As recently as 2012, conventional wisdom claimed that the future belonged to the Democrats. Ruy Teixeira and John Judis's influential 2002 book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" showed how minorities, women, and college-educated voters were all moving sharply toward the Democratic Party.
In 2010, Kevin Drum wrote in Mother Jones about how those demographic trends appeared to be coming true. "Minorities have increased their share of the vote by 11 percentage points since 1988 and have become even more strongly pro-Democratic than they were eight years ago. Ditto for white college graduates, professionals, women, and the religiously unaffiliated (the fastest growing 'religious' group in the country, he reports)," Drum wrote.
The re-election of Barack Obama appeared to confirm those trends. Obama's margins of victory among those key demographic groups had grown from his 2008 totals. For Democrats, "demographics are destiny" was holding true.
Until it wasn't.
“For years, the belief was Democrats have had demographic destiny on our side. Now, the inverse is true.” https://t.co/GUq3wWcHTm
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) May 25, 2025
Michael Barone, the dean of political polling analysts, has been crunching the numbers not only in the U.S. but around the world. His conclusions aren't surprising given the results of recent elections worldwide.
Ordinary people around the world are pushing back against established elites and beginning to win.
The trend is unmistakable. The question is whether it's a permanent feature of the electorates in democratic countries or a transient episode that will eventually lose steam (and be beaten down by an elitist backlash).
Barone sees a pattern being repeated across the globe.
"The pattern can be summarized in a simple formula. M+M versus H," Barone writes in the New York Sun.
The first "M" stands for “Metropole,” the "dominant governmental, media and cultural center of each country," Barone writes. In the U.S, that includes Democratic-run big cities on the East and West coasts. In France, Paris. In Great Britain, London. These aren't just population centers. They're cultural hubs and political power centers.
The second "M" stands for "minorities." In England, France, and Germany, that means Muslims. In Canada, it's French-speaking Quebecers. In America, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. These are "people whose experiences have set them apart as alien and potentially adversary to the dominant society," writes Barone.
The "H" stands for "Heartland," which represents the majority of citizens. Barone explains that the Metropole plus Minorities pitted against the Heartland is a recent phenomenon, and why the slightest alteration of that equation has tipped the electoral balance in favor of the Heartland.
New York Sun:
I first discerned the M+M vs. H patterns in June and November 2016. As I wrote in 2019, in the Brexit referendum, 60 percent or more of voters in metro London and Scotland voted against leaving the European Union, but Brexit won because 57 percent in England outside London voted for it.
Similarly, in America, Secretary Clinton beat President Trump 65 percent to 30 percent in the NY/DC/LA/SF Metropole, which is 15 percent of the nation, but Mr. Trump won 49 percent to 45 percent in the Heartland in between.
Key electoral votes came from 2012 Obama voters switching to Mr. Trump in the nonmajor metropolitan half of the Midwest.+
Since 2016, we've seen populist parties all over Europe seriously challenge Metropole dominance. It hasn't been a steamroller. It's been more like the ebb and flow of a tide, with populists advancing and suffering setbacks in subsequent elections. Also, Heartland politicians have suffered from elitist backlash, like the AdF party in Germany, which finished second in recent national elections, being tarred with the "Neo-Nazi" label.
The same kind of lawfare attacks that tried to destroy Donald Trump are being used against Heartland candidates in Europe. Not just in Germany, but recent elections in Romania saw a populist candidate leading after the first round of voting, only to be barred from running by the nation's electoral commission. And France's Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office for five years following a charge of embezzlement.
Elites justify these moves by invoking the tragic history of the first half of the 20th century. Yet objecting to having economic policies set by unelected bureaucrats at Brussels is not undemocratic.
And barring or limiting the uncontrolled influx of often culturally hostile immigrants is not the moral equivalent of murdering 6 million Jews.
Preventing voters from exercising their free choice is a funny way of “saving democracy.” And not a very effective way. Madame Le Pen’s deputy, Jordan Bardella, is running well in polls, and Labour in Britain polls way behind Nigel Farage’s Reform party by 362 to 136 seats at present, with nearly 40 percent of the party’s seats in metro London.
"The Metropole-Minorities alliance is fading, as Hispanics, Asians and, to a lesser extent, Blacks have trended Republican," writes Barone.
Is this a "populist moment" that seeks to punish elites, or a genuine realignment that will see a rebirth of national purpose and pride?
