The GOP Demographics Problem: Whiter Than Maine

The Republican party's demographics problem is increasingly becoming clear. While the rest of the country becomes more multi-racial, the GOP remains overwhelmingly white. The numbers are telling. Below is a chart showing the ethnic breakdown of the United States Congress:


From the numbers we can see that minorities are still underrepresented in Congress. While the Democratic caucus is much more diverse than the Republican party, it still has a ways to go if it wants to reflect the racial makeup of the country.

For the Republican party, the numbers are damning. Congressional Republican membership is 96.33% non-Hispanic white. That is very white. To give you an idea of how white that is, if the congressional Republicans were a state, they would be the whitest state in the union. In contrast, Maine, the whitest state in the country, is only 95.5% non-Hispanic white.

The raw numbers for Republicans are even worse than they appear. Cubans make up fully half of all the ethnic minority members in the Republican congressional caucus. While older Cubans are still loyal to the Republican party, younger Cubans are increasingly voting for Democrats. If the Republican party cares about their long term viability, they need to start better representing the country.

*Demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau