[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.

[ansel12]

While you guys are claiming all those huge numbers, just remember that Romney only gained a total of 927 thousand votes, while Obama lost almost 4 million votes from his total.

Turnout was down in 2012.

Romney was flat and unable to inspire voters.