The Case of the Missing White Voters (7,000,000 of them!)

Real Clear Politics ^ | 11/08/12 | Sean Trende

[TonyInOhio]

One of the more intriguing narratives for election 2012 was proposed by political scientist Brendan Nyhan fairly early on: that it was "Bizarro 2004."

~ SNIP ~

The Election Day returns actually continued the similarities. George W. Bush won by 2.4 percent of the popular vote, which is probably about what Obama’s victory margin will be once all the ballots are counted.

~ SNIP ~

But most importantly, the 2012 elections actually weren’t about a demographic explosion with non-white voters. Instead, they were about a large group of white voters not showing up.

~ SNIP ~

In other words, if our underlying assumption -- that there are 7 million votes outstanding -- is correct, then the African-American vote only increased by about 300,000 votes, or 0.2 percent, from 2008 to 2012. The Latino vote increased by a healthier 1.7 million votes, while the “other” category increased by about 470,000 votes.

This is nothing to sneeze at, but in terms of the effect on the electorate, it is dwarfed by the decline in the number of whites. Again, if our assumption about the total number of votes cast is correct, almost 7 million fewer whites voted in 2012 than in 2008. This isn’t readily explainable by demographic shifts either; although whites are declining as a share of the voting-age population, their raw numbers are not.). In other words, the reason this electorate looked so different from the 2008 electorate is almost entirely attributable to white voters staying home.

Put another way: The increased share of the minority vote as a percent of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the denominator.

[TheConservativeParty]

Who says white voters didn’t show up.

Let’s remember the growing crowds for Romney, and the crickets at the Hussein rallies.

A simple tampering with voting machines can wipe out millions of repub votes.

Everyone I know could not wait to go vote. We waited 4 long painful years to do that.

We showed up, and they wiped out millions of our votes with the largest amount of vote fraud and tampering in history.

[cdcdawg]

I know we can “Freep” a poll. Let’s see if we can Freep an issue. Bring up the fact that the Republicans stayed home on every site you can, in every comment section possible. NRO, Hot Air, and all the rest. Email right-leaning pundits. This is why Romney lost. The Republican base didn’t turn out, and the “experts” aren’t addressing it. They will answer it by running another moderate.

[Bainbridge]

Actually that is incorrect. Look at the numbers Ralph Reed put up today.

[Bainbridge]

Actually that is incorrect. Look at the numbers Ralph Reed put up today.

[snarkytart]

Fascinating, and opposite to the prevailing conventional wisdom about why Romney lost. It's clear now that running moderate candidates (even competent and decent candidates like Romney) means we will lose. Romney bet that playing nice and running on conpetence would be enough, but bringing a knife to a gun fight leads to getting shot. He never respoded to Obama's attacks in kind, betting that playing nice would appeal to the mushy middle - he lost that bet. This piece is long, but well worth the read if you want to understand the lessons of the election.

>br> Of course. CNBC did an article on this yesterday but, they couched it in sarcasm, "Where was the angry white male voter", or something like that. Many white males of voting age stayed home but, of course we're gonna get the GOP claiming it's because of Akin or some other irrelevant person. They'll never get why. They and some on here will continue to talk about reaching out to Mexicans and blacks as if that's gonna help.

[Wuli]

I hope everyone who posts on this thread, also look at all our comments on the earlier thread on this same article, at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2957014/posts

[metmom]

Libertarian candidate Johnson got 2 million votes - the record number of Libertarian votes since the party was founded in 1972. They usually get 300-500K votes in a Presidential election. These votes would have given the election to Romney.

Not necessarily.

In NYS, even if all the third party votes had been given to Romney, he still would not have had enough votes to overcome obama. And there were votes for Johnson in there.

If those votes for him were spread out over the country, then it would have not made a difference as long as obama got the key states, the ones with high electoral votes.

Maybe Romney would have won the popular vote but overcoming the inertia of the high electoral vote states is tough.

[cdcdawg]

As a Ron Paul supporter, I address this by saying that I held my nose (yet again) and voted for Mitt. The only thing he ran on was the proposition that he is a better manager than Obama. He is, but that’s not going to get the base fired up. He didn’t give anyone a reason to vote for him. Add in Mormonism, flip-flopping, and lack of a geographic base, and 7 million apparently stayed home. At the end of the day, Romney was a better candidate than McCain. Whoopie.

