In a previous post I argued that the answer is no:
I don’t believe that immigration will make America more diverse, nor do I think it will make the electorate vote more Democratic. That’s because immigration from Asia and Latin America has made earlier immigrants from southern and eastern Europe seem less different, more “white” than they seemed in 1924, when immigration was restricted because America seemed to be becoming extremely diverse. By the 1950s, that same ethnic mix was viewed as homogeneous. Intermarriage rates are now so high that the day will come when both Asians and middle class Hispanics will be viewed as culturally “white”. Fifty years from now America will still be about 75% “white”, in terms of people’s perceptions. (The black population will stay around 13%) Diversity is a state of mind.
And as immigration brings in people who don’t vote Republican, it makes existing residents more likely to vote Republican. Thus each party will continue to win roughly half of the vote.
Tyler Cowen directed me to an academic study from 1998, by Amihai Glazer, Bernard Grofman and Guillermo Owen, which supports my claim:
We extend the standard Downsian framework to suppose that voters consider the identity of each candidate’s supporters when deciding whom to support, rather than considering only the announced policy positions of the candidates. In particular we posit the existence of a class of voters whose support for a candidate reduces support by some other voters for that candidate. Our most important result concerns the conditions under which the addition to the electorate of new voters on one side of the policy spectrum shifts the equilibrium toward the opposite direction. The model can explain why enfranchisement of blacks did not immediately help the election of liberal candidates.
I recall when civil rights advances in the 1960s made it much easier for blacks to vote in the South. Most blacks voted for Democrats, but the states where they lived actually swung toward the GOP after 1964.
We are seeing the same thing over much of the developed world. Immigration is associated with a decline in left-wing parties in places like Germany, even though the immigrants themselves tend to vote for the left. Indeed in Germany the AfD recently surpassed the SDP in polls, a situation that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas
Jul 13 2018 at 12:00am
So limitlless immigration will result in a permanent GOP majority? I don’t think so.
Mark Z
Jul 13 2018 at 12:39am
Don’t you think the AfD example is a little counterproductive toward proving your point? The AfD’s popularity is itself largely due to worry over increasing immigration. If you successfully convinced Germans of your position on immigration, the AfD would not be doing well at all.
In the long run, I think it is true that immigration doesn’t really help the left much. But that’s the long run. Reaching the new equilibrium likely takes time. White Democrats don’t suddenly become Republicans when the latest almanac tells them the white population percentage has gotten below a certain value. In the short run it probably helps left-leaning candidates in districts receiving large number of immigrants. And ‘short-termism’ is de riguer in politics.
Scott Sumner
Jul 13 2018 at 3:27am
Thomas, Is that how you interpret this statement:
“Thus each party will continue to win roughly half of the vote.”
Mark, You said:
“White Democrats don’t suddenly become Republicans when the latest almanac tells them the white population percentage has gotten below a certain value.”
Actually, they pretty clearly do suddenly become Republicans. That’s why immigration is not even helping the Dems in the short run. Do some districts move left? Yes, but some districts also move right.
You said:
“If you successfully convinced Germans of your position on immigration, the AfD would not be doing well at all.”
True, but in that case it still wouldn’t help the left, it would help the more traditional conservative parties.
Jens
Jul 14 2018 at 5:23pm
““If you successfully convinced Germans of your position on immigration, the AfD would not be doing well at all.””
The AfD is hard to grasp. They feed on the CDU (conservatives), but also on the SPD (center-left) and on the Linke (socialist). In relative terms they hurt SPD and Linke more than the CDU. And they mobilize former non-voters. The rise of the AfD is not only fueled by immigration issues, but also by the east/western divide. Immigration/asylum rules have been hardened enormously in the past few years and arrival numbers are pretty low and contrary to any fake news there are no relevant issues with immigrants or asylum seekers in Germany, but AfD stagnates or even rises. It’s not that easy.
shecky
Jul 13 2018 at 8:29am
Opposition to immigration on the premise that immigrants will vote Democratic strikes me as ideological protectionism: my political views cannot survive in the marketplace for ideas, therefore we must rely on government to remain relevant. So little faith that the Republican Party offers anything of value, except to nativists who desire to keep their special snowflake special.
