GOP’s Racial Gamble Backfiring

washingtonmonthly.com — As has been evident since at least 2008 (but was best explained earlier this year by Jonathan Chait), this year’s Republican campaign has been based on a big strategic gamble that a deliberate alienation of black and brown voters would ultimately matter less than a full mobilization of Republican strength among older white voters—at least long enough to produce a GOP government that would repeal Obamacare and disable as much of the New Deal and Great Society legacy as it can reach. A big part of that strategy, a Republican takeover of the Senate, is already on the brink of failure. But more generally, the calculation that African-American and Latino voters wouldn’t turn out at anything like 2008 levels, making elevated white vote margins for the GOP the ultimate trump card, isn’t looking as smart as it once did.

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