Texas electoral politics tend to elicit sensationalism. Jeb Bush has suggested the Lone Star state, which voted for Romney by 16 points in 2012, could somehow turn blue in 2016; Ted Cruz, who doesn’t even favor comprehensive immigration reform, similarly said that new Hispanic voters would turn Texas blue and [...] Read more »
Has the Millennial generation ‘overwhelmed’ the electorate?
… Even the most ardent critics of the cohort theory will admit that a person’s views of the presidential administration he or she grew up with will shape their political views going forward. The real question is whether or not the Millennials have a a large enough portion of the [...] Read more »
Skepticism About the Census Voter Turnout Finding
The Census Bureau made big news last week when it reported that the black voter turnout rate (66.2%) exceeded the white voter turnout rate (64.1%) for the first time ever in 2012. But a closer look at the numbers raises some intriguing questions. It’s possible that the lines may have [...] Read more »
Can Democrats repeat Obama’s winning formula?
Everyone knows that Barack Obama can put together a winning coalition in a national presidential election. He did it — twice. What’s less clear is whether the Democratic Party and its 2016 presidential nominee will be able to build a coalition that resembles the winning one Obama built in 2008 [...] Read more »
Why Democrats should be worried about the youth vote
It may seem like Democrats should be pretty happy with young voters. After all, President Obama twice won at least 60 percent of voters between the age of 18 and 29 — outpacing all other presidential candidates spanning the last three decades. But a closer look reveals some troubling signs [...] Read more »
Immigration Reform: The Foreign-Born Factor
On its face, the Senate’s immigration reform effort seems a bipartisan affair. Four Democratic and four Republican co-sponsors crafted a bill that would fundamentally change immigration policy and offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. But the fault lines around the bill are numerous, particularly where the Republican Party is concerned. [...] Read more »
Blacks Voted at a Higher Rate than Whites in 2012 Election — A First
About two in three eligible blacks (66.2 percent) voted in the 2012 presidential election, higher than the 64.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites who did so, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today. This marks the first time that blacks have voted at a higher rate than whites since [...] Read more »
The New Census Data that Should Terrify Republicans
… Today, the Census released the November 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement, which is based on interviews with hundreds of thousands of residents. … It demonstrates that, in the debate about the GOP’s future in an increasingly diverse America, both sides are right, to a certain [...] Read more »
Blacks Made History Surpassing White Voter Turnout Rates
Almost two in three eligible blacks cast ballots in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, marking the first time they had a higher voter participation rate than non-Hispanic whites, a U.S. Census Bureau analysis released today shows. Boosted by an effort to re-elect President Barack Obama, blacks were the only racial [...] Read more »
Bad News for Terry McAuliffe: Virginia’s Only Purple Every Four Years
… In an off year, Virginia is not a blue state: It leans Republican. In Virginia’s 2009 gubernatorial election, non-whites represented 22 percent of the electorate—down 8 points from 2008, while 18- to 29-year-olds represented just 10 percent of voters, down from 21 percent in 2008. Obama comfortably won Virginia [...] Read more »