44 2014 - 65% of the electorate 
• Voters over 44 2016 - 56% of the electorate
• Voters over 44 2018 - 65% of the electorate

Seems that there hasn't been a real change in either statistic, other than the reality that less younger voters tend to vote in midyear elections. Where you will find differences, isn't in the make up of who was voting, but rather in the makeup of who they voted for. Democrats do not necessarily do better when they get more younger minority voters to show up, they do better when they garner a greater share of the older white vote (as they specifically did with older white women in 2018).

The problem for Democrats is their reliance on identity politics. When you look at the make up of our voters, only 5% of the voters were black men. Another 6% were black women. 5% were latino men, and 6% were latino women. All others only made up another 6% of the voters. While Democrats may have made some inroads with White women in 2018 playing off an unprecedented number of allegations of sexual assault against multiple Republican men, that sort of thing (Republicans are serial sex abusers) is not a long term strategy or solution. 

Ultimately, Democrats will need to find a way to get older White voters to vote for them, or they will continue to struggle, especially in the Senate where there are simply way too many states that are way too white to win by courting minorities. At last count there were approximately 18 states where the population is at least 80% white. That represents 36 Senate seats. There are another 10 states where the population is at least 70% white. That's another 20 Senate seats. Add in the concept that voter turnout among white people is 5% higher than blacks and 20% higher than latinos, and you start to see the writing on the wall.  

Democrats and liberals can dream all they want about how white conservatives are dying out, and are being replaced by younger minority voters, but the reality is that our past few elections are not following this script. More to the point, such a change is not imminent, or at least not imminent over the next few election cycles. Perhaps in fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, we may see a significant change in demographics, but you can also bet your bottom dollar that both political Parties will look significantly different, and that our country will be facing significantly different challenges by the time 2040 or 2050 rolls around.