The Southern White Party

by Stuart Shapiro

Much has been made of President Obama’s victory in the non-white vote and Governor Romney’s corresponding 20-point win among white voters.  Kevin Drum, however, breaks the white vote up by regions and it tells a somewhat different story.

One of these bars is not like the other. Obviously Democrats could stand to do better with white voters in the West and Midwest, but the real reason for their poor national showing among whites is the South. Overall, Obama won about 46 percent of the white vote outside the South and 27 percent of the white vote in the South. That’s a difference of nearly 20 points. In other words: Democrats don’t have a white problem. They have a Southern white problem, and that’s a whole different thing. The press should be more careful about how they report this.

This is indicative of the huge problem that the Republicans face.  And more of them are facing up to it (including David Frum here).

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.