Republicans' Talent Deficit Risks Governing Failure

With top talent drifting away, Republicans face a growing human capital crisis that could derail their governing ambitions.

X user Siddharth Khurana posts interesting maps of where different ethnic groups reside, as well as electoral shifts in different communities. His post from yesterday about a major shift to the left in Winnetka, Illinois, one of Chicago’ most prestigious suburbs, made waves.

Winnetka was shifting toward the Democrats prior to the advent of Trump, but there was certainly a major break when he came on the scene.

Unlike in some areas, this does not appear to be a result of demographic shifts. Winnetka remains almost 90% white. It has a significant Jewish community, a group that has traditionally voted for Democrats. But Winnetka, likely due to historic exclusionary real estate practices, has been much less Jewish than other North Shore suburbs like Glencoe and Highland Park, and I’m not aware that there’s been a major increase in the Jewish population of Winnetka that might produce a demographic related voting shift of this size that would not appear in the racial makeup.

Now, some might say that the loss of places like Winnetka is no big deal. Those were liberal Republican “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only) anyway, and besides, the Republicans more than made up for any losses here with improvements among working-class minorities. Trump won the popular vote after all.

There’s some truth in that. It is important for any political party to build a mass constituency that can win a majority of the votes, and the new Trump coalition did that.

But a loss of highly-educated, highly-skilled people poses serious problems for Republicans. One is increased difficulty in governing when elected. Ross Douthat’s New York Times interview with Chris Rufo was revealing in this regard.