海角大神

For at least the last several decades, Republicans have generally seemed to benefit from social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, the war on drugs, and crime. While it was rarely the case that these issues were the primary issue motivating most voters in a given election, the GOP has often been able to use them as wedge issue that would break apart traditional Democratic coalitions and lead people to vote for Republican candidates even if they might be more sympathetic to Democrats on economic and other issues. Additionally, these issues have long been used by both sides, but seemingly most effectively by Republicans, as a way to motivate strongly opinionated base voters to get out to the polls in what otherwise might be a low turnout election, thereby possibly providing enough support to, hopefully, put a particular candidate over the top. To a large degree, this was the methodology behind the 鈥淪outhern Strategy鈥� that Republicans began adopting in the Nixon era, and which bore fruit decades later in the form of the GOP鈥檚 dominance in states that used to be solidly Democratic. As recently as 2004, Republicans were able to use opposition to same-sex marriage as a wedge to help drive voter turnout in the presidential election, most especially in Ohio, which just happened to be the state that decided the election that year.

Now, however, it鈥檚 beginning to look as though聽social issues may be turning into a wedge issue that favors Democrats:

None of this is surprising, of course. We鈥檝e seen polling on same-sex marriage, contraception, marijuana legalization, and a host of other social issues shift decidedly against the traditional Republican positions for quite some time now. As younger voters become a larger part of the electorate, this is likely to become only more true as time goes on. For example, the most recent polling has shown that younger voters are so completely turned off by the Republican Party鈥檚 stance on issues such as marriage equality, marijuana legalization, and immigration that they wouldn鈥檛 even consider voting for a Republican candidate. The problem that this poses for Republicans, of course, is that even if they do start changing the party鈥檚 position on these issues, it鈥檚 not at all clear that there would be any clear electoral benefit to them, while it鈥檚 likely that such a move would elicit scorn, to say the least, from the socially conservative base of the party. For proof of that, one need look no further than the聽exceedingly negative聽reaction聽that former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) received in 2011 when he聽called for a truce on social issues within the Republican Party聽so that candidates could concentrate on issues such as the economy and federal spending where, to some degree, the GOP has an advantage over Democrats in most polling. 聽As it turns out, there is plenty of evidence that Mr. Daniels was right in calling on the GOP to stop emphasizing divisive social issues, but Republicans have generally not taken well to that advice even as it becomes more apparent that the party鈥檚 position on these issues is harmful.

None of this is to say that Democrats can ride social issues to victory in every race, of course. Turnout in specific races, the quality of the candidates and their campaigns, and the state of the economy will always be more important issues than these wedge issues. However, just as the GOP was once able to use social issues such as these as wedge issues in close elections, we seem to be entering a time when it will be Democrats that are following this strategy. This is one reason why we鈥檙e seeing many Republicans in close elections 鈥� such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Cory Gardner in Colorado 鈥� do the best that they can to evade these issues even if it means seeming to contradict their previously stated positions. No doubt we鈥檒l see more Republicans equivocate or change their position on issues like marriage equality as the polling becomes clearer. In any case, expect social issues like marriage and contraception to be a big part of the election narrative this year, and in 2016. The difference is that this time it will be the Democrats who are emphasizing the issues, and Republicans who are running from them

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.