That is, if you think immigration will actually help Democratic domination. Which I don’t.
Evidence? The USA has experienced over two centuries of relatively high immigration. And here we are without any clear example of Democratic domination. Conservative nativists want to deny new immigrants the opportunity to forget their roots and become conservative nativists themselves.
Perhaps you’ll argue that immigrants these days are different than when most immigrants were from Europe. If so, please explain exactly how immigrants from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Middle East are so different from Europeans, to the extent that they must be restricted from migrating to the US.
XVO
Jul 19 2018 at 11:24am
@Shecky
Immigration from Europe was a different situation than current immigration from the 3rd world.
We do need ideological protectionism, we need to protect the US from South American, Middle Eastern and African “ideas” of government and society. Our citizens and their progeny should be allowed to continue their way of life without being robbed at gunpoint by people like the recently elected moron in New York.
EB
Jul 13 2018 at 11:21am
I suggest reading Bryan’s latest post about the quality of papers reporting empirical research:
https://www.econlib.org/no-paper-is-that-good/
because all his arguments are relevant to posts pretending to explain empirical issues.
Yes, no post meets Bryan’s standards for papers, and many don’t even attempt to take them into account. And if the post refers to a politicians’ statement the probability that any argument meets Bryan’s standards is close to zero.
Conscience of a Citizen
Jul 13 2018 at 11:53am
Considering regional rather than national effects, it is easy to refute your thesis: just look at California, which recent mass immigration has transformed into virtually a one-party state (Democrats).
At a national level, you are confusing party affiliation with policy preferences (accidentally? deliberately?).
As mass immigration makes the electorate more leftist, both major parties move to the left, as predicted by the median voter theorem.
Citizens get punished by leftism co-imported with immigrants no matter how the major parties divvy up the electorate.
The California Republican party has moved toward the left, and would move much further left if it could operate independently of the national party.
Germany’s AfD gained support when the German voter began to recognize that his/her policy preferences will be abrogated if the leftist parties are allowed to import more immigrant shock troops. If AfD fails to block further mass immigration, Germany will move further to the left– which may cause AfD to grow even more, but simultaneously to become less able to prevent Germany’s degradation.
Scott Sumner
Jul 13 2018 at 12:00pm
Conscience, I don’t think you’d find many people who think the GOP is moving to the left.
I never denied that immigration can make certain areas more liberal or more conservative, what I denied is that it helps the Dems in an overall sense. Right now, the GOP is more powerful than at any time since the 1920s. The Dems peaked in power in 1965, when immigration was at a low point.
Conscience of a Citizen
Jul 13 2018 at 3:35pm
Sure, because people are constantly barraged with propaganda calling Republicans “right wing” (and worse). However, the GOP is objectively more leftist now than (to take your base year) in 1965. Despite control of Congress and the presidency, Republicans have not passed a single rightist law nor repealed a single leftist one, not even the widely and justly hated Obamacare which they were specifically elected to get rid of!
It has helped each generation of Democrats get what they want, which is more leftism. As I pointed out, the median-voter theorem predicts that the major parties will always split the electorate (after jockeying and delays, of course). As immigrants push the electorate leftwards, the Republicans move incrementally leftward to peel off the right-edge of centrist Democrats. The Democrats are not helped in the special “overall sense” of vote-share but they are very much helped in the more important “overall sense” of getting the policies they want.
Floccina
Jul 19 2018 at 2:52pm
“Conscience, I don’t think you’d find many people who think the GOP is moving to the left.”
The Democrats used to run ads saying that the Republicans would end Social Security and Medicare. If you did that now too few would believe you. The GOP certainly seems to me to have moved left.
TMC
Jul 20 2018 at 12:36pm
Agreed. First person on a Presidential ticket to favor gay marriage -Republican, first President to favor it while running for office, Republican. Trump in many ways looks like a very liberal republican from 20 years ago.
Benjamin Cole
Jul 13 2018 at 9:47pm
Lorenzo has a brilliant post on immigration.
http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com
Benjamin Cole
Jul 13 2018 at 9:54pm
Add on: when white settlers came to North America to diversify and enrich the continent, they were often greeted with hostility by the Native Americans.
