I use custom with 70% population bonus and the rest economy. I use industrialist party. I put my starting techs into engines and Stellar Cartography. |
I recently began to select the 70% pop growth as well. I haven't yet fully integrated this choice into my play style, but I think it can be very powerful. Population is money. A faster pop growth means your colonies are productive sooner. It also means your home planet can produce more pop to sustain a longer colony rush.
However, to the OP's question, I think race selection is more related to playing style than to the specific victory condition you're going for. Anyway, what you need to look at are each races "inherent abilities". When you select a race go into the abilities tab and hit the reset button. This resets the races abilities and gives you back the 10 points you have to spend on abilities.
You'll notice that once reset, most races still have some abilities that are free. These are the inherent abilities. Be careful not to try to add or change these otherwise you'll lose them. The Drath have a free 50% defense, 50% espionage, 25% diplomacy and 25% something else (I forget what) which is why they are a strong choice. However, just because the Drath have a lot of free bonus ability, doesn't mean these are the abilities that most fit your style. The Torian and the Drengin both have a free 25% morale ability. This is also strong because higher morale allows you to set a higher tax rate which results in more money.
Another aspect of race is the races natural bias towards good or evil. This doesn't matter if you intend to play evil, but if you want to play neutral (I know of no good reason to play good other than the challange) it's a benefit to start out as a naturally good race. This allows you to take a number of the evil colonization event choices which gradually moves your alignment towards neutral, just don't go to far.
Like everything else in this game there is no one right answer to what race is best, whatever the purpose. You basically need to understand the ramifications of the selections, try to pick ones that seem to benefit you're playing style, and experiment.