El Guapo wrote:I was amused last week by an article that noted that W. Bush did really well among black voters by holding Kerry to "only" 84% of the African American voters in Ohio.
I mean, that was a really good performance, it's just revealing about just how unpopular the GOP is among African Americans.
That was the subject of a
Globe story this morning.
For a decade, Republican strategists have warned that unless the GOP does a better job winning support from black, Latino, and Asian-American voters, its long-term viability may be at risk.
On Tuesday Mitt Romney, who has not managed to make substantial inroads among minorities during his presidential campaign, will find out if that day has arrived. With the nation’s demographics changing rapidly, the election’s results will render a verdict on whether the GOP can continue to win national elections with negligible support from minority groups, who account for more than a quarter of the electorate.
A loss by Romney, despite what is shaping up to be stronger support from whites than any Republican candidate has received in a generation, would underscore the growing political power of minority voters. It could force the GOP to adjust its positions, especially on immigration, where its hard-line stance has alienated Latinos.
By the same token, though, the high level of racial polarization reflected in preelection polls hints at dangers for Democrats. Predictions that Republicans will suffer from an increasingly diverse population rest on the assumption that many white voters will continue to vote Democratic. But if this year’s surveys showing three of every five whites supporting Romney prove accurate, and are a harbinger of long-term trends, falling support from whites could outpace Democratic gains among minorities.
“Both outcomes are possible,” said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University. “The Democrats have a huge problem among white voters, and it seems to be increasing. And whites remain the majority of voters in the United States.”
Even if Romney ekes out a victory, it may be the last one the GOP can wring from the white coalition that has carried the party to the presidency in seven of the last 11 elections, analysts said. This election is the “last hurrah for whites,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank.
...
The racial divide is shaping up to be historic. A Pew poll released Monday found that 57 percent of whites planned to vote for Romney, compared to only 37 percent for Obama. That number would translate into the lowest share for a Democrat in a two-person race since Walter F. Mondale got 35 percent of the vote in 1984. By comparison, in Obama’s 2008 victory, 43 percent of white voters supported him.
Michael Dimock, Pew’s associate director for research, said that white voters without college degrees, who tend to have lower incomes and may be more likely to be suffering from sluggish economic growth, accounted for most of Obama’s falloff in the poll.
“Obama’s running about as well among white college graduates as he did four years ago,” Dimock said. “The bigger difference seems to be among less educated whites. It’s almost two-to-one for Romney among the less educated whites.
...
But while the Republican ticket may attract greater white support this year than John McCain did in 2008, Democrats are hoping that boost will be concentrated in Southern states, where it won’t help. Romney could run up the score among white voters in those states, but since he is likely to win their electoral votes anyway, increasing his total number of white votes there won’t help him win the election.
Dimock said that because the economic recovery has been uneven geographically, and white voters are an extremely heterogenous category, it was plausible to think Obama’s losses among whites will not be evenly distributed.
Polls of swing states released Wednesday by the New York Times and CBS lent some credence to that theory. The polls found Romney with a huge lead over Obama among working-class white voters in Florida, but virtually tied with Obama among that demographic in Ohio.Ohio’s overall racial demographics are little changed from 2008. But in other swing states, the population is changing rapidly. Nevada recorded the steepest minority gains, going from 30 percent of the voting-eligible population in 2008 to 39 percent this election. California, North Carolina, New York, and Florida recorded large minority gains as well.
For now, members of racial and ethnic minority groups make up about a quarter of the national electorate, and polls show Obama far ahead. Obama maintains an overwhelming lead among blacks, according to polls, and a smaller margin among Asian-Americans. Among Hispanics, he led 69 percent to 21 percent, according to a Pew Hispanic Center poll earlier this month.
.
