The Emerging Democratic Majority

ONE OFTHE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR AND A WINNER OFTHE WASHINGTON MONTHLY'S ANNUAL POLITICAL BOOK AWARDPolitical experts John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira convincingly use hard data -- demographic, geographic, economic, and political -- to forecast the dawn of a new progressive era. In the 1960s, Kevin Phillips, battling conventional wisdom, correctly foretold the dawn of a new conservative era. His book,The Emerging Republican Majority,became an indispensable guide for all those attempting to understand political change through the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the country in Republican hands,The Emerging Democratic Majorityis the indispensable guide to this era.In five well-researched chapters and a new afterword covering the 2002 elections, Judis and Teixeira show how the most dynamic and fastest-growing areas of the country are cultivating a new wave of Democratic voters who embrace what the authors call "progressive centrism" and take umbrage at Republican demands to privatize social security, ban abortion, and cut back environmental regulations.As the GOP continues to be dominated by neoconservatives, the religious right, and corporate influence, this is an essential volume for all those discontented with their narrow agenda -- and a clarion call for a new political order.

John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and the author of William F. Buckley, Jr. and The Paradox of American Democracy.

Introduction: The Politics of Postindustrial America

1. The Rise and Fall of the Conservative Republican Majority

2. George McGovern's Revenge: Who's in the Emerging Democratic Majority

3. The Geography of the New Majority

4. The Politics of the Emerging Democratic Majority

5. The Tenuous Case for a Republican Majority

Conclusion: The Progressive Center

Afterword: "The Enemy is Coming"

Appendix: Data Sources

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index