The GOP’s continuing demographic challenge: Hispanics and Youth

I’m struck by two facts underlining Republican failure with young people and Hispanics.

1. Party registration in California, America's 6th youngest state with 30% of the nation's Hispanic population, is overwhelmingly non-Republican.

Joel Kotkin, in the liberal “Daily Beast,” writes that

The Republicans[‘] Neanderthal stance on social issues varies radically from the rising millennial generation, and threatens to alienate them permanently. [Also, it represents] a threat to the other large emerging voting block, immigrants and their offspring. If you want to see an illustration of what [alienating youth and Hispanics] means, just examine the plummeting GOP registration levels in increasingly multi-racial California. For the first time in modern history, according to veteran political observer Allan Hoffenblum, there is not a single congressional, state Senate or Assembly district in the state with a majority Republican registration.

2. Protestant Hispanics have returned to the Democrats.

“RealClearPolitics’” David Paul Kuhn found a year ago that

Obama's margin with Hispanics. . . grew with the [2008] economic collapse and was rooted in the immigration debate. Latino Protestants were especially impacted. More than half of Hispanic Protestants backed Bush in 2004. [In 2008], two thirds of them backed Obama. Obama eventually won Hispanics by a two to one ratio. [Still,] that mark remains a smaller share of Latino support than the Democratic nominee earned in 1988 and 1996.

Obama may have had a smaller percentage of the Hispanic vote than Dukakis in 1988 or Clinton in 1996, but the total Hispanic Democratic vote in 2008 was far higher.