The GOP Has Problems With White Voters, Too

With the national exit poll showing Obama winning with just 39 percent of white voters, a smaller share than any Democrat since Mondale, the emerging conventional wisdom holds that a demographic tidal wave of minority turnout cost Romney the presidency. As a result, Republicans are focusing on their poor performance with the burgeoning Latino population; even Sean Hannity says he's "evolved" on immigration reform. But while the national exit poll data give the impression that Romney got the job done with white voters, Romney's stellar national performance obscures stark regional differences that suggest the GOP has its own problem with white voters.

Romney’s strong national showing among white voters was almost exclusively driven by historic support from Southern and Appalachian white voters. In many counties, Obama’s performance was the worst by any Democrat since McGovern or, in some places, ever. Even a quick glance at overwhelmingly white, Southern, or Appalachian counties with a history of offering even limited support to Democratic candidates shows Obama performing anywhere from 15 to 30 points worse than Kerry did eight years ago. Obama even lost more than 50 points compared to Kerry’s performance in several “coal country” counties in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.

Outside the South, Romney’s performance among white voters was anything but historic. He ran behind Bush’s tallies in most of the northern half of the United States. While some believed that Obama’s weakness among white voters would translate into opportunities for Romney in overwhelmingly white states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, Obama ultimately won these three states by 5.6 to 6.9 points, even though Bush never lost any by more than 1.3 points. More broadly, you can quickly consider changes in Democratic support among white voters between '04 and '12 in the nine states where whites represent at least 85 percent of the population. These states aren't exactly representative of white voters elsewhere, but the big picture is about right: outside of the South, Romney ran behind Bush among white voters, but he made up for it in Appalachia and the rest of the South.

Obama also preserved many of his gains in affluent and well-educated suburban counties where many believed that Romney would perform well. Republicans won Jefferson, CO, Chester, PA, Loudon, VA, Wake, NC, and Somerset, NJ, in every presidential election from 1968 through 2004, but Obama carried all of them with the exception of Chester County, where Obama’s performance was still better than any other Democrat since Johnson. Obama also performed near ’08 levels in moderate Democratic-leaning suburbs like Fairfax, Polk, Franklin, Hennepin, or Oakland Counties.

It's important to remember that the nation's best-educated counties are increasingly among its most diverse (whites were just 72 percent of the population in 37 counties without a major university where 40 percent or more of adults hold a Bachelor's degree), but it's clear from the results in relatively white counties (80 percent or more) like Jefferson and Larimier, CO, or Delaware, OH, that Obama's big gains over Kerry's performance in well-educated areas aren't just a product of demographic changes.

Making matters worse for Republicans, Democratic Senate candidates ran as well as or ahead of the president in white areas in just about every competitive state, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Ohio. The performance of these candidates suggests that the GOP's issues extend beyond specific problems with Romney or the unique appeal of the president. This particular writer can't judge whether Republicans were hurt more by abortion, tax policy, or something else, but it's clear that Romney's issue among rural, white northerners wasn't just Bain Capital, and his problem in affluent suburbs wasn't just his pledge to end funding to Planned Parenthood.

If Romney's historic performance among white voters manifested evenly across the electoral map, then Republicans could justifiably consider their “demographic challenge” as their primary obstacle to victory in 2016. But the Republicans shouldn't let their national standing among white voters obscure their real challenges with white voters outside of the South. It’s not useful for Republican strategists to take solace in Obama's 39 percent showing among white voters if Obama still managed to do much better than Kerry or Gore in states like Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Minnesota. In the Electoral College system, turning "lean Republican" states like Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri into "solid Republican" states just doesn't matter.

Like Huckabee said, working-class whites didn’t feel like electing someone who looks like the guy who fired them. Presidential elections are decided on superficial things with enough swing voters that we can’t afford to nominate someone with the kind of baggage Romney brought from Bain Capital.

This article doesn’t get into turnout though. White turnout was down a couple percentage points I think, so the problem is bigger than this author even states. It’s not a minority problem per se, although votes from minorities would help of course.

The key problem was with incomes. Under $50,000, they voted for Obama bigtime, over $50,000, they voted for Romney by almost as wide a margin. The affluent liberals are not a big enough voting block to stop the affluent in general from going for Romney.

We didn’t learn anything new about voters in this election. Democrats have always been perceived as the party that helps the poor or working class. That’s how FDR got reelected during the Depression. Republicans are seen as the party that’s better on national security. The Iran hostage crisis is probably what got Reagan elected moreso than the bad economy. I think conservative media knew it, which is why they tried to make the Benghazi story a prominent issue in the campaign. Romney foolishly backed away.

Non-southern working class whites are definitely a problem and I have no idea why so many of them, including a large number or possibly the majority of the younger white males, support the Dems. Possibly these are people who live in union areas, although unionized workers are a very small proportion of the workforce. Frankly, I think it’s because they believe it’s cool to support Obama.

Young white men watch exactly the same television that young black men do, and they see the same rap videos and “rap artists” and watch the same mindless celebrities; young working class whites have high numbers of “single mothers” and the males never seem to marry even if they live with the same woman for awhile and have children with her, so they have high illegitimacy rates. And they are largely unchurched, poorly educated, often unemployed and really don’t live much differently from Obama’s black fans.

The only correct thing Jesse Jackson ever said was “what goes around comes around.” Everybody (well, the liberals) thought it was okay to encourage the black marginal culture because the white liberals thought it was kinda cool and subversive, and now it has spread to all of our society.

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