Between January 2011 and October 2012, governors signed into law twenty-three bills that imposed constraints on voting. Many of these measures mandated the presentation of a state-issued photo identification such as a driver’s license. In June 2012, the Republican majority in the Pennsylvania legislature took up the issue of voter identification cards, a topic of great interest to Republican-controlled legislatures in other states as well. The purported impetus for voter IDs was the prevalence of fraud—of voters presenting themselves at more than one polling station or of assuming someone else’s identity.
But the 2012 election was not only about the African American vote, though that was an important story. Another interesting aspect of the election was how it reflected changing demographics in the U.S., and how those demographics might impact the political party system for some time to come.
Presidential elections are gold mines for historians. They are more than teaching moments; their lessons can fill a classroom for an academic year and beyond. Presidential elections are both a detailed snapshot of America at one particular moment and a window on the nation to be. The 2012 presidential election in the U.S. was particularly rich in both its depiction of the country at that time and its portent of America’s future.*
It would be difficult to top the historic import of the 2008 presidential election when voters elected America’s first black president. However, the 2012 contest had its own unique features, not least of which was the re-election of a black president. In addition, for the first time in American history, neither the presidential nor vice presidential candidate of the major political parties was a white Protestant. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, is a Mormon; his vice-presidential running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, is a Roman Catholic. On the Democratic side, Presidential Barack Obama is a black Protestant, and Vice President Joe Biden is a Roman Catholic. Given the changes in American demography, this party line-up will become more common in the future. Here’s why.
Most of the parties’ face-to-face campaigning and political advertising concentrated in the swing states. The candidates made occasional forays into states such as California and New York (both solidly Democratic) or Texas (solidly Republican) only for fund-raising not for on-the-ground campaigning. The election-day surprise was that Barack Obama lost only one swing state—North Carolina—and that by a margin of less than one percent. In fact, the president lost only two states he won in 2008: Indiana and North Carolina. This was a remarkable feat considering the pundits’ predictions of a very close election.
The second surprise was the remarkable turnout of the African American electorate. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the registration of black voters has grown to be equal to that of white registrants: slightly better than two-thirds of the eligible electorate. However, turnout among black voters has historically been less than the turnout among whites. Turnout is often a function of class: poor people vote less often than more affluent voters. Turnout is also a function of opportunity: the ease of accessing polling places, the time to wait in lines, and the weather. Poorer people, tied to jobs, family care issues, and the daily grind of survival may have priorities that take precedence over casting a ballot on a given day.
In recent years, however, changes in the voting process have enabled less affluent voters to vote on a more flexible schedule. Many states have installed early voting procedures that allow registrants to cast ballots as much as three weeks prior to the election day (the first Tuesday in November). Also, the registration process has become easier, with more venues open to enroll voters. Finally, particularly in those states and counties (mostly in the South), the 1965 Voting Rights Act has required any change in the electoral process to be pre-cleared by Washington for its impact on minority voting rights. (The U.S. Supreme Court struck down this pre-clearance provision of the Act in an Alabama case, Shelby County v. Holder, on June 25, 2013.)
Explanation:
William Gastown analysis the political backdrop against which the 2012 general campaign was waged, offering fuller context into voter attitudes, the composition of the winning coalition, and the events, economic realities, policy and ideological issues that shaped the election and President Obama’s eventual victory.
Examination into demographic and attitudinal changes that paved the way for an Obama reelection, including the rise of voter engagement and mobilization of women, Latino, African American
Analysis into how this election did little, if anything, to decrease political dysfunction and polarization in Washington, an unfortunate trend that continues to threaten U.S. governance.
