Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama expects to reach more than 51 or 52 percent of the electorate this year. Both of them want to max out turnout among the demographic groups that favor them. They just can’t admit it.
Here’s what I mean. Way back in November 2011, back when Newt Gingrich was going to be the Republican presidential nominee, the progressive Center for American Progress published a curiously optimistic paper about Barack Obama’s chances. The president’s record was terrible. His 2008 rainbow coalition was fading as working-class white voters sprinted away from Democrats.
Lucky enough, in 2012, Obama wouldn’t have to worry so much about those voters, according to the liberal think tank. The new map would bring out more nonwhite votes than ever before, and more college-educated whites who hadn’t joined the Tea Party. “The underlying demographic composition of the white vote,” wrote researchers Ruy Texiera and John Halpin, “is likely to shift in Obama’s favor in the 2012 election.”