Most groups of voters move in similar fashion from election to election.
Before the election, there were any number of stories about whether Obama or Romney was “winning” or “losing” or “in trouble with” some particular group of voters. But for the most part, groups of voters aren’t moving in idiosyncratic ways between any two elections. They are all trending in the same direction: They supported Obama at a slightly lower rate in 2012 than they did in 2008.
This shows how much elections are driven by broader factors like the economy, which was not as favorable to Obama in 2012 as in 2008. And it also shows that elections are driven less by the idiosyncratic interests or agendas of groups of voters.
Alan: It is a little known fact that if new voters vote for the same party three times in a row they will be overwhelmingly likely to vote for that party the rest of their lives. If the Republicans piss off young women, young Hispanics for another 8 years, the GOP's future will be bleak for a full generation.
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