Poll: GOP dominated by white conservatives

Cue the big tent advocates in the GOP: A new poll shows that the Republican Party is composed of a majority of white conservatives.

The Gallup poll, released Monday, found that 63 percent of self-identified Republicans are non-Hispanic “white conservatives.” Another quarter – 26 percent – said they are white but did not identify as conservative. So, nearly nine in ten respondents who identified as Republican were white.

Those numbers stand in stark contrast to Democrats. About half – 53 percent – of self-identified Democrats identified as white, non conservatives. Nearly two in ten Democrats were black and 11 percent were Hispanic.

This poll comes, of course, as the Republican Party has lost the last two election cycles. As a result, a debate has been sparked about whether the GOP needs to adhere to a more pure conservatism or seek to broaden its base.

As Gallup notes: “The results show clearly that the Republican Party today is first and foremost a political entity dominated by white Americans.”

So, it looks like if the GOP intends to become a big tent party, it’s got its work cut out for it.

There was a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent in the poll.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com