Minorities and Gay Marriage: It's Evolving
May 10, 2012 | 1:03 PM
One potential complication for President Obama's embrace of gay marriage is that minority voters at the core of the modern Democratic electoral coalition have usually resisted the idea more than whites. But that gap is narrowing-driven mostly by the same process of shifting generational attitudes evident among whites.
In the latest Pew Research Center measure on gay marriage from April, for instance, attitudes toward gay marriage converged among whites and non-whites: in both groups, 47 percent supported it, and 43 percent opposed it. In both communities that represented enormous movement from as recently as 2004, when President George W. Bush's re-election campaign encouraged state-ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage as a means of mobilizing conservative voters. At that point, in Pew polling just 31 percent of whites and non-whites alike supported gay marriage. Through 2010, support grew more rapidly for whites than non-whites, Pew found, but in the past two years, the minority numbers have increased more quickly, producing the intersection evident in the latest survey. (Gallup Polling also shows that attitudes toward gay marriage have converged in the white and minority communities, with each group divided about in half over the question.)
Obama's Gay Marriage Leap of Faith
May 9, 2012 | 5:14 PM
President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage undoubtedly reflects a personal evolution in his thinking, as he's said.
But his decision also reflects a hard-headed acknowledgement of the changing nature of the Democratic electoral coalition. Indeed, historians may someday view Obama's announcement Wednesday as a milestone in the evolution of his party's political strategy, because it shows the president and his campaign team are increasingly comfortable responding to the actual coalition that elects Democrats today-not the one that many in the party remember from their youth.
(RELATED: In Reversal, Obama Backs Gay Marriage)
Obama's senior advisers see the announcement as essentially a political wash, although polls now consistently show more Americans support than oppose gay marriage. In its latest national measure, the Pew Research Center found in April that a 47 percent to 43 percent plurality of Americans back same-sex marriage. Other recent national surveys, including those by Gallup and the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, have found majority or plurality support for the idea.
Swing States Back at Tipping Point
May 7, 2012 | 3:18 PM
The latest Gallup/USA Today swing state poll released Monday underscores how narrow a margin for error President Obama possesses in the 2012 campaign.
When this poll last surveyed 12 swing states in March, Obama held a comfortable 51 percent to 42 percent advantage over Mitt Romney, then slogging toward the conclusion of the GOP nominating contest. With Romney now established as the inevitable GOP nominee, the new survey shows Obama clinging to a 47 percent to 45 percent edge that is within the poll's margin of error.
(RELATED: The Problem With Romney's Vice Presidential Short List)
What's especially telling is that, according to detailed results provided by Gallup, Obama since March has suffered severe erosion only with one group-a familiar nemesis, non-college white men. But a slight shift in attitudes among other key groups was enough to place these states back on the tipping point.
Will Hispanic Immigration Trends Hurt Obama in 2012?
May 4, 2012 | 9:00 AM
The cresting of the great generation-long wave of legal and illegal immigration from Mexico won't meaningfully affect the political leverage of Hispanics in the U.S. for decades, if ever. But some Hispanic leaders worry that their political influence will ebb in November nonetheless.The Pew Hispanic Center drew widespread attention last month when it reported that the seemingly unending migration flow that had brought some 12 million Mexicans, both legally and illegally, to the U.S. over the past four decades had ceased, if not reversed. Using Census and other data from both nations, Pew estimated that from 2005 to 2010, 1.37 million Mexicans arrived in the U.S. (both legally and illegally) while 1.39 million Mexicans already in the U.S. migrated in the opposite direction. "While it is not possible to say so with certainty," Pew concluded, "the trend lines within this latest five-year period suggest that return flow to Mexico probably exceeded the inflow from Mexico during the past year or two."
If sustained, this trend will affect the growth of the Mexican-American population over the long term (especially the very long term). But most experts agree it will have little impact on the evolution of the Hispanic electorate in the U.S. for at least the next several decades.
Obama Faces Entrenched Resistance Among Some White Voters
April 19, 2012 | 12:40 PM
Two more new national polls released Thursday point toward a presidential election that could divide the nation along racial lines at least as sharply as the 2008 campaign.
In 2008, Barack Obama became the first candidate ever to lose whites by double digits and win the White House (John McCain beat him among whites by 55 percent to 43 percent), on the strength of support from a cumulative 80 percent from all minority voters.
Several national surveys released earlier this week showed Obama displaying patterns of support reminiscent of 2008, but facing the likelihood of erosion among whites-and the possibility of an even wider racial chasm.
Familiar Divisions Give Obama Narrow Edge
April 17, 2012 | 1:21 PM
Four recent national polls, including three released in the past 24 hours, generally show the electorate dividing between President Obama and Mitt Romney along lines of class, gender and race familiar from the 2008 race.The surveys-from ABC and the Washington Post; the Pew Research Center; CNN/ORC; and the first Gallup tracking poll, diverge in their overall results. The first three polls show Obama leading by seven, four and nine percentage points respectively; the first Gallup track placed Romney up by two percentage points.
Huge Gender Gap Powers Obama Lead Over Romney
April 10, 2012 | 10:53 AM
Another new national poll confirms that President Obama's lead over Mitt Romney is now powered largely by an overwhelming preference for the president among socially-liberal, well-educated women.
The ABC/Washington Post survey released Wednesday showed Obama leading Romney overall by 51 percent to 44 percent among registered voters, which replicates his margin of victory in 2008 over John McCain.
Like national, swing state, and state polls released last week, the ABC/Post poll found that Obama was benefiting from a huge gender gap: overall he led Romney among women by 19 percentage points, while trailing among men by eight points. But, as in those earlier surveys, the president's advantage did not extend to all women.
Obama's Gender Advantage Extends to the States
April 5, 2012 | 3:09 PM
New detail on recent swing state polling further sharpens the picture on the difficulties confronting Mitt Romney among women-and the troubles President Obama faces among men.
Earlier this week, Gallup/USA Today surveys found Obama leading Romney both nationally and in 12 key swing states on the strength of big advantages among women. But Romney's problem in the poll wasn't equally dispersed among all women. Further crosstabs on the surveys provided by Gallup to National Journal showed that Obama's lead with women was rooted in his strength among college-educated white women (as well as minority women); in both surveys Romney still led among white women without a college education, the so-called waitress moms. For that matter, Romney led in both the national and swing state polls among white men with and without a college degree.
Obama's Gender Advantage: a Closer Look
April 3, 2012 | 12:12 PM
Heads turned yesterday at the size of the advantage among women for President Obama in new Gallup/USA Today national and swing state polling. A closer look at the results shows that Obama's gender gap is concentrated among groups that have favored him in the past, which could make it tougher for Mitt Romney to overcome his advantage.Gallup released two surveys. One was a national poll, which showed Obama leading Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, by 49 percent to 45 percent among registered voters. In a second poll, Obama led Romney by 51 percent to 42 percent among registered voters in 12 key swing states.In both polls, Obama and Romney ran about even about men. The president's advantage was driven almost entirely by women, who provided him a resounding double-digit advantage in both surveys. But a closer look showed women also dividing along lines familiar from recent elections.
Santorum's Narrow Coalition: Another New Look
March 29, 2012 | 1:56 PM
Another new slice of exit poll data reinforces the conclusion that almost everywhere, Rick Santorum is preponderantly relying on the most conservative evangelical voters in the GOP primary.
Yesterday I reported on an exit poll analysis conducted by ABC Pollster Gary Langer that cumulated results from all 18 state exit polls conducted so far. The analysis found that Santorum has beaten Romney soundly among evangelical Christian voters who also identify as very conservative. But the results showed that Romney has carried at least a plurality of all other evangelicals (those who identify as somewhat conservative, moderate or liberal) and also has amassed big margins over Santorum among all voters who do not identify as evangelical Christians, whatever their ideological stripe.
