Everyone's abuzz about GOP gains in tomorrow's Census release - but let's not get ahead of ourselves

Ryan Streeter

Ed Driscoll puts it best: "It's Still the Demography, Stupid."

For some time, political analysts have been predicting Texas would pick up 4 seats as a result of the Census's new population and congressional apportionment figures. But as Driscoll summarizes by pointing readers to other blogs and writings, the Census figures will merely be a reflection of the weakness of the left's overall agenda, which just 2 short years ago had everyone predicting a new Democratic era and the demise of the Right. Some of the main points, backed up by his sources, are:

• People are moving to lower-regulation, Republican-friendly states in general, not just to Texas. "The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president."
• Lefty places don't like kids, and without kids, the numbers start to work against you. "In case you’re wondering if San Francisco is still number one on this unfortunate list [of cities with the fewest children], and who number two might be, the Newsalert blog has you covered. 'Young, hip Seattle still very short on children,' they note."
• The Judis-Teixeira thesis in 2004 that the large urban-suburban metroplexes made up of professionals, women and minorities spelled long-term trouble for Republicans, was fundamentally wrong. "The reality today is precisely the opposite of what John B. Judis predicted. His permanent Democratic majority has turned out to be illusory."

But lest we Republicans begin licking our chops too prematurely, we need only remember that not all demographic trends are working in our favor. The political map will surely look better as a result of the Census figures, but there is a huge, politically uncommitted population in America that could turn around and wreak havoc on the Right.

The Judis-Teixiera mistake was to assume the metroplex population was in the Democrats' bag, and it would be a mistake for Republicans to think that its swing back toward the GOP in 2010 means much of anything. As Joel Kotkin wrote yesterday, this group is much more inclined to want to see a robust agenda that will fix America's "aspiration gap" - that crevice between what people hope for and what seems possible in America right now:

The “aspiration gap” fundamentally does not advantage either party at the moment...Party identification and approval for the GOP remain low, particularly among the rising minority and millennial constituencies. Even in suburbia, amid rapidly rising middle class angst, the Republicans, according to a recent Hofstra University poll, have lost more support than the Democrats since 2008. Independents have been the big winner and constitute the largest faction of suburbanites—more than 36 percent, compared to just 30 percent two years ago.

So it may not entirely be about demography. It may also be about "aspiration" and "agenda."