Primary Factors Contributing to Obama\'s Victory in 2012 Presidential Election

2012 Election

Primary Factors Contributing to Obama's Victory in 2012 Presidential Election

For some, the outcome of the 2012 U.S. presidential election was a foregone conclusion; incumbent presidents rarely lose their second election, and the challenger did not provide enough of a contrast to warrant a change in leadership at this point in history. For others, it came as a sudden surprise, an unexpected upheaval that challenged the very premise of their worldview. In either case, the theories about how Barack Obama secured a second term abounded even before the vote counting was officially over, and there is no shortage of opinions of the subject. While it is difficult if not impossible to attribute the outcome to any single factor, a close analysis can at least provide some insight into which factors played the biggest part. Performing this analysis reveals that a combination of concerted get-out-the-vote efforts, a mutable, inconsistent opponent, and substantial demographic shifts are the primary factors that allowed President Obama to overcome a weak economy and lower-than-ideal approval ratings in order to secure a second term. The question of which factors contributed to Obama's victory is not merely idle speculation or a topic reserved for wonks and political junkies, because although presidential elections only occur once every four years, the factors that shape their outcomes ultimately end up affecting every element of public life. Thus, determining the factors behind Obama's victory will not only provide insight into how the "game" of campaigning is played, but also more fundamental information about what direction the United States is going, socially, culturally, and politically in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Methodology

As mentioned above, determining the single most important factor of any given election is close to impossible, because there are simply too many variables to account for the relative import of every one. Furthermore, the very nature of democracy makes it impossible to get a truly accurate view of every voter's intention and reason for voting the way he or she did, forcing one to rely on less precise metrics in order to determine the weight of any given factor. However, this does not mean that a robust, critically-sound methodology is impossible; rather, one must simply acknowledge the practical limits of this kind of investigation at the outset. To begin developing this methodology, it is necessary to distinguish between a few different factors influencing different stages of the voting process, because even if one could know every single voter's intention, this would still leave the question of what factors determined who voted in the first place. Thus, one must be careful to consider not only the factors influencing voters' choice of candidate, but also the social and structural factors that determine who actually constitutes the voting public.

Aside from the obvious legal parameters determining who is eligible to vote, there are larger demographic patterns of voting practices that can play a substantial role in influencing the election. The massive industry of punditry and constant news means that there is no shortage of reporting and commentary on these kinds of demographic predictors, and thus a close look at these analyses of voting turnout tendencies for certain demographics will provide the first step in attempting to determine the major factors contributing to the outcome of the election.

In addition, the centrality of race as a key factor in America's political history has generated academic interest as well, and thus certain peer-reviewed studies can provide additional insight into this subject, including work examining how perceptions of race affect people's attitudes toward public policy.

As will be seen in the analysis, understanding the influence of demographic voting patterns is especially relevant for this particular election, because part of Obama's success has been due to his ability to motivate groups that have otherwise shown themselves reluctant to turn out in large numbers.

In addition to the demographic factors determining who votes, there are practical structural factors concerning either campaign's get-out-the-vote efforts. As mentioned above, Obama was successful in mobilizing certain groups that in the past have not turned out in large numbers, but this cannot simply be attributed to his personal popularity. Instead, one must examine the campaign infrastructure behind these get-out-the-vote efforts, because in the end one of the most effective ways of getting people to vote is to have someone else call them and tell them to vote.

Thankfully, one of the upsides of the sports-writing style of political coverage that has emerged over the last decade is the way in which political reporters examine each and every variable of a campaign the way one might look at sports players' training regimens, and so there is plenty of secondary research on the issue of campaign infrastructure.

Finally, one must acknowledge the role played by the actual candidates and their policies. In this case, it will be especially instructive to examine either candidate's record, because although Barack Obama and Mitt Romney represented a woefully miniscule sliver of the political spectrum, generally agreeing on most major issues (especially foreign policy and national security), the way in which either candidate framed their own positions seems to have had a substantial influence on the way they were perceived in the press, and thus by the voting public.

Examining the candidates' behavior over the course of the campaign in conjunction with exit poll information will serve to provide a much clearer picture of how either candidate's statement of his positions translated (or failed to translate) into votes on election day.

Analysis

To begin it will be useful to recount some of the basic facts of the election's outcome in order to ground the subsequent analysis in these hard figures. President Obama won reelection with 332 electoral votes, 62 more than the 270 needed to win, and he carried 26 states. He also won the popular vote, garnering 3.5 million more votes than Mitt Romney. The 2012 election was a closer race than 2008, as Obama won fewer electoral votes, a smaller portion of the popular vote, and fewer states than during his previous race against John McCain. However, his margin of victory was still fairly substantial.