New state-by-state data provided by CNN Polling Director Keating Holland underscores these findings. Holland analyzed the results individually in all 18 states with exit polls for Santorum and Romney among very conservative voters who identify as evangelicals and those who don't.
Santorum's Narrow Coalition: A New Look
March 28, 2012 | 3:35 PM
As Rick Santorum struggles to sustain his uphill challenge to Mitt Romney, the former Pennsylvania Senator is relying on an even narrower base of support than it has appeared so far, according to a new analysis of exit poll results.
Since Santorum revived his campaign with a trio of victories on February 7, exit polls consistently have found him running best among two groups of voters. In nine of the ten states with an exit poll that Santorum has seriously contested since February 7 he has carried at least a plurality of voters who identify as evangelical Christians. (The sole exception is Georgia where they broke for favorite son Newt Gingrich.) In eight of those ten states, Santorum has also carried at least a plurality of voters who identified as very conservative.
But an analysis of exit poll data released Wednesday by Gary Langer, the pollster for ABC News and president of Langer Research Associates, suggests that Santorum's strength is confined almost entirely to the overlap of those two groups: the evangelical Christians who also consider themselves very conservative.
How Faith Shapes the Electoral Map
March 27, 2012 | 4:38 PM
A new Gallup study released yesterday underscores the powerful relationship between religious behavior and political preference.
Using a full year of 2011 data from its nightly tracking polls, Gallup ranked all 50 states from the most religious to the least. The list could double as an atlas to the states that each party can most rely on in the 2012 presidential election, and which ones are most likely to tip the balance in a close race.
Obama's Key Groups Warming on the Economy
March 16, 2012 | 2:05 PM
In a trend with important implications for the presidential election, the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll released today shows President Obama's strongest groups in the electorate expressing the most optimism about the trajectory of the economy.
In the survey, both minorities and college-educated white voters were much more likely than working-class whites to say that they anticipate the economy will improve over the next year. Those well-educated whites are now also much more likely than their blue-collar counterparts to describe their current financial situation as excellent or good.
Santorum's Twin Wins Deepen the Grooves in Divided GOP Race
March 14, 2012 | 11:17 AM
Rick Santorum's twin victories in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday night did more to reaffirm than realign the basic patterns of support driving the GOP presidential race.
The narrow wins of his opponent underscored front-runner Mitt Romney's inability to expand beyond his base of support in the GOP's upscale managerial wing. But the results also highlighted the durable limits of Santorum's support beyond his core constituency of evangelical Christians. Indeed, the close races in both states did as much to highlight the weaknesses as strengths of both of the leading contenders.
The Bucket List: Why Older Whites Are Dominating the GOP Primaries
March 7, 2012 | 11:37 AM
White and gray.
That's the clear pattern for turnout in the Republican presidential race over its first two months.
After Super Tuesday, exit polls have now been conducted in 14 states from all regions of the country. In all 14 of those states, white voters, and voters over 50, both comprised a significantly larger share of the electorate in this year's GOP primary than they did in the 2008 general election. In many cases, the gap on each front has been enormous.
These patterns underscore the extent to which the modern GOP coalition revolves around white voters-and increasingly, as the graying baby boom moves right, older white voters.
The Cost of Romney's Success
March 5, 2012 | 1:45 PM
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal national survey released Monday, like the NBC/Marist polls released yesterday in the key swing states of Ohio and Virginia, quantify the broad sense in both parties that Mitt Romney's slog toward the GOP nomination has come at a palpable price for November.In the NBC/WSJ survey, Obama held a 50 percent to 43 percent advantage over Romney nationally, up from a 47 percent to 44 percent lead in the average of the news organizations' polls during the second half of 2011, just before the voting began in the Republican race. What's especially striking about the new survey is that it shows Obama has made his biggest gains among the group that has consistently resisted him the most: white voters without a college education.
On Immigration and Autos, GOP Candidates Collide With GOP Voters
February 29, 2012 | 4:21 PM
Largely overlooked in the Arizona and Michigan showdowns between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were signs of resistance from GOP primary voters in each state to key positions held by both men.
Both Santorum and Romney have opposed any pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., with Romney embracing a policy of toughened workplace enforcement that would encourage "self-deportation."
But according to the CNN exit poll from Tuesday's Arizona primary, just 31 percent of Republican voters said that the U.S. should seek to deport all illegal immigrants. A 36 percent plurality instead they should be allowed to apply for citizenship; another 27 percent said they should be allowed to stay as temporary workers.
Tennessee Also Shows Santorum's Populist Opportunity
February 27, 2012 | 12:33 PM
A new poll in Tennessee underscores the stakes for Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in tomorrow's Michigan primary.
Like the Quinnipiac University Ohio survey released on Monday, the Vanderbilt Poll showed Santorum marshaling powerful support in Tennessee from the key elements in the GOP's populist wing- particularly tea party supporters and evangelical Christians, while remaining competitive with (or even leading) Romney among more managerial voters. Tennessee, along with Oklahoma and Georgia, loom as, in effect, the top second-tier of contests on March 6, behind Ohio, which is likely to hold center stage on that day. With polls in the GOP race gyrating wildly all year, the results in Michigan are likely to cast a long shadow over those contests.
The Tennessee survey, conducted from February 16 to 22 for Vanderbilt University's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, showed Santorum leading Romney overall by a resounding 38 percent to 20 percent, with Ron Paul (15 percent) and Newt Gingrich (13 percent) lagging. Santorum's lead is grounded in big advantages among groups at the GOP's ideological vanguard. Three-fourths of Tennessee voters in the survey identified as born-again Christians and they prefer Santorum over Romney by 39 percent to 15 percent. Among the nearly two-thirds of likely primary voters who say they support the tea party's ideas, Santorum led Romney even more decisively-43 percent to 13 percent.
Santorum's Populist Lead in Ohio: Can He Hold On To It?
February 27, 2012 | 9:50 AM
The Quinnipiac University poll of Ohio released Monday morning shows Rick Santorum attracting exactly the sort of coalition he will need to beat Mitt Romney not only there on Super Tuesday, but also in other critical heartland battlegrounds like Michigan.The key question for Santorum, of course, is whether he can hold that coalition once Romney turns his full attention to Ohio, the top contest on March 6. The challenge for Santorum will be especially pronounced if the former Massachusetts governor holds on for victory tomorrow in his home state of Michigan. Early polls in Michigan also generally showed Santorum leading, until the Romney campaign and allied super PAC began carpet-bombing Santorum with negative ads and the former senator ignited a series of controversies with aggressive comments on an array of social issues.
Santorum's Working Class Opportunity
February 17, 2012 | 4:02 PM
The Michigan primary will test one of the most common- but as yet unproven - assumptions in the Republican presidential race: the expectation that Rick Santorum will be a strong candidate for blue-collar voters.
From the moment Santorum emerged as a serious contender in Iowa, many analysts (present company included) have assumed he would run well among the growing ranks of non-college white voters in the Republican electorate. On a policy level, Santorum stresses his determination to rebuild the nation's manufacturing capacity and laments the decline of upward mobility for working-class Americans in language rare among Republicans. On a personal level, Santorum highlights his years growing up in Western Pennsylvania steel country, and his grandfather's experience as a miner; he also projects a regular-guy aura that contrasts with rival Mitt Romney's vast wealth.
