The Republican Coalition is Falling Apart: Part 2

Last week, I wrote a post about the Republican Party's troubles because of immigration. I had a couple of people (one that posted) write me with quizzical responses. Here is another example of the R's coalition breakdown in Arizona. Now we have Russel Pierce considering a challenge to Jeff Flake. It is not like Flake is some sort of liberal. He is a hard-core conservative Republican. Also, think back to the CD 8 race last year with Randy Graf and Gabby Giffords. The civil war is on...

Immigration is an unsolvable problem for the Republicans. Either way they are likely to lose. The simple fact is that parties go through periodic restructuring of their underlying coalitions. The Democratic Party saw this happen starting in 1980 and ending 1994 with loss of many working class white voters and the South. I would argue that Republicans are moving through this kind of transition. They have lost most the North East and the Mountain West is trending away from them. It will be impossible to build a coalition with hard-core anti-immigration activists, Wall Street Journal Republicans and Hispanics. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.