Ron Brownstein's cover story for National Journal draws on an exclusive analysis of several decade's worth of exit polls to find out with demographic groups really swing -- and which only jitter. The results are fascinating:You can also trace voting patterns by subgroups -- try white independents hereThe past five presidential elections have involved very different Democratic nominees (from Michael Dukakis and John Kerry to Clinton and Al Gore) running in very different circumstances. Yet over that entire period, the Democratic share of the vote among white men has varied little: ranging between lows of 36 percent (in 1988 and 2000) and a high of 38 percent (for Clinton's 1996 re-election). That remarkable stability suggests a structural resistance to Democrats among these men that will be difficult for any single candidate to overcome.
White married men have also been extremely tough for Democrats: The party's recent high point among them was Clinton's meager 36 percent in 1996. Democrats have run somewhat better among single white men. Clinton, with an assist from Perot, carried them both times. Kerry's 46 percent among that group in 2004 was the highest share for Democrats over the past 20 years, and Kerry actually ran even among white, single college-educated men. Those voters are probably a fruitful target for Obama.The interaction of educational and marital status compounds the effects and sharpens the picture. Single women are more Democratic than married women; college-educated women are more Democratic than noncollege women. Not surprisingly, then, Democrats have carried single, college-educated white women in each of the past five elections -- exceeding 60 percent in the last two. At the other end of the spectrum, married, non-college white women (the so-called waitress moms) have voted Republican five straight times; Bush carried almost two-thirds of them in 2004.
White women cross-pressured by their marital and educational status tend to be swing voters. Married white women with a college education split almost evenly between the parties in 1992, 1996, and 2000 but broke sharply for Bush in 2004. Single white women without a college education lean Democratic, but George H.W. Bush carried them in 1988 and his son ran almost even with them last time.
Democrats have carried independent women in four of the past five elections, while Republicans have carried independent men three times during that period. The marriage gap is also key: On average, Republicans have run 13 percentage points better among married independents than among single ones since 1988. The class inversion is evident among independents, too: Democrats have done better among college-educated independents than among their noncollege counterparts in all five races, by an average of nearly 5 percentage points overall.
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