The number of people on this forum who think Georgia will be solidly Democrat by 2030 astounds me. Sure, it might swing less conservative (same with Texas), but that's because recent ideological trends (i.e.Trumpism) within the Republican party have been less south-centric, and is not because of long-term demographic problems within the Republican party.
The reason I think the 'demographics is destiny' trends assumed for many states here is b.s. is because this assumption is based on two faulty principles:
1. That, because older generations vote more Republican than younger generations, eventually the Republican voter base will die off faster than the Democratic voting base
2. That, because minority populations will represent larger and larger segments of the overall population, Democrats will necessary swamp Republicans with vast majorities within these groups until the end of time
Number 1 is the easier point to address; there's a good resource available here that deals with this in part:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politicsThe basic gist is this: people get more conservative as they age. The baby boomers used to be the most liberal generation of them all, and are now the most conservative. This isn't that hard to understand because as people experience more of the world their worldview tends to solidify, and they become more resistant to change. While not universal, this is a definite trend that Democrats seem to conveniently ignore whenever they discuss the emerging supermajority the millennial generation will provide them with.
Number 2 is more difficult to address, as (unfortunately) there is virtually no data on the extent to which 'browness' indicates propensity to vote Democratic, but the basic gist is this: persons who are half-black (such as Barack Obama) currently count as just as much of an African American as someone who is full-black. As America gets browner, it will most certainly get less White - but it will also get less Black. Unless Democrats can find a way to convert similar percentages of quarter-black (or less) persons, both the White voter base of Republicans AND the Black voter base of Democrats will die off, leaving people who are brown but not 'as black' as the Democratic minority base of old.
However, as mentioned previously, there is simply no data on this hypothesis one way or another. People are counted as simply 'black' or 'white' based on how they identify, and there is no clear cutoff point at which someone becomes 'White' vs. 'Black' (or Hispanic, or Asian, etc.). Democrats do tremendously among African-Americans presently, but if in the emerging generation (which will be much more minority than previous generations because many more kids of interracial couples are in it than in previous generations) Democrats do even a bit less well, that would be a big blow to their voter base (though of course the fact that the generation as a whole is less White will hurt Republicans as well).
In other words, Democrats like to talk only about the demographic changes in this regard that will presumably hurt Republicans, while not talking about potentially changes that could hurt their voter base.
While point 2 is not as spurious as point 1 (i.e. there's plenty of data to disprove point 1, and none whatsoever on either side to disprove or prove point 2 yet), I see no particularly strong reason to think that states such as GA or TX (much less MS) will become Democratic within the next decade or two.
Consider this: in this era of increasing polarization, for the past 28 years most states have remained fairly constant in their partisan-order (i.e. if you lined up the states in order of most Democratic to least). Generally, partisan changes in this ordering have been largely attributable to dynamics of individual races (i.e. Trump did not bother appealing to or visiting the Sun Belt while spending all his time in the Midwest/Florida/North Carolina, while Hillary sent both multiple surrogates to Arizona).
Talk of the Democratic party being dead in Minnesota or Michigan (much less Oregon lmao) in 20 years is just as unfounded as talk of Republicans being dead in Georgia or Texas. Sure, a few of these states will naturally flip sides over time, but the progression will be a lot slower than people here seem to think. The Republicans are prohibitive favorites in Georgia and Texas at least through the next decade or two, as they vastly underperformed in both places due to the unique dynamics of a race. While a Democrat could win either in a landslide, neither will be voting to the left of Michigan in the near future.
As for Florida, the demographic changes there don't seem to be benefitting either side, and people here are finally starting to get that. Florida will always be older than the nation as a whole (which will always benefit Republicans unless ideologies flip drastically) but also more diverse (again, which will always benefit Democrats barring ideology changes), and the overall tilt of the state will probably remain slightly Republican for the foreseeable future.
The only true long-term demographic problem I see presently for either party is a simple one: Democrats seem to be more inclined to box themselves into small, densely populated areas, while Republicans appeal more and more to geographically diverse voters across a large majority of the country's area. The constitution is set up in such a way as to value geographic diversity (via providing bonuses to the party which wins more states through additional senators and therefore the electoral college votes those seats in congress represent), and so Democrats will need to find a way to start appealing to people outside of the burbs to win consistently.
Just my (much more than) two cents.
