Social and cultural changes have also played a major role. Unlike the Democratic Party, which has grown increasingly diverse in recent decades, the GOP has remained culturally homogeneous. This is significant because the party's core white Protestant voters are not just any constituency--for nearly two centuries, they comprised the majority of the U.S. electorate and were politically, economically, and culturally dominant in American society. Now, again, white Protestants are a minority of the electorate--and declining. And they have hunkered down in the Republican Party.