[Ken H]

The difference was the white vote. They were 74% of 131.3M voters in 2008 vs 72% of 128.8M in 2012. That works out to 97.2M white votes in 2008 vs 92.7M in 2012 - a loss of 4.5M.

Obama lost 5.6M whites votes in 2012. Romney gained 1.3M white votes over McCain.

Does anyone else thing that stat sticks out like a sore thumb? I don't hear it discussed much among the pundits.

[ansel12]

Yeah, Romney was a weak candidate.

McCain was a lame candidate running against history the economy, the hated Bush and the first black president, in an election that he couldn’t win, Romney was in the opposite situation, an election that he couldn’t lose, against Jimmy Carter’s second term.

Did Romney win in what should have been a landslide, picking up many millions of disgruntled voters? No, instead he did barely better than McCain in 2008.

That is why people have to compare it to 2008 and point out the barely larger numbers, Romney was a disaster.

[neverdem]

The difference was the white vote. They were 74% of 131.3M voters in 2008 vs 72% of 128.8M in 2012. That works out to 97.2M white votes in 2008 vs 92.7M in 2012 - a loss of 4.5M.

Obama lost 5.6M whites votes in 2012. Romney gained 1.3M white votes over McCain.

Does anyone else thing that stat sticks out like a sore thumb?

IIRC, Sean Trende had a similar analysis. I've been waiting for a more detailed analysis with the final vote totals.

I don't hear it discussed much among the pundits.

IMHO, we'll be reading about it more from Trende and Barone shortly. Barone's syndicated with a restriction on essay length.