The Obama Campaign's Minority Blueprint
February 15, 2012 | 5:29 PM
One key reason why Democrats have grown more competitive in presidential elections since 1992 (after losing five of the previous six) is the steady growth in the minority share of the vote. In 1992, when Bill Clinton was first elected, non-whites cast 12 percent of the vote. When Barack Obama won in 2008, the minority share stood at 26 percent, more than double. How much more it grows, if at all, looms as one of the critical variables for 2012. The Obama camp is beginning to zero in on its projection.
A common misconception is that the minority share of the vote experienced an unsustainable surge in 2008 because of Obama's history-making status as the first African-American presidential nominee. In fact, the growth in the minority role has been steady over the past two decades, according to network exit polls. From 12 percent in 1992, the minority share of the vote increased to 17 percent in 1996, 21 percent in 2000, and 23 percent in 2004, before reaching its 26 percent level in 2008.
Obama's Revived Coalition Spells Trouble for Romney
February 14, 2012 | 10:22 AM
The national Pew Research Center poll released Monday confirms that President Obama, at least for now, is reassembling the coalition that powered him to his 2008 victory.
The Pew survey, closely tracking last week's ABC News/Washington Post poll, shows that in a potential general election match-up against Mitt Romney, Obama's support among many of the electorate's key groups has converged with his 2008 showing against John McCain. In almost all cases, that represents gains for Obama since polls from last year.
Low Turnout Highlights Romney Squeeze
February 8, 2012 | 8:24 AM
Rick Santorum's clean sweep of Tuesday's lightly-attended GOP contests underscored front-runner Mitt Romney's continuing struggles with the Republican base, even as recent national surveys show the former Massachusetts governor's standing eroding among independents.
Although exit polls were not conducted Tuesday night, the three states that Santorum swept -- Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri -- are all places where social conservatives represent a central component of the Republican electorate. And in all three states, one of the most striking aspects of Tuesday's results was the sharp decline in the number of people who came out to vote for Romney, compared to four years ago.
Is Obama's Coalition Re-Emerging?
February 6, 2012 | 12:19 PM
One striking aspect of the new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday is how closely the internal results of its head-to-head match-up between President Obama and Mitt Romney track Obama's performance against John McCain in 2008. Overall, the poll found Obama leading Romney in a 2012 match up by 51 percent to 45 percent among registered voters. It was the first time the survey had shown Obama (or Romney) crossing the 50 percent threshold against the other in a series of ballot tests since last spring.Unemployment Gains Target Obama Base
February 3, 2012 | 9:56 AM
Besides the obvious good news in the headline number, Friday's big unemployment report also contains some encouraging trends for President Obama buried below the top line.
Looking forward to 2012, one challenge for Obama has been that groups that he needs to turn out in big numbers -- groups at the core of his coalition -- have been among those hit hardest by the sustained downturn. Many of them are still suffering. But Friday's unemployment number showed bigger gains for African-Americans and Hispanics than for whites. And young people, another key Obama block from 2008 that has also been heavily affected, also saw big improvements. For each of those three groups, the unemployment rate is now the lowest it's been essentially since Obama took office.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in January for Hispanics dropped to 10.5 percent, down from 11 percent in December and 12 percent last January. The rate for African-Americans now stands at 13.6 percent, a sharp decline from 15.8 percent in December and 15.7 percent last January. In each case, that's still much higher than the 7.4 percent rate among whites, but the magnitude of improvement recently has been much better for Hispanics and African-Americans. (The white jobless rate has only inched down from 7.6 percent last November.)
Romney's Safety Net Shift
February 3, 2012 | 5:58 AM
Among the many strange aspects of Mitt Romney's comments about the poor on CNN's Starting Point this week was his insistence that he intends to "fix" and "repair" the social safety net for low-income families. "If there are people that are falling through the cracks," Romney told reporters a few hours after his initial comments on CNN Wednesday morning, "I want to fix that."
In fact, at the heart of Romney's message throughout the primary has been his determination to retrench the safety net. His core argument against President Obama is that he is stifling the economy, and leading America dangerously away from its historic traditions by attempting to create what Romney calls "an entitlement society" modeled on Europe. "It is clear that he'll like to make us more like Europe, more like a European social welfare state," Romney insisted Monday while campaigning before an elderly audience at The Villages in Florida. Romney delivers some variation on that charge in almost all of his stump speeches and major addresses.
Romney has fleshed out that sentiment with proposals that envision significant reductions in the projected spending trajectory for federal safety net programs. He has been most specific about Medicaid, the joint federal-state program that guarantees health care for the poor (including poor seniors in long-term care.) Romney, reflecting a long-time conservative goal, has said he would end the entitlement to Medicaid and convert it into a block grant program.
Rocky Terrain: Obama's Electoral College Map Grows Steeper
February 2, 2012 | 2:34 PM
The Gallup state-by-state average approval numbers for 2011 released this week don't necessarily predict where President Obama will finish on Election Day, but they do measure the hill he must climb to win re-election.
The most important number in presidential elections, of course, is 270 - the number of Electoral College votes it takes to win. The best way to examine the Gallup numbers is to measure them against that yardstick.
In 2010, if you sorted down from Obama's highest approval rating to his lowest, he could reach 270 Electoral College votes by carrying the 22 states plus the District of Columbia where his approval rating stood at 46.9 percent or more. Since one of the states above that line was Mississippi, a state Obama has almost no chance of carrying in practice, a more realistic scenario was that to reach an Electoral College majority he would have to carry those 21 states plus Virginia, where his approval rating stood at 46.6 percent.
Why Immigration is Fizzling in Florida for Gingrich
January 28, 2012 | 12:59 PM
MIAMI -- When Newt Gingrich pounded Mitt Romney's immigration policy as inhumane and unrealistic at last Thursday night's GOP debate, the sound of silence was deafening at the debate-watching party of a prominent Republican Hispanic group here.
Debate Takeaways: Gingrich Loses Groove, Romney Gains Ground
January 26, 2012 | 10:51 PM
MIAMI -- The takeaways took to the road for the latest Republican presidential debate. We watched along with a large crowd at the Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican Hispanic group meeting here this week that co-sponsored the session. The crowd started raucous and engaged, but dwindled over the course of the two hours as the debate drifted in its final stages. But before the debate lost momentum, it left some clear impressions. Here are five:Romney's Florida Formula: Return to Divide and Conquer
January 25, 2012 | 3:57 PM
Could divide and conquer work for Mitt Romney one more time? Two polls released Wednesday in the showdown state of Florida suggest that it might, unless Newt Gingrich can re-energize his populist, anti-establishment coalition before next Tuesday's vote.From mid-December, when Romney launched his first offensive against Gingrich, through the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, divide and conquer was the decisive dynamic in the GOP race. Romney moved into the lead during that period because he consolidated the center of the party behind him more than any one of his rivals consolidated the right of the party against him. Instead, conservatives fragmented among a long menu of choices.
That pattern flipped in Gingrich's crushing South Carolina victory last Saturday. Gingrich ran better among the key elements of what could be called the GOP's populist wing-including evangelical Christians, strong tea party supporters, non-college voters, those earning less than $50,000 annually and voters who identify as very conservative-than Romney did among the opposite groups in the GOP's managerial wing (non-evangelicals, non-Tea Party supporters, moderates, and more affluent and college-educated voters.) In South Carolina, Gingrich actually won some of those more centrist and pragmatic groups. Even when he didn't, he held down Romney's margin among those groups-while running up his own advantage among their conservative mirror images.
The CNN/Time/ORC Florida survey released this afternoon looks less like South Carolina than it does like Iowa.
