Marco Rubio and Rick Scott gathered reporters in a conference room early Thursday morning at the National Republican Senatorial Committee for a light breakfast, a PowerPoint presentation, and a paradigm shift.
The vaunted “coalition of the ascendant,” that mix of young voters and minority voters and white college-educated voters who together carried Barack Obama to a second term, has fractured. Projected demographic changes will continue but will not lead to permanent Democratic majorities. Anyone looking to forecast the future of American politics should look to red Florida, not blue California.
At least so said GOP pollster Curt Anderson, who laid out the findings of a new NRSC survey of Hispanic voters in battleground states. The top line from his 34-page slide deck? “The coalition of the ascendant is descending.” The proof? The two senators sitting at the table who won election in a Sun Belt state that has become “substantially less white and more Republican.”