The Native Americans, although originally migrants themselves, where in fact often xenophobic, racist and, well, nativist.
Yet I have never seen the Native Americans described in this way. Are there PC variants of xenophobia?
E. Harding
Jul 14 2018 at 2:10pm
Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina had lower Democratic vote shares (without excluding third parties) in 2016 than they did in 1964. Alabama and Mississippi had higher Democratic vote shares than they did in 1964 (Mississippi much higher, due to it being the Blackest and most racist state). Of the Deep South states, only Louisiana actually had a higher Republican vote share than in 1964 (and that was due to French Catholics moving GOP). In any case, there is no doubt the influx of minorities into Georgia is making that state trend Democratic, much like Virginia. The state’s non-Hispanic White vote share cannot be increased any further, and it’s clear minorities are not becoming more Republican. In the long run, the same goes for all the Deep South states.
That only works if the immigrants don’t become a majority. We have never had as large and as rapid an experiment in the effects of making immigrants become a majority as we are witnessing today. The biggest battleground for this in America is Texas. There’s only so much the native bloc-vote can do to combat the immigrant one. That doesn’t mean Democrats get a permanent majority. It does mean the Republican Party spends a few decades out of power before coming back as a more left-wing version of its previous self, much like the GOP did after the Great Depression.
Lorenzo from Oz
Jul 14 2018 at 8:49pm
Benjamin Cole: thanks for the plug.
More generally, agree with Scott. Republicans have tended to dominate national US politics in high migration periods, Democrats in low migration periods. Of course, the two Parties have changed regional bases since 1860, but nativism has always tended to be stronger in the Republicans and something of a threat to them (by potentially locking out migrant voters). Which they dealt with by attacking “the slave power” (1860) and then attacking the Dems as the Party of “Rum, Romany & Rebellion” (thereafter) and now by attacking the Dems as the Party of UnChristian UnPatriotic Liberalism. Migrants unsettle, so it is not surprising that the more overtly localist Party gains support when migrant numbers wax.
Conversely, homogeneity encourages welfarism in various forms, so it is not surprising that, as the migrant flow dwindles, the more welfarist Party gains support.
I would also point out that Australia has a much higher proportional migrant intake and population share than the US, but the Coalition and the ALP manage to divided the Two Party Preferred Vote consistently evenly. (Australia has a preferential voting system, so some votes for the two Major Parties are filtered through minor Parties, the Two Party Preferred Vote is the result after that is done.)
See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party-preferred_vote
Moreover, as Australia became more ethnically diverse, it moved up the economic freedom ladder and down the relative government share of expenditure ladder. Though the diversity of the Australian migrant intake can sometimes be exaggerated. Former countries of the British Empire still tend to dominate the intake, partly due to the preference for English speaking in the points system.
On ethnic diversity and economic freedom, folk might stop and think about why the Danubian Monarchy produced very pro-freedom economic thinkers, aka the *Austrian* school. But much more homogenous Germany produced much more dirigiste economic thinkers (e.g. List).
Alexandre Padilla
Jul 16 2018 at 12:15pm
Scott,
Here’s a paper answers directly your question or confirms your idea: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24510. It’s a paper by Mayda, Peri, and Steingress entitled: “The Political Impact of Immigration.” Here’s the abstract:
“In this paper we study the impact of immigration to the United States on the vote for the Republican Party by analyzing county-level data on election outcomes between 1990 and 2010. Our main contribution is to separate the effect of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, by exploiting the different geography and timing of the inflows of these two groups of immigrants. We find that an increase in the first type of immigrants decreases the share of the Republican vote, while an inflow of the second type increases it. These effects are mainly due to the local impact of immigrants on votes of U.S. citizens and they seem independent of the country of origin of immigrants. We also find that the pro-Republican impact of low-skilled immigrants is stronger in low-skilled and non-urban counties. This is consistent with citizens’ political preferences shifting towards the Republican Party in places where low-skilled immigrants are more likely to be perceived as competition in the labor market and for public resources.”
[extra vertical space after opening quotation mark removed–Econlib Ed.]
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