This much is undisputed: In 2012, President Obama lost white voters by a larger margin than any winning presidential candidate in U.S. history. In his reelection, Obama lost ground from 2008 with almost every conceivable segment of the white electorate. With several key groups of whites, he recorded the weakest […] Read more »
Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus?
… With Instagram and Twitter-primed iPhones, an ever more youthful press corps, and a journalistic reward structure in Washington that often prizes speed and scoops over context, campaigns are increasingly fearful of the reporters who cover them. Any perceived gaffe or stumble can become a full-blown narrative in a matter […] Read more »
Another clue to Obama’s 2012 victory: Americans weren’t doing so badly
What happens if Americans got wealthier when nobody was looking? There are a number of ways to measure the health of the economy: gross domestic product (GDP) growth, job growth, and how much disposable personal income (DPI) Americans have. It turns out Americans have had more of the latter, if […] Read more »
‘Collision 2012’ Opens Wider Window Into Race Between Obama and Romney
… Washington Post chief correspondent Dan Balz’s new book, Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America, is everything one would expect from the worthy successor to the mantle of Balz’s mentor, the late David Broder. Without a trace of snarkiness or the self-righteousness that creeps […] Read more »
Why the Republican coalition will still work in 2016
The faultline in the GOP revealed by the party’s internal debate on immigration reform – over whether a future Republican coalition should rely more heavily on whites than it already does, or should try and bring more Latinos into the fold to win the presidency – remains unresolved. What we […] Read more »
‘Missing Voters’ in the 2012 Election: Not so white, not so Republican
Do “missing white voters” offer hope for the Republican Party in future presidential elections? … We have argued that the “missing white voters” theory is unrealistic for several reasons. The most important is that it ignores the missing nonwhite voters — data on voter turnout in 2012 show that a […] Read more »