In Florida Debate, Romney Morphs from Prey into Hunter
January 23, 2012 | 11:37 PM
The Republican field mostly used Monday night's NBC/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate as an opportunity to catch its breath after the breakneck race to the tape in South Carolina last weekend. Following last Thursday's emotionally explosive debate in Charleston, the candidates were much more sedate on Monday. The major confrontations before Florida's primary next Tuesday seem to be still ahead of us -- but the debate captured some important shifts in the dynamics among the candidates. Here are five of them:Gingrich Coalition Could Pose Sustained Challenge to Romney
January 21, 2012 | 11:06 PM
In South Carolina it appears the two tribes of the Republican Party have settled on their champions for a contest that could divide the party along clear, sharp lines of class, ideology and religious devotion.Newt Gingrich won his commanding South Carolina victory partly by cutting into Mitt Romney's support among the groups that had favored him in earlier states, exit polls posted on CNN showed. But mostly Gingrich triumphed by consolidating the groups resistant to Romney to a greater extent than anyone had done previously.
If Gingrich can muster the organizational and financial resources to capitalize on his breakthrough, that pattern raises the possibility of an extended race with Romney in which each man mobilizes divergent but roughly equally sized coalitions.
The Two Keys to Saturday's Primary
January 21, 2012 | 10:58 AM
The result in Saturday's critical South Carolina primary could turn on whether gender or class exerts a bigger influence on the outcome. The more class shapes the outcome, the better the odds for Newt Gingrich; for Mitt Romney, the same is true for gender. For more details, read my analysis here.
Debate Takeaways: Gingrich Fierce, Santorum Strong, Romney Unexciting
January 19, 2012 | 10:47 PM
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. -- In their final debate showdown before the critical South Carolina primary, the remaining gang of four Republican candidates went out with a bang -- a spirited, engaging and even emotional encounter that left plenty of dramatic moments competing for a spot in our top five takeaways. But only five can make the cut:Romney's South Carolina Formula
January 18, 2012 | 7:35 PM
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Mitt Romney is still waiting for his victory lap. Three different national surveys released Wednesday showed his overall support among Republicans at 33 percent or less -- hardly a stirring number after his feat of becoming the first Republican other than a sitting president to win both Iowa (at least until final results are announced Thursday) and New Hampshire under the modern primary calendar.
The Three-Way Evangelical Split in South Carolina
January 18, 2012 | 10:06 AM
This morning's front-page headline in the State, one of
South Carolina's leading papers, offers the bookend to National Journal's
report on the movement toward Mitt Romney among business-oriented managerial
Republicans. The headline reads: "S.C. Evangelicals Split, Frustrated."
Though evangelical Christians constituted a solid 60 percent
majority of GOP primary voters in 2008, they "are divided among the
faith-and-values trinity of the 2012 S.C. GOP primary, supporting Newt
Gingrich, Rick Perry or Rick Santorum," writes reporter Adam Beam. Beam quotes
Oran Smith, the executive director of the Palmetto Family Council, a leading
local social conservative group: "I do sense frustration that there is not a
single candidate that is being put up against Romney."
The Monmouth University survey released Tuesday - which showed
Romney holding a double-digit advantage overall in South Carolina - quantifies
the reason for Smith's frustration. It showed Romney attracting 29 percent
among self-identified evangelicals - much better than his 11 percent with them in
2008, but not much more than the 27 percent John McCain won among them that
year while amassing a narrow plurality win in the state.
GOP's Managerial Wing Picks Its Man -- Romney
January 18, 2012 | 6:00 AM
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In the crowd milling outside the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce's annual "Business Speaks" conference at a downtown hotel here on Tuesday, there were not many effusive declarations of support for Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney.But from the perspective of the candidates chasing Romney -- most of whom addressed the meeting -- the chatter in the hallways conveyed something even more ominous: a sense of acceptance about the likelihood of his nomination, and little inclination to extend the race by denying him a victory in Saturday's pivotal South Carolina primary.
South Carolina: GOP Debaters Blow Chance to Stop Romney
January 16, 2012 | 11:58 PM
The latest debate among the Republican presidential contenders Monday night unfolded like most of its predecessors, with the (dwindling) cast chasing Mitt Romney once again mostly flubbing the opportunity to make a coherent and disciplined case against him. Though the debate was lively, it was oddly unfocused -- especially given the stakes.Fox News Channel moderator Bret Baier made a fuss at the debate's opening over the network's decision not to deploy a bell or buzzer to enforce the time limit on candidate answers; by the evening's end, it seemed Fox should have brought an alarm clock to wake up a field that appeared to be sleep-walking toward a potential Romney win in South Carolina that would put him on a clear course to the nomination.
Even if the candidates dozed, we stayed awake long enough to produce the top five takeaways from the debate, which begins with, by far, the most important development -- yet another dog that didn't bark. (The Republican debates this year have produced an entire kennel of them.)
Romney Could Draw Blue-Collar Voters in a General Election
January 13, 2012 | 4:40 PM
Some Democrats have taken heart from results in the New Hampshire and Iowa election-day polls showing that Mitt Romney did not run nearly as well among lower- as upper-income voters. The Democratic hope is that could signal difficulty for Romney in relating to working-class white voters who have flocked to the GOP in recent elections. But the story may not be that simple.
Romney Expands Appeal to Evangelicals, Tea Party in N.H.
January 10, 2012 | 10:30 PM
Mitt Romney demonstrated extraordinary reach across the Republican coalition in a sweeping New Hampshire victory Tuesday night that has left his rivals facing a potentially do-or-die stand in South Carolina a week from Saturday.Romney dominated not only the groups that favored him in Iowa last week, but also several of those that had resisted him there -- particularly voters who identified as either evangelical Christians or strong tea party supporters, according to the exit polls reported on CNN.com.
Romney's Divide and Conquer Strategy
January 9, 2012 | 4:53 PM
A new national Pew Research Center survey on the GOP presidential race underscores the basic dynamic that has placed Mitt Romney in a commanding position, despite attracting only a relatively tepid level of overall support.For Romney, the name of the game remains divide and conquer. He leads in the Pew poll because he is consolidating the more pragmatic and secular components of the party more than any single one of his rivals is consolidating voters who are more ideological or socially conservative. Romney isn't sweeping the center -- but he is holding just enough of it to maintain a modest but steady advantage over the crowded roster of candidates appealing primarily to the fragmenting right.
Overall, the survey, which polled 1,507 adults, including 549 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters, from January 4 to 8, showed Romney leading with a modest 27 percent, ahead of both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich at 16 percent, and Ron Paul at 12 percent. Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman lagged in single digits.
South Carolina Poll Shows Narrowing Window for Romney Foes
January 6, 2012 | 2:17 PM
Mitt Romney's strong showing in Friday's CNN/Time/ORC South Carolina poll shows how narrow a window his opponents may have to derail him.
The poll offers a powerful reminder of how much each caucus
and primary resets the dynamic in the states that follow -- the same way each shot
in billiards reshapes the table. Compared to the most recent CNN/Time South
Carolina survey in December, Romney posted gains across the board. Most
important, the new poll shows him significantly advancing among the overlapping
circles of evangelical Christians and tea party supporters who have resisted
him in surveys all year -- and who reaffirmed that resistance in the Iowa
caucuses, according to entrance polls.
Question on Newborn Has Santorum Fighting Back Tears
January 2, 2012 | 6:30 PM
NEWTON, Iowa -- In a dramatic moment on Monday, Rick Santorum fought back tears and his wife Karen grew misty-eyed when a voter asked them about criticism of their 1996 decision to bring home a newborn who died soon after childbirth.
Santorum choked up as he described the family's decision to bring home their child Gabriel after the newborn died in the hospital. Noting that his wife worked as a neo-natal nurse, Santorum said: "It was so important ... for the family to recognize the life of that child and for the children to know they had a brother."
