They point to the Republicans losing the popular vote in three out of the last four elections as proof that the Republicans are forever a minority party of "old white men".
We've been through this before of course, after the 2004 election Republicans were gloating that "we control everything the presidency, both houses of Congress, a majority of governorships, and the Supreme Court. Four years later all that was reversed.
But to put the current 'three out of four losses" in perspective lets look at, courtesy of Wikipedia, the elections from 1860, when the Republicans first won the presidency, to the end of their first ascendency in 1928. Of the 18 elections, in the popular vote totals the GOP won 12 to the Democrats only 6 (in the Electoral College the score was Republicans 14 Democrats 4).
In point of fact it is more than possible that if it were not for Black voter suppression/Jim Crow laws the Republicans would have won the popular vote in 1876 and 1884 making the true margin 14 Republican popular vote wins to the Dem's 4.
Thus for the gloating Dem's to see another one of the mystical 'permanent-majority" scenarios ( enter the party of your choice) which have surfaced every time there is a big win for either party, is just the result of hubris.
1876 | Rutherford Hayes | Republican | 47.92% | −3.00% | 4,034,142 | −252,666 | Samuel Tilden | Democratic | ||
26 | 1888 | Benjamin Harrison | Republican | 47.80% | −0.83% | 5,443,633 | −94,530 | Grover Cleveland | Democratic | |
24 | 1880 | James Garfield | Republican | 48.31% | 0.09% | 4,453,337 | 1,898 | Winfield Scott Hancock | Democratic | |
25 | 1884 | Grover Cleveland | Democratic | 48.85% | 0.57% | 4,914,482 | 57,579 | James Blaine | Republican | |
27 | 1892 | Grover Cleveland | Democratic | 46.02% | 3.01% | 5,553,898 | 363,099 | Benjamin Harrison | Republican | |
33 | 1916 | Woodrow Wilson | Democratic | 49.24% | 3.12% | 9,126,868 | 578,140 | Charles Evans Hughes | Republican | |
28 | 1896 | William McKinley | Republican | 51.02% | 4.31% | 7,112,138 | 601,331 | William Jennings Bryan | Democratic | |
21 | 1868 | Ulysses Grant | Republican | 52.66% | 5.32% | 3,013,790 | 304,810 | Horatio Seymour | Democratic | |
29 | 1900 | William McKinley | Republican | 51.64% | 6.12% | 7,228,864 | 857,932 | William Jennings Bryan | Democratic | |
31 | 1908 | William H. Taft | Republican | 51.57% | 8.53% | 7,678,335 | 1,269,356 | William Jennings Bryan | Democratic | |
20 | 1864 | Abraham Lincoln | Republican | 55.03% | 10.08% | 2,211,317 | 405,090 | George McClellan | Democratic | |
19 | 1860 | Abraham Lincoln | Republican | 39.65% | 10.13% | 1,855,993 | 474,049 | John Breckinridge | Democratic | |
22 | 1872 | Ulysses Grant | Republican | 55.58% | 11.80% | 3,597,439 | 763,729 | Horace Greeley | Democratic | |
32 | 1912 | Woodrow Wilson | Democratic | 41.84% | 14.44% | 6,296,284 | 2,173,563 | Theodore Roosevelt | Progressive | |
36 | 1928 | Herbert Hoover | Republican | 58.21% | 17.41% | 21,427,123 | 6,411,659 | Al Smith | Democratic | |
30 | 1904 | Theodore Roosevelt | Republican | 56.42% | 18.83% | 7,630,557 | 2,546,677 | Alton Brooks Parker | Democratic | |
4 | ||||||||||
35 | 1924 | Calvin Coolidge | Republican | 54.04% | 25.22% | 15,723,789 | 7,337,547 | John Davis | Democratic | |
34 | 1920 | Warren Harding | Republican | 60.32% | 26.17% | 16,144,093 | 7,004,432 | James Cox | Democratic |
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