The McGovern Coalition: Redux

In the 1972 presidential election, George McGovern cobbled together a base of minorities, the young, and the highly educated out of the rubble of the old Democratic New Deal coalition that was in its last throes, having been torn apart by issues such as civil rights and the Vietnam War. He lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon, his only electoral votes coming from a single state, Massachusetts.

36 years later, Barack Obama managed to gather a similar coalition, and while it wasn't a landslide, he won this past election decisively.

What is it about the composition of the electorate today that made such a big difference in these outcomes? As much as the media likes to harp on it, the youth vote probably played only a secondary role in Obama's win: yes, he took a very significant portion (68%), but the percentage of the youth vote in the electorate only increased 1% since the last election (to 18% of all voters). Perhaps the shift that helped him the most was the significant growth in minority voting, which increased its share of the electorate to 26% (compared to 19% in 2000). This, combined with the fact that he took large majorities of the minority vote (96% of African Americans and 68% of Latinos, for example), most likely made a large difference for Obama.

There is also at least one way in which the Obama coalition hearkens back to the New Deal coalition: he took 60% of those making under $50,000 a year. However, upon closer inspection, this is due in large part to minorities in that income bracket--Obama actually lost the white vote in this category by a 4% margin.

Of course, whether the Obama base will become a viable coalition for the Democratic Party remains to be seen after just one election. However, with the increase in minorities the U.S. will experience in the coming decades, it should certainly not be counted out yet.