The second thing to note before getting into this analysis is that exit polls, which are one of the most commonly cited sources of post-election information, were not conducted in all fifty states. Instead, they were only conducted in thirty states, and of those thirty President Obama won twenty-two, meaning that the available exit poll data will skew heavily towards President Obama.

This does not render the exit poll data entirely useless, because one may still gain some insights into these voter's reasons for voting the way they did, but it is necessary to acknowledge this skewed data so as not to accidentally grant any given exit poll more weight than it deserves.

With this information in hand one may now begin the first step of the analysis, namely, a look at the demographic breakdown of voters. Again, much of this data is based on exit polling, which means that it will offer a much more accurate view of the make-up of Obama voters than Romney voters, but it will be instructive nevertheless because determining the rough demographic make-up of Obama's winning coalition will help to demonstrate the importance of demographics in determining voter turn-out and election results. As such, all numbers included in this section must be interpreted as rough estimations, based on the best available evidence; in most cases this relative indeterminacy will not matter, because the difference between candidates is stark enough that a few percentage points would not have made a difference.

In terms of ethnic demographics, President Obama won roughly 73% of the national Hispanic vote, 93% of the African-American vote, 39% of the white vote, and 73% of "Other," the majority of which includes voters who self-identify as Asian, Pacific Islander, and other races or ethnicities.

In terms of which racial and ethnic groups represented the greatest proportions of the total vote, the numbers largely correspond to the general population except in the case of Hispanic voters. The percentage of whites, African-Americans, and "Others" making up the voting public generally corresponded to their respective percentage of the total population (roughly 72%, 13%, and 5%, respectively), but Hispanic voters only made up 10% of the total vote even though they constitute roughly 16% of the total population.

Nevertheless, President Obama's share of the Hispanic vote was important, because although as a demographic Hispanics have traditionally turned out in lower percentages than other groups, the 2012 election saw Hispanics turning out in much greater numbers.

In addition to racial and ethnic demographics, age plays an important role in determining voter turnout, and particularly when it comes to younger voters. Traditionally, voters ages 18-29 are the least likely to vote, and represent the smallest percentage of voters outside of those aged 65 and up even though they represent a larger portion of the total population.

In the 2012 election, these younger voters made up 19% of the electorate, and President Obama won 60% of their votes, making 18-29 the age group with which Obama was most successful.

President Obama also won 52% of voters aged 30-44, while Mitt Romney took the majority of voters 45-64 and 65 and up.

In terms of gender President Obama won 55% of women, who represent a larger portion of the voting public than men. Although Mitt Romney won the majority of men, he did so by a smaller margin of victory than Obama's carrying of women (52% to 45% of men as opposed to 55% to 44% of women).

Thus, while Obama fared poorer with men, he more than made up for this with his success with women.

In terms of religion the results were split fairly evenly, except in the case of Mormons and the religiously unaffiliated. Mitt Romney won almost 80% of the Mormon vote, while President Obama took 70% of those with not religious affiliation.

However, when religious affiliation is coupled with race (such as white and black Protestants), then the breakdown of the religious vote becomes more stark, with the numbers generally reflecting each candidate's share of the racial demographic in question.

This data reveals a few important things about how demographics affected both voting turnout and voting decisions in the 2012 election. Firstly, when one considers the demographic groups Mitt Romney definitively won, the data seems to lend some credence to the stereotype of the Republic Party as the Party of old, white men, and indeed, much of the post-election speculation has revolved around this point. However, what is remarkable is not that older, white men made up the majority of Mitt Romney's coalition, but rather that this was not enough to secure him a victory. When looking at the demographic data alone, the 2012 election can be viewed as the point at which America's legacy of electoral sexism, racism, and classism was finally reversed, and perhaps for good.

To speak of America's legacy of electoral sexism, racism, and classism is to reference the founding of the country and the original content of the Constitution, because for the majority of America's history the right to vote was reserved solely for land-owning white men, first through blatant legal restrictions, and, when the Constitution was finally changed, through lower-level impositions on voting that made it practically impossible for certain groups to vote even if they were nominally allowed to. In a sense, then, the history of America is the history of everyone else gradually forcing white men to recognize their right to representation, and the demographic makeup of the 2012 electorate represents a victory of everyone else over the coalition of old, white men. In terms of voting turnout, then, part of President Obama's victory may be attributed to the gradual, inevitable transformation of these previously disenfranchised groups into part of the voting public; at the country's founding, the voting public was 100% white and male, but as time has gone on, this share has decreased while the share of everyone else has steadily increased, such that practically every group saw a greater turnout in 2012 than in any previous election (save for voters 18-29, who represented roughly 1% less of the total than in 2008).

