Which voters’ Presidential preferences changed from 2008 to 2012? That straightforward question is central to making sense of yesterday’s election outcome—and yet it is a deceptively hard question. For example, consider the results from this year’s exit polls. They indicate that Hispanic voters backed President Obama by a margin of […] Read more »
How Obama won
Barack Obama secured re-election by maintaining the coalition that gave him victory four years ago: black and Hispanic voters, young Americans, women and Americans with post-graduate degrees. These outnumbered Mitt Romney’s supporters among white men, older Americans and people who have not been to college. [cont.] Peter Kellner, YouGov, Model […] Read more »
Changing Face of America Helps Assure Obama Victory
Barack Obama retained enough support from key elements of his base to win reelection, even as he lost ground nationally since 2008. In particular, Obama maintained wide advantages among young people, women, minorities, and both the less affluent and the well-educated. … Evidence of the demographic transformation of the electorate […] Read more »
Divided America Revealed as Women, Hispanics Back Obama
President Barack Obama successfully reassembled his diverse coalition of minority, women and youth voters to propel himself to a second White House term. The victory yesterday came even as the electorate remains divided like two foreign lands, split between men and women, whites and minorities, rich and poor, young and […] Read more »
A Draw on the Economy, a Win on Empathy – and the Face of a Changing Nation
Barack Obama neutralized Mitt Romney on the economy, beat him on empathy and again turned the curve of America’s demographic change to Democratic advantage, winning a second term despite an unemployment rate that posed a major threat to his 2012 campaign. Deeply vulnerable on an economy that 77 percent of […] Read more »
Obama Wins by Marrying the New Democratic Coalition With the Old
President Obama won a second term by marrying the new Democratic coalition with just enough of the old to overcome enduring economic disenchantment and a cavernous racial divide. In many places, particularly across the Sun Belt, Obama mobilized the Democrats’ new “coalition of the ascendant,” winning enough support among young […] Read more »