Where Republicans invaded Democratic turf

Democrats are even blunter: "I don't think there's any voter realignment," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, at a recent Monitor breakfast. What happened in this year's elections was "a minor shift that's explainable by a whole range of things that are kind of one-time phenomena," he says. "It's hard to come away from that saying that's going to shape our future."

Significantly, Mr. Greenberg says, although a majority of voters cast ballots for congressional Republicans this year, only 48 percent said they would vote to reelect Mr. Bush in 2004 over a generic Democratic nominee. Still, Greenberg's own data reveal some demographic trends that are not good news for Democrats.

• Republicans maintained or increased their recent dominance among men, whites, married people, and rural voters - and won white men by 19 percentage points. Analysts from both parties agree that national security was a top concern this year; voters who cast their ballots for Republicans listed the war on terrorism and supporting President Bush as their top two reasons.

• The GOP also won the senior vote this year, indicating that the party's efforts to neutralize Democrats' attacks on issues such as Social Security and prescription drugs were largely successful. While Democrats won a majority of seniors in 2000, this year Republicans scored a 5-percent margin among voters over 60.

• Most notable, Republicans closed some of the gaps that have hampered them in past elections. Women, who have traditionally given Democrats a big margin, voted Democratic by only 2 percent this year.

Democrats' lead among union households, a healthy 22 points in 2000, shrank to 15 points this year - and just 6 points among white union members. And while Hispanics overall still gave Democrats a double-digit lead, Republicans made big inroads in certain states, such as Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush won about 60 percent of the Latino vote.

Republican strategists say that many of these gains are the result of specific efforts the party has made to broaden its support. "Republican campaigns worked really hard at targeting some of those groups," says GOP pollster Glen Bolger

The party tried to reach out to women, for example, focusing more on issues such as education - and the election "showed some dividends for that."

Still, whether Republicans can hold these gains beyond this year will depend in large part on how the Democrats respond, he says, and how effectively they work to counter this year's trends in the next campaign. "It's possibly the start of something bigger," he says. "Unless it's not."

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