There was no exit sign, no milepost. But in this week’s election, America unmistakably turned onto the road of sustained competition and conflict between the brown and the gray. … About two-fifths of millennials are nonwhite, and that number rises in the generation born after them. By contrast, the baby […] Read more »
Demography Not The Only Reason Romney Lost
… If winning an election depends on appealing to and then turning out a base of old, white people you are going to lose every presidential election from here on out. That model may still be enough to help Republicans win midterm elections – older and white voters turn out […] Read more »
How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis
In his re-election victory, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly defeated Republican Mitt Romney in the national popular vote (50% to 48%). Obama’s margin of victory was much smaller than in 2008 when he defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin, and he lost ground among white evangelical Protestants and […] Read more »
As Electorate Changes, Fresh Worry for G.O.P.
… The demographic changes in the American electorate have come with striking speed and have left many Republicans, who have not won as many electoral votes as Mr. Obama did on Tuesday in 24 years, concerned about their future. The Republicans’ Southern strategy, of appealing mostly to white voters, appears […] Read more »
Exit Polls Can’t Explain Why Obama Won
We all know that President Obama won re-election last night. But why did he win? My colleague Jon Cohn makes a persuasive broad-brush argument, but when I try to identify, from exit poll data, the specific Obama policies that voters ratified, the exercise proves weirdly difficult. [cont.] Timothy Noah, New […] Read more »
Shifting Voter Support, 2008 to 2012
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 »