"Those groups back Democrats, but not always by overwhelmingly large margins.... The new census data’s finding that the percentage of non-Hispanic white voters in the country’s electorate dropped by about two percentage points from 2016 to 2020 might seem like a lot. But with Hispanic, Asian-American and multiracial voters representing the entirety of the increase, while the Black share of the electorate was flat, the growing nonwhite share of the electorate cost Mr. Trump only about half a percentage point over a four-year period. Another factor is the electoral map. The American electoral system rewards flipping states from red to blue, but many Democratic gains among nonwhite voters have been concentrated in the major cities of big and often noncompetitive states. By contrast, many traditional swing states across the northern tier, like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, have had relatively little demographic change.... White voters still represent more than 80 percent of the electorate in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the new census data. The nonwhite population in these states is predominantly Black; their share of the population has been fairly steady over the last few decades. But Mr. Biden won these states so narrowly that the relatively modest demographic shifts of the last few decades were necessary for him to prevail in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It’s just hard to call it a Great Replacement if Mr. Trump could have won in 2020 if only he had done as well among white voters as he did in 2016."
From "Why Rising Diversity Might Not Help Democrats as Much as They Hope/Voters of color make up an increasing percentage of the United States electorate, but that trend isn’t hurting Republicans as much as conservatives fear" by Nate Cohn (NYT).
The "Great Replacement" theory is referred to elsewhere in the article, here: "Contrary to what Tucker Carlson says repeatedly on Fox News about the rise of 'white replacement theory' as a Democratic electoral strategy, the country’s growing racial diversity has not drastically upended the party’s chances." That's carefully worded. It doesn't say that the Democrats do not have that strategy, only that it hasn't worked as well as you might think. If it's an odious strategy, then it's bad whether it works or not. If it's not odious, then you'd go right to open discussion of how well it works. So I'm inclined to think that the NYT doesn't think it's odious or doesn't want us readers to think it's odious. If the latter, it would seem that the NYT is trying to quell concern about about "replacement": it's not really happening, not that much, and even if it were that would be okay too, and if you feel at all worried about it, then you're in the Tucker Carlson camp, and you'd better get out of there.
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