The 2012 election has produced a low-grade Republican panic about the long-term consequences of a shifting electorate, with legions of younger, minority and unmarried Americans voting heavily Democratic.
But there’s at least one demographic trend that’s working in the opposite direction – hurting Democrats and helping Republicans – and Wisconsin has become the most extreme example in the country: the shrinking union vote.
Nationally, union membership saw one of its sharpest declines in years in 2012, dropping from 11.8% of the workforce in 2011 to 11.3% last year, according to data released last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the really eye-popping numbers could be found in Wisconsin, where membership in public-sector unions plummeted in the aftermath of Act 10, the hugely controversial Republican measure that wiped out most collective bargaining for public employees and made it far harder for their unions to operate.