GOP's voter inroads

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There is growing fear among Democratic strategists that George W. Bush is making gains in their party's base, especially with minorities and labor. If true, this could be the most important political sea change in America in 70 years.

Donna Brazile, the black turnout specialist who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, has been telling the Democratic National Committee and anyone else who will listen, "don't take African-Americans for granted" because their loyalty is eroding and Mr. Bush is courting them aggressively.

A survey last summer by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which focuses on black issues, found black partisan identification with the Democrats declining. Only 63 percent of black voters now call themselves Democrats, down from 74 percent in 2000. Self-identified independents were up 20 percent. Ten percent now identify with the GOP, up from 4 percent in 2000, as I reported last year.

Notably, internal polls conducted for the DNC in preparation for 2004, reveal similar signs of partisan erosion among younger black voters, a party adviser told me this week.

This slippage is even more evident among heavily Democratic Hispanic and Latino voters. Some 35 percent of all Hispanics voted Republican in 2002, according to postelection surveys. Gov. George Pataki of New York won 50 percent of their vote. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida won 40 percent. Texas Gov. Rick Perry won 35 percent against an Hispanic challenger.

This erosion in the Democrats' base, plus increased Republican turnout of its own voter base, led to Democratic losses in governors and Senate races in Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota and elsewhere.

The AFL-CIO and its labor unions have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the Democratic labor vote, but without much success. A third or more of labor union rank-and-file are regularly voting Republican and some union surveys suggest the shift is growing, a union campaign strategist told me.

All this suggests the Democratic voter base is shrinking.

Blacks, Hispanics and organized labor represent three of the Democrats' biggest and most loyal voting blocs. Peel away even a relatively small percentage, say 5 percent to 8 percent more among minorities and union members, and the Democrats become a permanent minority party.