(RELATED: Gingrich: Romney's a Liar)
The exchange was prompted by a voter who said she had heard liberal Fox News commentator Alan Colmes criticize the decision to bring home the child. "To some who don't recognize the dignity of all human life, who see it as a blob of tissue ... this is somehow weird, recognizing the humanity of your son. Somehow weird, somehow odd and should be subject to ridicule."
Earlier, as Santorum spoke, his wife Karen was heard to say:
"It's so inappropriate."
(RELATED: Forget Winning Iowa: It's Better to 'Exceed Expectations')
Santorum concluded his response by restating his commitment to pursue an anti-abortion agenda. "I will stand and fight," he said. "I will hope to be able to look into the eyes of the American public and say 'Be more welcoming, open up your heart to love more, to love all life."
Santorum's Opportunity: Working-Class Republicans
January 2, 2012 | 3:56 PM
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Rick Santorum would face formidable challenges in converting even a strong Iowa showing Tuesday night into a full-scale national challenge to restored GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. But with a working-class style and message, Santorum could have one weapon: the changing demography of the Republican electorate.The growing blue-collar presence in the Republican primary could offer Santorum a base from which to challenge Romney because the former Massachusetts governor has not demonstrated a consistent appeal to those voters. In surveys, Romney, the unruffled Harvard Business School-educated former investment banker, has frequently attracted slightly more support from Republicans with a college-degree than those without one.
That could leave a downscale opening for a potential rival -- if anyone can consolidate that blue-collar block against him. "That's the issue," says Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster working with a super committee supporting former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
The changing nature of the GOP primary electorate reflects the overall shift in each party's coalition over the past generation -- a process I've called the "class inversion." In the first decades after World War II, every Democratic presidential nominee ran much more strongly among white voters without a college-education than whites with at least a four- year degree. But, particularly as non-economic issues from racial integration to abortion grew more important, the parties have switched positions. In each presidential election since 2000, the Democratic nominee has run better among college-educated whites than non-college whites; meanwhile working-class white families have become the cornerstone of the Republican electoral coalition.
Iowa Poll Could Help Lift Santorum to Caucus Win
January 1, 2012 | 9:29 AM
DES MOINES, Iowa -- As usual,
the Des Moines Register provides very little of the detail needed to understand
the coalitions that each of the Republican contenders is assembling for
Tuesday's caucuses. But the fragmentary information the newspaper has released about
its Iowa Poll suggests conservatives here may be moving toward Rick Santorum
as the best option to deny outright victory to Mitt Romney.
In a political analogue to the Heisenberg principle, it also suggests that extensive news coverage of Santorum's surge in the Register poll is likely to fuel it further, giving him a real chance to win here.
Will Iowa Produce a Viable Alternative to Romney?
December 31, 2011 | 12:05 PM
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Two questions loom over the traveling political carnival that has encamped here awaiting the verdict of Iowa Republicans in their Tuesday caucuses. The first is obvious: Who will win the first-in-the nation contest? The second is attracting less attention but is ultimately more significant: Will the result change the overall dynamic of the GOP race?
For all of the sound and fury in Iowa this weekend, the very uncertainty surrounding the first question adds to the suspicion that the answer to the second could be: not much.
Iowa's impact is open to question this year not mostly because it is uniquely quirky -- though its quirks are part of the story -- but because it accurately reflects the basic trend that has governed the GOP race over the past year. Here, as nationally, Mitt Romney is performing solidly, if not spectacularly, with the party's most pragmatic and secular elements. None of his rivals, meanwhile, is convincingly consolidating the more ideological and religiously conservative components of the party most resistant to him.
Divide and Conquer (Continued)
December 30, 2011 | 11:38 AM
A second poll underscores the opportunity that division on the right is creating for Mitt Romney in Iowa. In the NBC/Marist College Iowa survey released Friday, Romney continues to draw only modest support overall - but remains positioned to capture the state because the groups most skeptical of him are fragmenting.
Overall, the poll showed Romney leading with 23 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 21 percent, and then Rick Santorum (15 percent), Rick Perry (14 percent) and Newt Gingrich (13) all bunched closely together. That largely tracks the findings of the CNN/Time/ORC Iowa survey released earlier this week.
In the NBC/Marist poll, like the CNN/Time survey, Romney continues to draw meager support among the party's most ardent elements. The new survey shows him capture just 13 percent among both evangelical Christians and voters who describe themselves as strong tea party supporters.
Divide and Conquer
December 28, 2011 | 4:59 PM
The latest CNN/Time/ORC surveys released this afternoon for New Hampshire, and especially Iowa, show that on the eve of the first actual voting, the GOP race is reverting to the pattern that has defined it for most of this year: the party's more pragmatic and secular circles are consolidating around Mitt Romney more than the GOP's more ideological and evangelical wings are consolidating around any single alternative to him.
That pattern isn't enough to place Romney in a commanding position - but it does offer him the possibility of a plurality advantage in a fragmented field. The surveys provide a snapshot of the nightmare for the conservative activists most resistant to the former Massachusetts governor: it raises the possibility that he could steamroll to the nomination without ever attracting majority support in the party because the ideological voters most resistant to him fail to ever coalesce behind a single alternative.
These dynamics are most apparent in the results of the new survey in Iowa, which polled 452 GOP likely caucus participants from December 21-24 and December 26-27. Overall the survey shows Romney now leading with 25 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 22 percent; Rick Santorum has surged into third place with 16 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich with just 14 percent. In the most recent CNN/Time/ORC poll from early December, Gingrich led with 33 percent, followed by Romney at 20 percent and Paul at 17 percent.
Tightly Balanced in a Tipping Point State
December 21, 2011 | 9:54 AM
The new Quinnipiac University survey out this morning in Virginia spotlights the delicate tightrope President Obama must walk to retain many of the fast-growing, new battleground states that he captured in 2008 - and why Mitt Romney may be better positioned than Newt Gingrich to snatch those prizes from the president.
In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to carry Virginia, attracting nearly 53 percent of its vote. In that election, Virginia was a luxury for the president because he also swept the table of Rust Belt swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota that have often decided presidential elections. But given his difficulties with blue-collar white workers, it will be difficult for Obama to repeat that performance in the Heartland. That could make it a necessity for him in 2012 to carry many of the emerging Sun Belt swing states defined by rapid growth, increasing racial diversity and (generally) high levels of white education - a list that includes Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the Southwest and North Carolina, Florida and Virginia in the Southeast. Of all those places, Virginia may be the closest to a tipping point state most likely to decide a close race.
Demography should help the president in these new Sun Belt battlegrounds: given the steady growth of the minority community in those places, the non-white share of the vote in them should be slightly higher in 2012 than 2008. That will likely reduce the share of whites he needs to win those states, even if economic discontent slightly erodes the preponderant share of the minority vote he captured in all of them three years ago. His problem is the share of the white vote he can attract may be declining even faster than the share that he needs - especially in the white working class.
The Optimism Gap
December 20, 2011 | 3:48 PM
The bump recorded for President Obama's approval rating in
two national surveys released Tuesday captures his success in framing the
debate against congressional Republicans on extending the payroll tax cut. But
over the long term, Obama's ability to sustain those gains (which pushed his
approval rating to 49 percent in both the ABC/Washington Post and the CNN/ORC
survey) will probably turn on the trajectory of Americans' attitudes about the
economy.
The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey, released last week, captures a paradox: groups that supported Obama in the 2008 election are generally more negative in describing their current economic situation than groups that resisted him. But the supportive groups are much more optimistic than the critical groups about where the economy is headed - and generally, though not uniformly, more positive on the impact of Obama's agenda on their economic prospects.
