… The more non-white voters the Obama campaign can turn out, the more white voters he can afford to lose. In key battleground states the reverse is true for Romney, says Matt Barretto with the polling firm Latino Decisions. “So if you take a Nevada, Latinos could be anywhere as […] Read more »
An economics of national pride
… Typically, Democrats tie themselves up in strategic knots debating whether their future lies in the center or on the left. … Two moderate Colorado Democrats who won in the face of the 2010 Republican tide see a way out of this dilemma. The key to a philosophically coherent cross-class coalition, […] Read more »
Electoral Map Doesn’t Always Lead Straight to White House
“If you get the votes,” Stu Spencer advised a persistent young reporter during the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, “the map will follow.” Spencer, the top political strategist for Ronald Reagan and one of the best ever to ply the trade, was suggesting that the fixation on the Electoral College and […] Read more »
How U.S. rules on former felons voting can swing presidential elections
You’ve probably seen an article trying to pinpoint the portion of the electorate that will make the difference in the 2012 election. Whether it be soccer moms, Latinos, Africa -Americans, Jewish Americans, college-educated voters, workin- class whites, Asians, most of this analysis is interesting, if a little overboard. Yet, there […] Read more »
Stung by Recession, Many Young Voters Looking Past Obama
… In the four years since President Obama swept into office in large part with the support of a vast army of youth, a new corps of young men and women have come of voting age with views shaped largely by the recession. And unlike their counterparts in the Millennial […] Read more »
Obama’s Gamble
… By endorsing gay marriage, championing free contraception in health insurance plans (over resistance from the Catholic Church), and administratively legalizing young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, Obama has repeatedly subordinated the concerns of older and blue-collar whites to the preferences of the Democrats’ emerging coalition: […] Read more »