… Reliable Republican constituencies — whites, married couples and churchgoers — are shrinking as a share of the electorate. Democratic-leaning constituencies — minorities, recent immigrants, the unmarried and unchurched — are growing, and voting in larger numbers than in the past. But Republicans are also losing because today’s economic landscape […] Read more »
The Building Blocks of Re-election
President Obama secured a second term by preserving much of the diverse mosaic of voters who rallied around him four years ago, overcoming weakened support in his coalition. Women, Hispanics and Asian-Americans, voters under 45, liberals and moderates, those living in the Northeast and the West, and urban dwellers gave […] Read more »
Why Romney Never Saw It Coming
Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. … When anyone […] Read more »
Social science takes spotlight bow in election
Polls, and pollsters, took a star turn on this year’s election night, calling the presidential election days ahead of the outcome. … Polling expert Jon Krosnick of Stanford University called it, “a victory for survey research. The surveys accurately anticipated the election outcomes, just as they routinely have in recent […] Read more »
What went wrong? Lots.
… Pollster Neil Newhouse, whose internal polls were premised on an electorate that was D +2 or 3 rather than D +6 (leaving the candidate and the rest of the campaign stunned when Romney-Ryan lost) acknowledged that the Obama team did its job targeting 18- to 29-year-olds, whose percentage of […] Read more »
2012: The Year Changing Demographics Caught Up With Republicans
The 2012 election marks the year when the inexorable march of demographic change caught up with the Republican Party. While multiple factors led to President Obama’s reelection, none was as important as rapidly increasing demographic change in the American electorate. Mitt Romney won white voters by a landslide, 59 to […] Read more »