This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, by John R. Weeks, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 13th (it will be out in January 2020), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news.

You can download an iPhone app for the 13th edition from the App Store (search for Weeks Population).

If you are a user of my textbook and would like to suggest a blog post idea, please email me at: john.weeks@sdsu.edu

Friday, November 7, 2014

Midterm Election Demographics Redux

Pretty much as predicted, the people who voted in the U.S. midterm elections were disproportionately older whites, according to exit polls, although the tilt toward the Republicans clearly took most people by surprise. Now the talk has turned to the demographics of those elected, and there are some surprises here, too, as Matthew Daly of Associated Press has chronicled:
The next Senate will be slightly younger than the current one. With several races still to be called, the 11 newly-minted senators set to take office in January are, on average, 16 years younger than the lawmakers they are replacing. Each incoming senator is younger than the departing senator — some by decades.
Elise Stefanik, a 30-year-old New York Republican, is the youngest woman ever elected to the House. Also making history is Mia Love, 38, whose election to a suburban Salt Lake City district made her the first black female Republican to win a seat in Congress.
Twenty-nine Latinos will serve in the House, the largest number ever, while the number of African-Americans in Congress will increase from 43 to at least 46, including three Republicans.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who won a two-year term in a special election, is the first African-American senator from the South since just after the Civil War.
Despite these historic changes, Daly notes that the U.S. Congress is still predominantly a bunch of older white guys.

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