The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America
About Us I
Featured Papers I
Conference I
Related Resources
The evolution of American politics and policy has been intimately bound with demographic and geographic change. The arrival of the “GI generation,” the advance of suburbanization, the rise of the baby boomers and women’s entry into the workforce all had profound effects on American society. The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America, a joint project from The Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute, joins leading demographers, geographers and analysts in examining the impact of seven trends on the 2008 election and the future of American politics.
Important trends to watch include:
- The decline of the white working class and and the rise of a mass upper middle class;
- Changes in family structure, as married households with children decline and single and alternative households increase;
- The aging of the Boomers and the rise of the Millennials;
- The rise of immigration from Latin America and Asia and the higher fertility of some minorities;
- Americans increasingly sorting themselves geographically by affinity and ideology, creating "landslide communities";
- The rise of exurbia and the changing face of the suburbs; and
- The increasing ranks of highly observant Christian evangelical denominations as well as the ranks of the secular, the highly nonobservant and those who practice nontraditional religions.
Detailed analysis of each trend were presented at a February 28 conference in Washington, DC. Project papers will be published on this site and appear together in an edited volume from Brookings Press in September 2008.
The co-directors of this project are
Ruy Teixeira, visiting fellow at Brookings, and Karlyn Bowman, senior fellow at AEI.
Featured Papers: Race and Class
"The Decline of the White Working Class and the Rise of a Mass Upper Middle Class ," by Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira
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"Race, Immigration and America’s Changing Electorate,'" by William H. Frey
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Featured Event:
The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America Conference
Washington, DC (2/28/08)
Audio and Video of the Conference Available
Related Resources: The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America
Paper by Ruy Teixeira, Issues in Governance Studies (January 2008)A key contributor to political polarization in the U.S. frequently overlooked is the demographic and geographic changes in the electorate that have altered the sizes of different population groups and even shifted their political orientations over time. In this paper, Teixeira examines the new wave of demographic and geographic changes currently washing over the U.S. and their profound effects on future politics.
The Search for the Next Soccer Mom: Trends to Watch in 2008
Opinion by Ruy Teixeira and Karlyn Bowman, Wall Street Journal (2/28/08)
The evolution of American politics is bound up with demographic and geographic change. So what are the trends to watch in 2008? A number of them are examined by Visiting Fellow Ruy Teixeira and AEI's Karlyn Bowman.
The Pennsylvania Primary and the White Working Class Vote
Interview with Ruy Teixeira and guests, NPR Talk of the Nation (4/14/08)
Ruy Teixeira joins NPR's Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan to discuss the Pennsylvania primary and the working-class vote.
The Political Geography of Pennsylvania: Not Another Rust Belt State Paper by William Frey and Ruy Teixeira, Battleground Dynamics Series (April 2008) Ruy Teixeira and William Frey examine the political geography of Pennsylvania to explore whether the state will become more Democratic, remain closely divided or even go Republican for the first time in five elections.