“Actually, failure to rally Republican voters to turn out for the election resulted in Obama’s win ~ and the loss of 12 or so GOP-e candidates for Senate.”
In 2008 compared to 2004 the swing of Hispanic voters from George Bush to Obama was equal to the entire Obama gain over Kerry’s performance.
In 2012, Hispanics were holding back from voting until Obama’s unilateral “Dream” executive non-enforcement order. It is estimated that this helped push FL, CO and NV into Obama’s electoral column.
Romney got more votes than McCain and won all of the white demographics over age 40. It was the single women (mostly minority) and those under 40 who get their news on the Comedy Channel and HBO that really gave 2012 to Obama from my reading of the exit demographics.
Be that as it may the MACRO numbers are much more important. McCain and Romney got FEWER VOTES than George Bush!
Obama got more votes than any Democrat candidate ever in 2008, but he also lost several million voters in 2012.
I think the answer for the Democrat drop was simple demographics ~ blacks die sooner than whites, and the Boomers are falling down all around us now!
The Republican answer is more complex than that ~ sure the Boomers are dying off now ~ poor kids eh ~ but it's that drop after Bush that should concern us the most. Population growth still happened and we should have gotten more votes in 2008 than we did in 2004.
There's some indication the old Rockefeller Republican faction stopped voting for Republican candidates when McCain ran. These are, in fact, Romney's own peeps! They undoubtedly came back in 2012, but somebody else dropped out ~ possibly RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATES!
Long term unemployment, or marginal employment at minimum wage hardly makes someone like Romney popular among them.