… Senior Romney advisers, echoed by conservative commentators, expected the electorate in 2012 to look more like 2004, when it was older and whiter and thus more evenly balanced between Republicans and Democrats. …
Some pollsters, acting more like therapists, tried to comfort Republicans with surveys that unrealistically assumed an electorate as white as it was in the 1990s. The unavoidable message of Obama’s victory, especially in this unforgiving economic climate, is that those days are never returning.
The “coalition of the ascendant” centered on minorities, young people, and white-collar whites (especially women) that Obama has constructed atop a foundation set by Clinton in 1992 is now clearly a majority in presidential elections, just as the Nixon/Reagan coalition was in its era. [cont.]
Ron Brownstein, National Journal