Gallup showed Romney ahead among whites by 20-plus points this month. White voters still matter

RENO, Nev. — If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, part of the lesson of 2012 will be that white voters still matter.

The polling couldn’t be clearer or more polarizing: A POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll has Romney ahead of President Barack Obama among white voters by 18 points, 57 percent to 39 percent. Gallup showed Romney ahead among whites by 20-plus points this month.


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A Washington Post-ABC News Tracking poll released Thursday showed a similarly large spread between the GOP nominee and Obama at 21 percentage points.

It’s the largest divide since George H.W. Bush carried white voters by 20 points over Michael Dukakis in 1988. Obama trailed John McCain among white voters by just 12 points.

“There’s no doubt that running up the score with white voters is the only way Romney is going to win this thing,” said Tom Jensen, the Democratic pollster who runs Public Policy Polling.

“His numbers with African-Americans and Hispanics have barely moved at all. But, with white voters, Romney went from being up 10, or 12, to 19, or 20. That 20-point threshold with white voters is probably the absolute bare minimum he needs to at least win the popular vote. He may need to win whites by 25 percent.”

The nation’s first African-American president is counting on an electorate at least as diverse as the 2008 coalition of voters that put him over the top — including record numbers of Hispanics and Latinos — in 2012. Minority voters formed a record 26 percent of the electorate four years ago, compared with 74 percent of white voters.

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But whether the demographic trend lines continue and the minority vote increases again in 2012 is hard to predict — though Obama campaign officials cite data showing 2012 would defy historical trends if they did not. The winner hangs in the balance.

“The notion that in 2012 the [demographic trend toward more diversity in the electorate] is going to change is patently absurd,” said one senior Obama campaign official.

Most establishment Republicans privately acknowledge their alarm about the party’s long-term demographic problem. In 1992, 87 percent of voters were white. In 2000, that figure was 81 percent. In 2008, partly propelled by the African-American desire to elect the first black president, the white share of the vote fell to 74 percent.

The POLITICO poll earlier this month showed Romney nabbing 36 percent among Latinos and 4 percent of African-Americans.

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If Republicans don’t make inroads with Latinos, mega-states like Texas might eventually be in play and Florida’s hue will become less purple and more blue.

But some public polls show a similar share of white voters likely to vote as four years ago, which poses a problem for Obama and favors Romney.

Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who helps conduct the bipartisan POLITICO poll, notes that white voters are breaking for Romney beyond what party registration would suggest. Goeas notes that white voters currently back Romney at a level 10-points ahead of their normal vote behavior with a Republican candidate, and that accounts for a full 7 percent shift on the ballot, Obama’s 2008 winning margin. He sees Romney pulling in the mid-30s of the Hispanic vote, about on par with George W. Bush in 2000.

“So the white vote matters very, very much, especially with the monolithic African-American vote,” he said. “The bottom line is that’s what pulls the race even.”

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who conducts the bipartisan Battleground poll with Goeas, expects non-white turnout to be about the same as four years ago.

“Demographic growth will make up for any decline in turnout,” she said.

Matt Barreto, a pollster for Latino Decisions and a University of Washington political scientist, notes that a small shift in the composition of the electorate could change the outcome.

“Most likely, there will probably be an uptick [in minority voting],” he said. “On the high end, you could be talking about 29 percent [of the vote being] minority — and probably more realistic is 27 or 28. If it’s not 29 percent, if it’s only 25 percent, if it doesn’t grow from 2008, then that’s good news for Romney. … Romney’s best hope at this point is that he wins an overwhelming share of the white vote and that minority turnout is low.”

“If [Republicans] hit 60 percent of the white vote and lose, which is quite possible, it would mean by 2016 they would need a minimum of 64 percent of the white vote,” he said.

Age polarization also reinforces racial polarization. Lake says that 88 percent of voters 65 and older are white, while only 56 percent of those 18-29 years old are white.

The difference is stark between Obama’s support among white voters this year and four years ago.

McCain led Obama among white voters by 12 points, according to 2008 exit polls. Four years before that, George W. Bush beat John Kerry among white voters by 17 points to win the White House.

The diversity of the electorate is key to the electoral outcomes in states like Nevada and Colorado, where Romney campaigned earlier this week.

PPP released a survey Wednesday putting Obama ahead by 4 points in Nevada, 51 percent to 47 percent. Romney led with whites by 15 points, 57 percent to 42 percent, while Obama pulled 69 percent of the Hispanic vote.

The more right-leaning American Research Group has Obama up 2 points in the Silver State but Romney leading with whites by 12 points.

In Nevada, McCain only won whites by 8 points as he lost the state to Obama. Bush won Nevada whites and the state by 12 percent in 2004.

Four years ago, Hispanics made up 15 percent of the electorate in Nevada. That will grow, but it depends on the success of the Democratic field operation. A PPP poll showed Obama winning the early voting in the state, 61 to 39 percent. Senior Obama campaign officials say they have snagged 29,000 voters who didn’t cast ballots in the 2010 midterms.

PPP’s Jensen said Obama is running ahead in Nevada and Ohio because it has more minority voters, and Romney has kept the race a toss-up in New Hampshire and Iowa because there are more white voters. Jensen said Wisconsin has become part of the map partly because of Romney’s support among white voters.

On a two-day Western swing that wrapped up Wednesday, Romney aimed some of his appeal to Latinos. He has struggled to find a voice when it comes to the growing Hispanic vote, talking up his standard economic message instead of making any promises on issues like immigration.

The GOP nominee mainly leans on surrogates, paid media and a field operation to woo the growing demographic. A Latina small businesswoman introduced his vice presidential contender, Paul Ryan, who in turn introduced Romney, in the Las Vegas suburbs on Tuesday.

“We don’t have to settle for four more years of this listless administration,” the woman, Alma Tovar-Olsen, said, reading from talking points provided by the campaign. “We cannot afford four more years.”

The former Massachusetts governor palpably fears the appearance of pandering. He’s modulated the harsh tone he used to win the Republican nomination — who could forget his call for “self-deportation?” — but he has not explicitly changed his hard-line immigration positions.

Both the Romney campaign and super PACs supporting him are using paid media to drive up Obama’s negatives with Hispanics.

Central to Romney’s closing argument is that he worked with Democrats in Massachusetts to get things done — something that tests well with all voters — whites, Hispanics, and African-Americans — suggesting that he’s willing to compromise.

“I came in and some of the folks here were holding signs, ‘Democrats for Romney,’ all right? I love that,” Romney told the crowd in Denver. “Paul and I have a few things in common. One is, we both learned how to reach across the aisle in our elected office, to find ways to work with Democrats, Republicans, independents to get the job done.”

With cameras snapping and Romney still speaking, Ryan walked over to shake hands with a few of the Latinos in the front row.

“And we need you to reach across the neighborhood to Democrats and independents as well, make sure they understand that this is a year to vote for real change if you want to have real recovery,” Romney continued. “I need you to get those folks to vote for us!”