Democrats lost big because young voters stayed home

I basically agree with Kevin Drum's take on the overall election results: Most of the losses were predicted by structural factors, but not all of them. Democrats lost at least 15 more seats than the basic model would've predicted, and though you can try and explain that away (they were holding seats because of a demographically unique election in 2008, or the model doesn't account for extreme economic conditions), it's not really worth doing: Democrats lost a lot of seats. Even more than the economic conditions would've predicted.

The question, of course, is why. And the basic answer is that Republican groups came out to vote and Democratic groups didn't. The exit polls tell the story:

The gender breakdown didn't change much. And nor did the racial breakdown. But the age of the electorate changed dramatically: Seniors went from 16 percent in 2008 to 23 percent in 2010, while voters between 18 and 29 fell from 18 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2009. Seniors, of course, are the most conservative voters -- they were the only age group to back John McCain in 2008. And young voters are the most liberal. They were the only age group that favored Democrats yesterday.

There's going to be a lot of soul-searching among Democrats after this election. Most of it will be about whether they should've been more liberal or more conservative, more ambitious or more modest, more confident or more empathic. But perhaps the most important question isn't what they could've done to make more Americans like them, but what they could've done to get more young voters to the polls.