The table below looks at economic attitudes among nine groups that Obama carried in 2008, and nine that preferred Republican nominee John McCain, according to the 2008 exit polls. The results are taken from the most recent Heartland Monitor, conducted by FTI Strategic Communications, a communications-strategy consulting firm; the poll surveyed 1,200 adults by landline telephone and cell phone from November 30 to December 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points
Romney's Tea Party Recovery
December 19, 2011 | 5:19 PM
Mitt Romney has pulled into a tie with Newt Gingrich in the
latest CNN/ORC national poll on the strength of gains with both wings of the
Republican Party. Both men polled at 28 percent support overall in the survey.
When Gingrich rocketed to the top of the GOP primary polls
last month, he did so mostly with tea party support but also with a healthy
percentage of non-tea party Republicans, who had previously provided Romney's
core constituency. In the new poll, Gingrich has slightly passed Romney among Republicans who don't identify with the tea party - 28 percent to 24 percent.
Last month's CNN poll had Romney up by two points among non-tea party
supporters - but also with only 19 percent of them. As recently as mid-October Romney
had attracted 35 percent with that group in CNN polling; he hasn't trailed with
that group since late August and early September, when Rick Perry briefly
consolidated both wings of the GOP before fading.
Now it is Romney's turn to eat into Gingrich's core
supporters: Romney won the support of 28 percent of tea partiers in the new
poll, his best showing among the most ideological Republicans in any CNN poll
this year. Gingrich still leads among the group, 32 to 28, but that represents
a much smaller lead among the tea party than last time around. In November,
Gingrich led Romney 31 percent to 19 percent with those voters. Romney's previous
high with tea party Republicans in a CNN poll this year was 27 percent in June.
Overall, Gingrich is the first GOP contender since Texas
Gov. Rick Perry, in that late summer stretch, to lead among both tea party and
non-tea party supporters in a CNN survey. But that could be a lagging indicator:
more recent Iowa polls have found Gingrich plummeting under a sustained
advertising assault.
Where Obama Has Slipped
December 15, 2011 | 3:58 PM
There's an ominous trend for President Obama in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll: not only is his overall approval rating lagging, but he's lost as much (or even more) ground among groups that favored him in 2008 as among those who resisted him last time.
The chart at left compares Obama's vote among key groups in 2008, according to exit polls, and his job approval rating among them in the latest Heartland Monitor released Thursday morning. (The survey, conducted by FTI Strategic Communications, polled 1200 adults by landline telephone and cell phone from November 30 to December 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.)
Overall, Obama has slipped from 52.8 percent of the vote in 2008 to 44 percent approval in the new survey with 49 percent disapproving. As the chart shows, Obama has declined not only in the groups that were always dubious of him, but also with several that enthusiastically joined his winning 2008 majority.
Five Takeaways from Saturday's Debate
December 10, 2011 | 11:55 PM
The Republican field reassembled with a new alignment in Saturday night's debate in Iowa, symbolized by freshly minted frontrunner Newt Gingrich's literal and figurative placement at center stage. But we're back with our familiar debate night line-up: the five key takeaways from the encounter.1. It's a new Newt. The former speaker was targeted, at various points, by all of his rivals, yet through the debate he seemed not only unruffled but also actually energized by the challenge. Gingrich never lost his cool, almost never seemed defensive, made his case with confidence (starting with his devastating one-liner that Mitt Romney would have been a career politician if only he had defeated Ted Kennedy in their 1994 Senate race), and, most surprisingly, avoided the arrogance that has frequently undercut him throughout his career. Gingrich seemed steadiest on the question that could have caused him the most trouble-the pointed discussion of whether voters should consider marital infidelity-and managed to avoid seeming either defensive or cavalier when he argued in effect that he has changed since earlier episodes of acknowledged infidelity. "People have to measure who I am now and whether I am a person they can trust," he said in an answer that could apply to almost all of the criticisms he faces from his tumultuous years in the House of Representatives.
In his new front-runner status, Gingrich is unlikely to enjoy clear sailing -- the debate hinted at a rich menu of personal and ideological arguments that his opponents can wield against him. (Rep. Michele Bachmann's portrayal of the former speaker as a "consummate insider" hints at an especially threatening line of argument for a candidate now attracting preponderant tea party support.) But Gingrich's performance Saturday suggests that he may no longer be nearly as prone to the self-destruction that regularly derailed him during his earlier days. If his rivals are going to overtake Gingrich, in other words, they may not be able to count on him to do the heavy lifting for them.
Pot and Kettle on Medicare
December 8, 2011 | 10:58 AM
Mitt Romney's attack on Newt Gingrich today over the former speaker's criticism of the House GOP plan to transform Medicare into a voucher or premium support system is ironic in two respects.Romney issued a release denouncing the remarks Gingrich made on Meet the Press last May, when he derided Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to restructure Medicare as "right-wing social engineering." In the assault today, the Romney camp is arguing that Gingrich's comments show that conservatives can't trust him "in the fight to reform government and cut spending," as Romney's communications director Gail Gitcho put it in this morning's release.
But behind the characteristically inflammatory rhetoric, Gingrich actually raised one specific objection to Ryan's plan - and Romney has taken the exact same position on the issue.
Newt's Squeeze on Mitt
December 7, 2011 | 4:00 PM
The new CNN/Time/ORC polls out today for the first four
states on the Republican calendar underscore the breadth of Newt Gingrich's
rise - and the extent of the threat confronting the erstwhile front-runner Mitt
Romney.
In each of the states except New Hampshire, Gingrich is consolidating the voters that have long been the most skeptical of Romney, while dividing those that had been most open to the former Massachusetts governor. That's a formula for success - if the former speaker can maintain it, admittedly a big question.
(RELATED: Gingrich Leads in Three of Four New Early-State Polls)
Gingrich is now succeeding among both sides of the party - dominating among the vanguard half that identifies with the tea party movement, and holding his own with the less ideological half that does not. What's more, the evidence from these polls suggests that along each track, the voters most skeptical of Romney are moving to unite behind Gingrich, at least for now. In particular, among the groups most dubious of Romney, Gingrich is now attracting much larger shares of the vote than any single candidate did in surveys earlier this fall.
In all four states, Gingrich now leads Romney among GOP primary voters who identify with the tea party movement. Gingrich's share of the vote among tea party supporters has increased as if launched from a rocket: since the last round of CNN/Time/ORC polls in late October he's up from 13 percent with them in Iowa to 40; in New Hampshire he's jumped from 6 to 37; in South Carolina from 11 to 53; and in Florida from 14 all the way to 62.
Larger version 
Newt's Reach
December 6, 2011 | 4:21 PM
What's the scariest news for Mitt Romney in the nearly mirror-image polls out today showing Newt Gingrich rocketing into the lead in Iowa, South Carolina and nationally?
The short answer: the breadth of Gingrich's support. In all three surveys, Gingrich is not only lapping Romney among the ideologically conservative and religiously devout voters who have resisted the former Massachusetts governor throughout the race; Gingrich is also running step for step (or ahead) with Romney among the less ideological, more secular, voters who have been Romney's base.
All of this is a big and ominous change for Romney. Earlier he had the luxury of watching the rivals to his right divide conservative voters while he made steady progress at consolidating the party's more managerial, less ideological wing. For a brief period in late summer, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatened to reach across the divide - but his poor debate performances quickly deflated his standing with both groups. Now Gingrich, a much steadier (if still volatile) contender than Perry, is not only consolidating conservatives, but loosening Romney's hold on the more pragmatic and managerial components of the GOP coalition.
