By JAMES TARANTO Back in 2002, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published

By JAMES TARANTO

Back in 2002, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published a book titled “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” in which they argued that demographic trends were the Democrats’ friends–specifically, that the donks were fated to benefit from rising numbers of “minority voters, including blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans; women voters, especially single, working and highly educated women; and professionals,” while “the ranks of white working-class voters will not grow over the next decade,” spelling trouble for the GOP.

If history had stopped in 2009, they would have been able to claim vindication. Republicans made modest congressional gains in the 2002 and 2004 elections, and George W. Bush was re-elected decisively though not resoundingly. But 2006 wiped out the GOP’s congressional majorities, and 2008 bolstered those of the Democrats. Barack Obama achieved the biggest popular-vote majority of any president in 20 years and of any Democrat in 44 years–that is, since before Kevin Phillips published “The Emerging Republican Majority” (1969) to which the Judis-Teixeira tome was a rejoinder.

But then in 2010, the tide shifted back. Republicans more than made up for their 2006-08 House losses and won 24 of 37 Senate contests. The Democrats held their Senate majority, but largely because 40 of their seats, won in 2006 or 2008, would not be contested until 2012 or 2014.

As 2012 approaches, Teixeira has dusted off his decade-old thesis. He and John Halpin have produced a report for the left-liberal Center for American Progress titled “The Path to 270: Demographics Versus Economics in the 2012 Presidential Election.” The argument is that “demographics” are on President Obama’s side, while “economics” are not. (One might summarize the latter point this way: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”)

Unlike in 2002, Teixeira and Halpin are describing a receding Democratic majority, not an emerging one. Two hundred seventy, of course, is a bare majority of the Electoral College. Obama’s path there is a path from 365, his electoral-vote total from 2008. If Obama is going in the direction Teixeira and Halpin assume, Republicans are hoping he makes it beyond 270–preferably at least to 268, which would mean (assuming a normal two-candidate race) a Republican victory.

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