While this might sound like an oversimplification, the numbers bear it out, because President Obama's winning coalition was essentially made up of women, minorities, and the young. When one considers the stranglehold that religion, and particularly Christianity, has had on American politics for the last century, then President Obama's sizable share of the religiously unaffiliated only contributes to the picture of Obama as the representative of everyone else, because for the first time the religiously unaffiliated represented a sizable enough voting bloc that their choice of president actually mattered. Coupled with the fact that the Republican Party's traditional "Southern Strategy" of courting white voters while largely ignoring minorities was not enough to secure the necessary demographics, the decline of religion as a useful factor in the election represents a substantial shift in American politics.

At this point it is necessary to point out that this demographic data does not necessarily say anything about either candidate or parties' particular stance on issues of race, gender, age, or religion. Furthermore, to describe the Republican Party as the Party of old, white men, and the history of America as a history of everyone else attempting to wrest control from white men should not be taken as an attack on whites or men. While Republican policies have been empirically shown to favor rich, white men over practically ever other demographic group, the analysis provided here should not be taken as an endorsement or criticism of either Party or candidate.

If Republican policies tend to favor rich, white men at the expense of women and minorities, then Democratic policies tend to favor women and minorities at the expense of rich, white men. This is simply because most things that benefit the less powerful tend to come with an attendant decrease in the relative power of the ruling classes.

To call the Republican Party the Party of old, white men is simply to state the facts as supported by the available demographic evidence, and it is up to the reader to decide whether or not this is a good or bad thing; it seems, however, that in terms of winning elections, it has turned into a bad thing (although obviously this was not always the case).

Thus far, the data provided should serve to demonstrate that demographics played a substantial role in determining the outcome of the election, if only because the demographic breakdowns were so stark nearly across the board. Even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested as much when he said that "if we lose this election there is only one explanation -- demographics."

However, simple demographic shifts are not enough to explain President Obama's reelection, because although different demographic groups obviously would tend to vote for the candidate who seems to best represent their respective interests, there are structural, practical factors that influence voter turnout aside from simple demographic or political identification. In particular, the notable difference between either campaign's get-out-the-vote efforts suggest that President Obama was far more successful in mobilizing his base than Mitt Romney.

One of the most contentious topics of the last election was the influence of money in politics, as the rise of Super PACs (political action committees) meant that outside groups were spending previously unheard-of sums running political ads while operating independently of the official campaigns. One of the biggest questions was what influence these groups would have on the election, and in retrospect, many commentators have suggested that their influence was negligible, as Mitt Romney received far more outside support than President Obama but ended up losing the election.

However, this analysis actually misses a crucial point, because although this outside spending did not help Mitt Romney win the election, it may have actually helped him lose it.

Essentially, the rise of outside donors, and particularly the conservative Super PACS that spent so much money on ads, meant a corresponding decrease in donations to the Republican Party itself.

This would not have represented a problem if ads alone were enough to win an election, but for the most part it is the national and local parties that are responsible for get-out-the-vote efforts such as cold-calling and voter registration drives, activities that became increasingly difficult as a result of the decreased money flowing to the Republican Party itself. As a result, millions were spent in support of the Romney campaign but many of the most basic, fundamental elements of running a campaign were neglected due to a sheer lack of Party infrastructure and funding.

In contrast, President Obama's campaign was supported by a large number of smaller donors, and having the majority of the money on the Democratic side flowing into the campaign or the national Party rather than outside groups meant that it could be directed towards get-out-the-vote efforts, including the decision to recruit "a team of behavioral scientists to build an extraordinarily sophisticated database packed with names of millions of undecided voters and potential supporters […] who fit the demographic pattern of Obama backers."

Thus, where the Romney campaign was nominally supported by millions in outside spending, the Obama campaign was able to retain a remarkable degree of control over the money spent, using entire teams of analysts to ensure that each dollar was applied judiciously.

This included, in addition to the internal database of potential supporters, a system available to the public so that current supporters could easily recruit their friends and family via social networks, which a recent study has shown to be one of the most effective means of increasing voter turnout.