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.

[JediJones]

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'm in total agreement with this article. This is an astute analysis. The numbers add up and it makes perfect sense with reality. The article shows that in at least Ohio, the lower turnout came from white, blue-collar areas. The Bain ads worked, just as they did in Romney's 1994 Senate race and in the South Carolina primary when Newt Gingrich released the "King of Bain" video.

The primary voters were warned by Newt's campaign that Romney was unelectable, but the Republican establishment continued insisting he was the most electable candidate. The GOP elite is so out-of-touch with working class people that they could not understand how unappealing and unlikable those ads made Romney look. Either that or they didn't care.

If you remember, Newt was savaged by the elites for daring to criticize Romney's business career. I think he backed off after that or just ran out of money in Florida.

The elites and the voters alike failed to accept the fact that these were exactly the kind of ads the Democrats would run and that if they hurt Romney in a Republican primary, they sure would in a general election.

This election was lost in the primary because the voters nominated an unelectable candidate. He was unelectable not because of ideology, but because of unique vulnerabilities to him based on his private business dealings. The conservative base probably did turn out just to vote Obama out. But the swing voters we needed were poisoned by the Bain ads.

If we had nominated Newt, he would be president-elect right now. He had even floated Hispanic governor Susana Martinez as a potential V.P. pick for him. Because of Newt's political astuteness, he would probably have selected either Rubio or Martinez as his V.P., giving him another boost in the final vote.

[JediJones]

There should be a public record of everyone who cast a vote—though of course not which way they voted.

I think that there is. There's a site that was storing everybody's voter registration and what elections they voted in and putting it online for OH, FL and PA. They seemed to stop updating the data in 2010 though. Their fine print said after 2000 this information was legally mandated to be stored by the states to prevent fraud.

http://politicalstrategies.com/

[keats5]

I just can’t figure it out. There were so many white people in line, where there never were in previous years.

[GeronL]

computer voting machines

easily programmed

votes easily lost

votes easily cast (from Census records?)

just 1’s and 0’s

[9YearLurker]

Thanks, yes, that’s what I mean. Whether or not anyone voted is public knowledge and part of the public record.

[The Cajun]

People here don't realize how easy voting machines can be manipulated, especially the new touch screen jobs.
I'm a retired electronic tech, give me and my tech friends a schematic of it, a couple of weeks to play with a machine, tell me what outcome you want and we'll have a method to apply to all machines of that type come election day.
Drop a percentage of votes to one candidate, transfer a certain percentage of votes to the other candidate, give a certain percentage of votes to one candidate from the get-go, kick out the actual results and kick in your numbers at the end, etc, etc.
No problem at all, computers can be manipulated so how hard do you think a *dumb* voting machine is to manipulate.
Built in safeguards against tampering........LOL, on that issue.
Tracks covered at no extra charge.

[JediJones]

Nope. Got beat by early voting, and we've got to figure out how to strangle handle it.

Nope. It was the Bain ads and the 47% remark which allowed the Dems to create a narrative that turned off blue-collar whites to Romney, even though they would not vote for Obama. Read the full article including the below piece in bold.

Dem early voting totals being higher, which as I heard before the election day they were NOT, would not explain why millions less whites voted than in 2008.

Where things drop off are in the rural portions of Ohio, especially in the southeast. These represent areas still hard-hit by the recession. Unemployment is high there, and the area has seen almost no growth in recent years.

My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well. The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears, and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home.

[JediJones]

I just can’t figure it out. There were so many white people in line, where there never were in previous years.

This article says in white collar areas, turnout was good. In blue collar areas, it was way down. This article is the single BEST analysis of "what went wrong" I've seen so far and should be read in its entirety. Romney had a business career which was easily demonized, as was proven by both Ted Kennedy and Newt Gingrich. When you made your millions on companies that for whatever reason often went out of business and laid people off, that can easily be turned into political poison, and it was. This is something I warned people on here and other sites repeatedly about during the primary. It's not a crazy theory, it's something many people predicted would happen.

[JediJones]

The Bain issue was an issue conservatives had a tin ear to, because they like capitalism, profit, and all that good stuff. But this was Romney’s true Achilles’ Heel when it came to a general election and swing voters.

[Windcatcher]

Okay. Maybe it’s time for another robotics revolution. I’ll bet there are lots of union jobs we could automate.

