Now wait a second Romney won Independents in Ohio by double digits.
Something Bush never did.
Clearly he maxed out on I’s he needed the stay at home conservatives that just like you said were 3.2% int the Bible Belt and 11.6% outside.
My point is, if there were a bunch of “stay at home conservatives” who didn’t vote because Romney wasn’t conservative enough, then why did Romney lose so many fewer votes in the Bible Belt than the rest of the country, compared to Bush?
That is, wouldn’t you think there would be a lot more “stay at home conservatives” in Arkansas than in Oregon?
Romney did 4% better than Bush in Arkansas (even accounting for population growth) but 11% worse than Bush in Oregon.
I shouldn’t have to spell this out (but unfortunately I do) but the drop in Republican votes from 2004 to 2012 isn’t a direct measurement of how many true conservatives “stayed home” - that’s a delusional fantasy.
The OVERWHELMING majority of that drop are people that voted for Bush in 2004, but Obama in 2012.
Secondarily, it’s people that voted for Bush in 2004, and died in the last 8 years.
Tertiary, it’s new voters under the age of 26 added since 2004, the vast majority of whom vote for Obama, of course.