Distant Thunder from TR
December 6, 2011 | 8:37 AM
The great Theodore Roosevelt speech in Osawatomie, Kan. that President Obama will celebrate today is remembered mostly for TR's embrace of the phrase "The New Nationalism" and his full-throated insistence that the federal government needed to assume a larger role in offsetting the power of concentrated wealth.It's easy to see why Obama wants to identify with those sentiments. But it may be another aspect of Roosevelt's message that day that is most relevant to America's challenges today.
Roosevelt's August 31, 1910 speech in Osawatomie (at a ceremony dedicating a monument to John Brown, the anti-slavery firebrand) was part of a series of speeches he delivered during that campaign year for "insurgent" or reform Republican candidates. It marked a decisive landmark in his break from his hand-picked successor in the White House, William Howard Taft, and arguably the first irrevocable step toward Roosevelt's independent "bull moose" presidential candidacy two years later in 1912.
Roosevelt's Kansas speech (and those around it on the tour) was infused with his fear of a society defined by widening class divisions - and a political system that did more to reinforce than to bridge them. Roosevelt believed that dynamic could ultimately combust into revolution - and he believed vigorous, systematic and national reform was the best way to defuse that threat.
More on the GOP Wedge
December 2, 2011 | 10:55 AM
In my column this week, I analyze how the upscale and
downscale wings of the evolving Republican coalition could divide over
retrenching Medicare and Social Security if the GOP wins unified power in 2012.
The same polling I used to highlight that fissure also
points to other potentially significant areas of convergence and divergence
between the traditional college-educated core of the GOP base, and the growing
non-college, working-class component of the party's coalition. These contrasts
could presage other strains that Republicans might face implementing an agenda
if they sweep control of the White House, House and Senate next year.
Another big potential divide in the party centers on trade. Almost all national GOP leaders support expanding free trade agreements. But an October National Journal/United Technologies Congressional Connection Poll found much more ambivalence in the GOP base when it asked Americans whether they supported or opposed the free trade agreements Congress recently approve with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.
Both Sides of GOP Still Bouncing
November 21, 2011 | 5:06 PM
It might be a blip, but the latest CNN/ORC national poll out this afternoon shows a new reason for more of Mitt Romney's hair to turn gray.
Overall, the survey showed Newt Gingrich edging past Romney to lead the field overall, with 24 percent compared to 20 percent for the former Massachusetts governor. That makes Gingrich the sixth GOP contender to lead a CNN/ORC poll this year - a level of volatility unmatched in any Republican presidential race since 1964.
Gingrich actually didn't move much in the new poll, compared to the previous survey last week when he surged into a near-tie with Romney. Gingrich's support among the roughly half of the GOP that identifies with the tea party edged up only from 29 percent to 31 percent, a change within the poll's 6.5 percent margin of error among that subgroup. Among the half that doesn't identify with the tea party, Gingrich also remained virtually unchanged at 17 percent, compared to 16 percent last week.
A Roadmap to 2012
November 21, 2011 | 10:06 AM
Electoral analysts Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the liberal Center for American Progress will publish tomorrow a comprehensive demographic and geographic roadmap to the 2012 presidential campaign that political junkies of all ideological stripes will want to keep close at hand.
In their new paper, The Path to 270, the two correctly lay out, I believe, the critical dynamics that will likely tip the balance in both the Electoral College and popular vote next year. President Obama's biggest headwind, they argue, will be disappointment in his handling of the economy; his biggest tailwind will be ongoing demographic change that continues to bend the electorate in his direction.
After Obama's victory in 2008, I argued that he had assembled a "coalition of the ascendant": that is, he ran best among groups that were themselves growing in society, like minorities, the Millennial generation and college-educated whites, especially women.
Teixeira and Halpin draw on that concept to argue that the unbroken wave of demographic change makes it likely that these groups, which remain the most favorable to Obama, will constitute an even larger share of the vote in 2012 than they did last time. They project that the minority share of the vote will rise from 26 percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2012, an increase commensurate with the average election to election rise since 1992 (National Journal reached a similar conclusion in its analysis, The Next America). And they project that college-educated whites will increase their share of the vote from 35 percent in 2008 to 36 percent in 2012. (Overlapping with both those trends, they calculate that 16 million more Millennials will be eligible to vote in 2012 than in 2008.) Whites without a college degree, the most solidly Republican component of the electorate, they expect to continue their generation-long decline, from 39 percent of the vote last time to 36 percent in 2012. (In 1992, when Bill Clinton was first elected, those non-college whites alone constituted an absolute majority of the electorate, 53 percent.)
Blue Skies for Everyone
November 18, 2011 | 2:30 PM
Patches of blue sky are breaking out for President Obama in the true blue states.
Three surveys out this week show Obama opening substantial leads over Republican front-runner Mitt Romney in several of the mega-states at the foundation of the "blue wall": the 18 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have voted Democratic in at least the past five consecutive presidential elections. This continues a largely overlooked pattern evident in polling in several other "blue wall" states since mid-October - and suggests that it may be more difficult for the GOP to vastly expand the Electoral College map than the weakness of Obama's national approval ratings might suggest.
The GOP Divide, Continued
November 18, 2011 | 7:00 AM
The USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of California Republicans released yesterday shows that the basic divide in the GOP presidential race extends even to states not yet in the center of the action.
The survey, conducted from October 30 to November 9, found the race closely bunched among Republicans who identify with the tea party movement while Mitt Romney held a big lead among Republicans who do not. That follows the pattern evident in most national surveys about the race, as well as the recent CNN/Time Magazine/ORC polls in the big four contests that will kick off the competition next January: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. California isn't scheduled to vote until June 5 of next year.
Romney and the Suburbs, Continued
November 17, 2011 | 10:45 AM
Survey results in New Jersey released Wednesday show both President Obama's residual strength in a classic coastal suburban state at the core of the new Democratic electoral map -- and why Mitt Romney may offer Republicans a better chance than his rivals of denting that fortress.
The Quinnipiac University survey showed that although New Jersey voters split only evenly on Obama's job performance, he led all four of the top GOP presidential contenders by substantial margins. In a potential 2012 matchup, the poll showed Obama leading both Rick Perry and Herman Cain by 23 percentage points and Newt Gingrich by 19 points. Only Mitt Romney held Obama to a single-digit advantage, and he just barely: Obama led him 49 percent to 40 percent.
Romney, though, was the lone GOP candidate to hold Obama under 50 percent in New Jersey, and he did so by leapfrogging the president among college-educated white voters while the other Republican competitors lost that category by gaping margins. In 2008, Obama narrowly topped John McCain among New Jersey's college-educated whites, 51 percent to 49 percent, according to exit polls.
The Republican Race, in a Chart
November 15, 2011 | 2:54 PM
If it's possible to encapsulate the volatility and uncertainty of the 2012 Republican presidential race in a single chart, the one below might fit the bill.
It tracks the results of the 13 national CNN/ORC polls this year measuring the preferences of Republican primary voters. It also separates the results into three categories: the overall leader, the leader among the roughly half of the party that identifies with the tea party, and the leader among the roughly other half that does not.
The chart points to several large conclusions. First is how fluid and unsettled the race has been. Five different candidates (including three that did not run, Mike Huckabee, Rudolph Giuliani, and Donald Trump) have held the overall lead in the survey; not since 1964 have so many different candidates led in a GOP presidential race in the year before the voting.
Within the two evenly balanced wings of the party, there's even more fluctuation. In the 13 polls, six different candidates have led among tea party supporters: Huckabee, Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and most recently Newt Gingrich. Among those who don't identify with the tea party, a similar group of six candidates have held the top spot: Sarah Palin, Gingrich, Trump, Romney, Giuliani, and Perry.
