permanent minority

Good read: "To believers in majoritarian democracy, this idea is silly. People in urban areas outvote people in small towns because there are more of them. If you have more voters, you’re supposed to win. It would be unfair if you didn't. Intuitive as it sounds, that definition of democracy has never completely prevailed in the United States. The Constitution itself was a compromise between advocates of majority rule and interests like slave-owners and small-state residents who demanded disproportionate representation. When we consider the dire position of the Republican Party — which, since November, has sunk even lower in opinion polls — we automatically equate political power with majority approval. The two things are not the same, and the discrepancy helps explain why the party, even in its reviled standing and without additional vote-rigging schemes, is in a better position than you might think.