[GraniteStateConservative]

It was white, working class men who think that Obama doesn’t care about them because they are white men and that Romney doesn’t care about them because he’s a rich man. My brother didn’t vote because of that reason. He said it didn’t matter because neither of them gave a sh!t about him.

[God luvs America]

10000%.....

[detective]

I agree 100%. I've seen post after post on Free Republic, in the MSM and by conservative “pundits” about why Romney lost and what he did wrong and how smart Obama’s strategy was. There are even people on Free Republic saying Romney lost because people didn't like him or wouldn't vote for a Mormon.

Few are even bothering to look past the obvious story and actually look at the numbers and see what really happened. I don't pretend to know the answer. I have a job to do and a family to support so I have limited time to devote to an in depth analysis of the numbers. But I know something is wrong with the story. It doesn't add up. The most likely explanation is large scale voter fraud.

It amazes me how many FReepers just blindly accept the MSM/Democrat story line.

[Chiltepe]

The democrats have learned that among that large group, it’s pretty easy to find a few million who can be swayed to vote because of some really stupid, trivial cause, like “preotecting our birth control”. And if you make it easy enough for these lazy people, like coming to their house, registering them, bringing them an absentee ballot, and then taking it from them, these people WILL vote. Or if you give them some free food and a bus ride on election day, something you can afford to do if you are in an inner city with large apathetic populations. So that’s what they do. If the media ridiculed them enough for their lies, calling on people to vote like it’s sex would hurt them with the caring part of the population, but the media protects them. If a republican tried to target a subgroup of apathetic people with a call to protect them from affirmative action (a call which would easily gets us 2 million extra white votes), the media would be non-stop recriminations, and it would be a wash. That’s where the media comes in. It prevents Republicans from doing any sort of crass micro-targetting, while giving democrats cover. The media doesn’t even REPORT what is said in spanish language advertising, and doesn’t report what leftist radio people are saying.

This is absolutely true and needs to be in the forefront of people's minds when they consider what went wrong and how to counter it. The problem, however, is that white people--particularly traditionalists--tend to be too polite and have a "play by the rules no matter what and humbly accept the results" attitude, even when the deck is stacked against them. Also, everyone is terrified of being seen as racist, and will meekly submit themselves to almost any ignobility to avoid the accusation. That's a mass psychosis that needs to be dealt with like a child's night time fear of the boogyman before we can make meaningful progress.

[The Wizard]

I say the missing GOP was there, but their votes were siphoned off to bama

[who knows what evil?]

It amazes me how many FReepers just blindly accept the MSM/Democrat story line.

It is a much easier road to travel.

[detective]

“Speculation and anecdotal observations on voter turnout is not proof of anything. For example, I voted two hours earlier than I normally vote because I was highly motivated to fire Obama. The line was longer than I had ever seen before.”

You place an extremely high burden of proof for there being voter fraud. Observation is not proof but if observation is directly opposite of the supposed conclusion then something is wrong. The election results contradict what I and almost everyone else has observed. A logical person would ask why that is so. A logical person would not simply conclude that there could not possibly have been widespread voter fraud as you have done. A logical person would not make statements about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny

You have no proof there was NOT widespread voter fraud. Just say you don't know. It is more honest. It is more logical.

[detective]

“Something is wrong here, people.”

I agree 100%. Something is wrong. I don't know what happened but the numbers simply don't make sense.

It is a amazing that so many FReepers blindly accept the MSM story line.

[TheConservativeParty]

I know that here in WI there was massive fraud. Many stories about it. They always truck Chicago thugs up to WI. This time the worst seems to have happened in Sheyboygan where van loads of Chicago Bears wearing black folks were flooding the Sheyboygan polls. Only when repubs called for help, did this stop. I heard that was around 3pm. They were encouraged to vote more than once of course.

Also heard of ACORN types using gov’t vans at our taxpayer expense, to round up Milwaukee voters, and take them to the polls. Who knows how many times each one voted.

Near the Illinois border in Delavan,WI, it was reported that poll workers were encouraging voters to commit fraud saying “go ahead and vote more than once, no one will stop you.”

I feel that these acts were dwarfed by voting machine manipulation by the democrat-commie party.

Abortion is their sacrament. No lesser crime against their fellow man bothers them in the least. They all sleep well no matter what horrific crimes they commit.

[HenpeckedCon]

“It's clear now that running moderate candidates (even competent and decent candidates like Romney) means we will lose.”

I think that's part of it Tony, but I think anti-Mormon bigotry cost Mitt most of the people who stayed home.