GOP Looks Like ‘Board Meeting of 1950s Corporation’ and Democratic Legislators Look Like America and Our Future: Mitt Romney’s Chief 2012 Strategist
Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign strategist criticized the GOP for its lack of diversity as the 116th Congress took office on Thursday.
"The visuals of new House should send a shiver through anyone who cares about future of Rep. Party. One side looks like America & our future, the other looks like Board meeting of 1950’s corporation. A basic law of politics: be for the future not past. There’s more of it," Stuart Stevens, who was lead strategist for Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, tweeted. "Republican presidential candidates routinely got 30-35% of black vote before 1964. Then fell of [sic] a cliff. Why? Civil Rights. Actions have consequences. The Trump led vitriol against Mexicans & brown people is not likely to be forgotten anytime soon."
The lack of racial and gender diversity among new Republican candidates was noted last year as images of the incoming lawmakers from each party were published.
"This portrait of newly elected members of Congress is striking. Of 31 new Republicans, just one is a woman," New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote on Twitter. "Nearly all the men are white."
The new Congress has a record-setting proportion of women legislators, with 23.7 percent female lawmakers now serving as elected officials in the federal government's legislative branch. Most of these women are in the House, and most are Democrats, NPR reported.
Only one woman in the House is a first-term Republican legislator, while Democrats have 35 new female legislators in Congress’s lower chamber. Elected officials including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib—all women of color—have drawn headlines since being elected for bold legislative proposals and denunciations of prominent politicians.
The lack of racial and gender diversity among Republican officials is mirrored in the GOP's base.
Exit polls from 2018 House races showed that the GOP drew older, whiter voters, but Democrats appealed to younger and more diverse Americans, according to CNN.
Young voters disproportionately swung to the left, with 67 percent of 18 to 29 year olds selecting Democratic candidates. Fifty percent of voters in the 45 to 64 and 65 and older age categories elected Republican legislators.
Democrats also appealed to more women voters, with the party earning 59 percent of the female vote, compared to the 40 percent drawn by Republicans.
While 54 percent of white voters selected Republican candidates, Democrats won substantial majorities among black, Latino and Asian Americans. Democratic candidates drew the same amount of support as Republicans among white women, while white men substantially favored the GOP.