[TMA62]

On Tuesday morning, it was reported that republican poll watchers were kicked out of Philadelphia precincts and replaced with dem poll watchers. Via court order, the republican poll watchers were allowed back around lunch time. What happened in their absence? In a related story also posted on FR, it is reported that some Philadelphia precincts had an 85 PERCENT TURNOUT. Were the dem poll watchers running dem friendly ballots over and over again in the morning when the republicans were not there?

From reports on Tuesday, turnout in urban and dem friendly areas was reported light to moderate. It was HEAVY in the republican ones. This is not passing the smell test, folks.

[ishmac]

I had feared the same, especially after all the rabid anti-Mormon stuff that has been posted on FR. But Ralph Reed claims today that Evangelicals did turn out in big numbers:

"Evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted as heavily for Mitt Romney yesterday as they did for George W. Bush in 2004," said Ralph Reed, chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition. "That is an astonishing outcome that few would have predicted even a few months ago."

The Evangelicals went for Romney 78 to 21 according to the story in the Christian Post.

[TonyInOhio]

Actually that is incorrect. Look at the numbers Ralph Reed put up today.

I'd love to see that - have a link?

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

It’s not that difficult to NOT COUNT Romney votes, is it? Something will eventually come out but it won’t matter, as usual. 0bama winning nearly all the battle ground states and Romney winning nearly all the non-battle ground states makes no sense.

[Brookhaven]

“all you had to do was look at the totals on election night to realize our side did not come out to vote in numbers...thats why all this “Romney lost because of woman and latino’s” is BS- he lost because not enough white folks voted...”

And what’s the lesson the GOP will draw from this?

liberal women = reliable voters
liberal latinos = reliable voters
conservative whites = unreliable voters

If the GOP can’t rely on conservatives to vote, they will go after the reliable voters instead. Meaning, the GOP will shift left.

[JimBianchi11]

Johnson did not get enough votes in VA, FL, PA or OH to cause a Romney loss. It was tight, but Johnson was not a major reason for the loss. Low turnout was. Compared to 2008, 14 million stayed home. Factor in population growth and it is closer 20 million.(R needed 67 electoral votes to flip, or about 2 million votes in 4 states. If so, he wins the Pres, but looses the popular vote.)

Romney caused the loss, no one else.

[God luvs America]

listen- i blame the GOPe for this loss as much as everyone else...fool me once, shame on you..fool me twice- shame on me...they were as unprepared to handle obama and the media this time around as they were in 2008....

we (the Tea Party) delivered a massive victory for them in 2010 and they responded by giving us the big FU...the word needs to be heard loud and clear- they can work with us or we will work against them....

[cdcdawg]

That assumes that all of those votes would have gone to Romney. They wouldn’t have. Gary Johnson was the first legitimate candidate the Libertarians have offered up. He was a very successful governor, and actually articulated a vision for the country. That’s why he did well, compared to the historical Libertarian electoral record.

[Ditto]

The key factor was the Bain attacks in swing states. That kept blue collar types who were not at all keen on Obama home. They didn’t like Obama, but didn’t feel motivated to vote for Romney.

I just checked the results in Pennsylvania which Obama won by 7%. But that 7% works out to only 30 votes per voting district.

[Brookhaven]

There is a simple mechanism for determining if the total amount of votes turned in by a precinct is valid—stickers.

Where I vote, whenever a voter leaves they are handed a sticker that says “I voted.” Not a big deal, but it is a tradition that goes back decades.

If you start out the day with 1,000 stickers and you end the day with 425 stickers, that means 575 votes were cast at that location. If it comes in way below or above that, you know there is a problem (like people casting multiple ballots—which was alleged in one story).

Low tech? Sure, but when it comes to high tech machines like electronic voting machines using a low tech audit method makes it harder to cheat. Plus, it’s easy to implement.

[snarkytart]

This is exactly my thought, and unfortunately the opposite of what the Republican establishment seems inclined to do next time. Obama did terribly compared to previous presidents reelections. Has a president ever won reelection with fewer votes before? This was the Republican's election to lose, and somehow, against all odds, they managed to do that. And I don't think that a brown Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican Party's salvation.

THIS!

[God luvs America]

the number Romney needed in four states was close to 350K not 2 million:

Florida/29 EV/Romney lost by 50K votes..
Ohio/18EV/Romney lost by 105K votes
Virginia/13EV/Romney lost by 115K votes...
Colorado/9EV/Romney lost by 115K votes (this one disturbs me)