[quote author="Geotpf" date=1248475985][quote author="Geotpf" date=1248435771][quote author="PANDA" date=1248416741][quote author="irvine_home_owner" date=1248415625][quote author="PANDA" date=1248414500]... there very well may be more Asians than Caucasions living in Irvine by the year 2016.</blockquote>
I think this is already the case.</blockquote>
I wonder if the ethnic composition of Irvine will be like Hawaii... once my kids start entering high school.</blockquote>
To derail this thread even further, Hawaii is the only state in the union that, over the long term, is trending Republican, since Asians (especially Chinese/Japanese/Koreans), tend to vote Republican, and the asian population of Hawaii is growing. The rest of the country is trending Democratic, due mainly to an increasing Hispanic population.</blockquote>
I had an older refrerence, but I lost the link.
And when I'm talking long term, I mean REALLY long term (decades). But it's pretty obvious. Hispanics are making up a larger share of the voting population in most every state, and they tend to vote Democratic. Whites are making up a smaller share of the voting population in most every state, and they tend to vote Republican. The only state with minimal growth in Hispanics is Hawaii, where whites are losing not to hispanics, but to asians, and asians vote more Republican than whites do (or at least they used to-Googling around and most references I see state that asians are swinging heavily towards the Democrats recently).
Hawaii has, in fact, been trending Republican recently, although the 2008 election provides a lot of noise since Obama was born there (or maybe Kenya, heh), so the whole "home town boy" aspect made comparisons impossible. In 2004 Hawaii looked like a swing state for about a half a second-Cheney even flew there to campaign (which is a big deal, since it takes so long to fly there and back).
However, in the country overall, the hispanic effect is the most significant. It was clear to me as early as 2004 that the Republican party was going to be in trouble soon, for this reason alone.</blockquote>
Percent of democratic vote over time
Year White Hispanic Asian
80 36% 56% --
84 35% 62% --
88 40% 69% --
92 39% 61% 31%
96 43% 72% 43%
00 42% 62% 54%
04 41% 56% 58%
08 43% 67% 62%
Source: NYT <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html">exit poll</a> summary
Whites show a slight (barely any) upward tend on the blue votes. Hispanics have shown a decline in democratic support during the Bush years which was reversed during the last election. With the latest bout of xenophobic garbage from people like Buchanan, the trend of Hispanics going Blue is only solidifying.
Interestingly enough, Asians have shown a HUGE change towards favoring a Democratic candidate for the presidency. The whole Asians vote Republican seems to be an urban legend.
