If Democrats are counting on winning any time soon, doubling down and moving further left, as their recent election of Tom Perez to head the DNC attests they’re doing, is not the answer. A recently released study from the centrist think tank Third Way concluded that the Democrats’ confidence in the “demography is destiny” theory espoused by John Judis in 2002, leading to an eventual “Permanent Democratic Majority,” is more fantasy than fact. In brief, the theory suggests that as minority groups that tend to vote Democrat grow in number, eventually and collectively the Democrat Party will build an insurmountable majority out of the faction of minority voters. This reasoning is based on the reality of minority groups growing faster than the current white majority.

Lanae Erickson Hatalsky and Jim Kessler, who conducted the study, concluded that there a three major flaws to Judis’ theory. The first being the fact that American demographics are not evenly distributed. This was clearly evidenced in the last election, again showing the important impact of the Electoral College. Second, voters have become much more fickle about party loyalty, which the last election also attested to, with Donald Trump winning many counties in the Rust Belt that Barack Obama had carried in 2012. And thirdly, a majority of minority voters do not self-identify as liberal.

Since the election of Obama, which marked the high point for Democrats, the party has veered hard left, especially on social and economic issues, resulting in a steady stream of losses. Since 2009, the Democrats have lost 20% of their Senate seats, 25% of their House seats, 45% of their governors, 53% of their state legislatures and most recently the presidency. As for that future demographic windfall, well it’s unlikely to materialize any time soon as Republican swing districts have a higher percentage of whites at 75% than do the solidly Democrat districts which are 45% white. In other words, banking on shifting demographics as a recipe for winning elections may not pan out for a long, long time. Which is good news for Republicans…