The Democratic Coalition Collapses

First Read: “It wasn’t the map that did in the Democrats (after all, explain the losses in Maryland and Maine); it’s wasn’t your typical Six-Year Itch election; and it wasn’t an anti-incumbent mood (Rick Scott, Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, even Paul LePage all won). Rather, what we saw was collapse of the Democratic coalition that helped elect President Obama in 2008 and 2012. If Democrats were going to hold off a Republican tsunami, they needed their base voters to come out to the polls and pull the lever for the president’s party. That didn’t happen where Democrats needed it to.”

“Especially with young voters. Nationally, Democratic base groups — young voters, single women, African-Americans and Latinos — posted numbers that looked more like the Democrats’ 2010 midterm ‘shellacking’ than Obama’s 2012 re-election victory. Most strikingly, voters 18-29 nationwide were only 13% of the electorate in 2014 (compared with 22% for GOP-leaning seniors.) In the 2010 midterms, young voters made up 12% of the voting public. In contrast, during Obama’s re-election victory in 2012, 19% of the electorate was under 30.”