Why Newt is Next in Line
November 14, 2011 | 3:50 PM
The latest CNN/ORC national survey showing Newt Gingrich surging to a statistical tie with Mitt Romney captures not only the continuing volatility of the GOP's most conservative wing, but cracks in Romney's standing among the party's more managerial and moderate voters.
Most directly, the CNN/ORC poll underscored the persistent inability of the GOP's conservative vanguard to settle on an alternative to Romney. In the poll, Gingrich now leads among Republican voters who identify with the tea party movement, drawing 29 percent. That's an 18 percentage point increase over the 11 percent Gingrich attracted among those voters in CNN's mid-October poll. Gingrich's gain among the tea party contingent is matched almost exactly vote for vote by Herman Cain's loss: he plummeted from 39 percent among them in October to just 22 percent now. Cain's ascent with the tea party came after Texas Gov. Rick Perry suffered a similar collapse with those voters from September through October.
Romney's Suburban Opportunity
November 14, 2011 | 1:58 PM
New polls released late last week in three behemoth swing states underscore a central opportunity Mitt Romney could provide Republicans in the general election-and the threat he could pose to President Obama.
In the Quinnipiac University surveys in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania released on November 10, Romney ran more strongly against President Obama than Rick Perry, Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich. One key reason: Romney performed much better than his rivals among college-educated white voters.
A Model for Obama?
November 9, 2011 | 5:19 PM
It's always hazardous to analogize too aggressively from one election to another. But the scale of the union-led victory Tuesday in the drive to repeal Republican Gov. John Kasich's anti-collective bargaining legislation in Ohio is bound to encourage Democrats who want President Obama to pursue a class-conscious populist appeal in 2012.
The referendum repealed legislation that the Republican State House and Senate approved without a single Democratic vote and that Kasich signed last March; the bill sharply curtailed the collective bargaining rights of public employees (including police officers and fire fighters, who are often exempted from similar Republican bills), and imposed cutbacks on pay and benefits. Overall, just over three-fifths of voters on Tuesday backed the repeal, in a prototypical swing state where Republicans swept in 2010.
Two Worlds of Whites
November 8, 2011 | 7:00 AM
On the day after Barack Obama's sweeping victory in 2008, veteran Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg described the modern Democratic coalition as diverse America and the whites who are comfortable with diverse America.
From National Journal:
CONNECTIONS 
ANALYSIS
That appears to be even more true today. The line between whites who are comfortable with the racial and ethnic change transforming America into a "world nation" and those uneasy about it increasingly looks like one of the most important boundaries of the 2012 campaign.
The big Pew Center for the People and the Press generational survey released last week offers powerful evidence on that point. Overall, in the Pew survey, 47 percent of non-Hispanic whites agreed with the statement that "the growing number of newcomers from other countries are a threat to traditional American customs and values." Exactly 50 percent of whites disagreed.
Like an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey released earlier this summer, Pew found that whites comfortable with the demographic changes now underway express very different attitudes than those uneasy about it on President Obama, the role of government, and the choices in the 2012 election.
Our Mirror Image Parties
November 7, 2011 | 3:53 PM
Call it the homogeneity gap.New data out today from Gallup show that Democrats remain much more of a coalition party than the GOP - with all the opportunities and challenges that implies.
Gallup released figures today analyzing the demographic characteristics of adults who identified as Democrats or leaned toward the party in nightly tracking interviews conducted from June to August 2011. This new release represents the bookend to a study Gallup conducted with National Journal on the demographic characteristics of the Republican coalition over that same period.
Comparing the profile of each party's coalition points toward two interrelated conclusions. One is that on many dimensions the parties now represent inverse visions of America. The other is that, on key variables, Democrats are more closely divided and diverse than the GOP.
A Taxing Choice
November 4, 2011 | 7:00 AM
In my National Journal column this week, I touch on the debate among Democrats about whether President Obama's increasingly populist message - particularly his emphasis on asking wealthy Americans to pay more in taxes, both to reduce the deficit and to fund his jobs program - risks the party's support with white-collar white voters who have become increasingly critical to its electoral coalition.
In the column, Mark Penn, the initial chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign and pollster for Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection, expressed the fears of those who worry that Obama will drive away upper white-collar whites who have moved toward the Democrats over the past two decades. By making higher taxes on the wealthy "such a big part of his solution, [Obama] is in fact just splitting his coalition," Penn insisted.
At a National Journal conference this week previewing the 2012 election, Geoff Garin, who succeeded Penn atop Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008, expressed the opposite view during a panel I moderated. "This label of populism ignores the reality of the conversation that's going on and the positions that President Obama represents in the debate," Garin said. "You know, it's only about 75 percent of the public that supports a millionaire's tax. The Republicans can have the other 25 percent. We'll take the 75."
This dispute marks one of the critical strategic decisions Obama faces. It revolves around a straightforward question: will upper middle-class voters believe that Obama is targeting them when he talks about asking more from the rich, or will they share the sense that people on the very top rungs of the economic ladder have gotten off too easy and need to contribute more? Recent volumes of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll published in National Journal Daily offer some insight on the dispute-and some support for each side's argument.
Why the NCAA Could Explain 2012
November 1, 2011 | 3:03 PM
There's a growing sense among strategists in both parties that two distinct, even inverse, sets of swing states now hold the key to close presidential elections.
One set includes the traditional battlegrounds of American politics: the metal-bending behemoths of the Rust Belt like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These states tend to be older, preponderantly white, and stagnant or declining in population.
The emerging battlegrounds are their opposite: fast growing, diverse, generally younger states across the Sun Belt. Many of these states were solidly Republican in the 1990s, but have grown more competitive as their population has tilted more toward racial minorities and socially-moderate college-educated whites.
President Obama won most of both groups of states in 2008, but his path in 2012 looks much more challenging.
The Stained Glass Divide
October 31, 2011 | 11:56 AM
Alex Lundry is the director of research at the Republican firm TargetPoint Consulting, which specializes in segmenting and targeting voters based on their consumer and social behavior. Some months ago I asked Lundry what one piece of information, apart from partisan registration, he would most want to know about someone to predict whether he or she usually votes Republican or Democratic. He didn't hesitate for more than a moment. "Whether there is a Bible present in their home," he said.
New Gallup data released today helps explain Lundry's answer. Gallup confirmed that the Republican Party continues to hold the most appeal to the most religiously devout, especially among whites. The results underscore the extent to which the two parties' electoral coalitions continue to revolve around cultural affinities and attitudes rather than class, even amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Still the Same
October 28, 2011 | 8:00 AM
Meet the new bosses. Same as the old bosses.
That's the message from a special analysis Gallup conducted for National Journal that offers a unique peek at the likely composition of the primary electorate that will decide the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. To preview the potential 2012 GOP electorate, Gallup analyzed for National Journal the characteristics of adults who identified as Republicans (or leaned Republican) in tens of thousands of nightly tracking interviews conducted this summer-and then compared the results to similar interviews conducted during the primary fight in 2008. Because the sample involves tens of thousands of interviews, it allows for unusually detailed analysis with very small margins of sampling error.
The Two Republican Races
October 27, 2011 | 2:12 PM
One reason the Republican presidential contest has been so unusually volatile is that it's become two races running along parallel but very distinct tracks. One of those races seems to be settling down, steadily if slowly. The other still appears perched on an earthquake fault. If that dynamic persists, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will remain the favorite for the nomination- even though a significant proportion of the party remains resistant to choosing him.
The evolution of the GOP contest into two distinct races becomes apparent when looking at the long trend in public opinion polling. In the twelve national CNN/ORC surveys about the race conducted since January four different candidates have held or shared the national lead: ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businessman Donald Trump (neither of whom actually entered the race), Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Other national polls this year have recorded leads for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and more recently businessman Herman Cain.
