Obama's popular vote mandate, 52.7% vs. 46.0% for John McCain, represents the first time since Jimmy Carter that a Democrat has won a majority of the popular vote. Obama's 365 electoral vote landslide effectively ends the "redstate/bluestate" conventional wisdom forever. Imposing as these numbers may be, there are other key indicators from election 2008 that show Democrats and progressives may have finally reached the tipping point towards an enduring majority.
In reviewing a broad survey of voters, Democracy Corps concludes:
Republicans emerge from this election as an aging, monochromatic, largely regional party, increasingly in the grip of its evangelical base. Democrats are consolidating a governing majority in what is, increasingly, a center-left nation.
Specifically, Democrats are winning majorities, in some cases super-majorities, among the fastest growing demographics in the nation.
Two-thirds of voters from 18 to 29 years old favored Obama, a 12 percentage-point increase from 2004's presidential vote. Obama also attracted votes from two out of three Hispanics, the fastest-growing demographic group, making the difference in Florida, Colorado and other states with significant Hispanic populations. More than 40 percent of Hispanics voted for President George W. Bush four years ago.
Meanwhile, by playing only to the base, Republicans have alienated all but the most radically devoted members of the far-right and delivered 6.4 Million Moderates into the warm embrace of the Democratic party.
While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a nine-percentage-point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Obama's vote total exceeded the total won by President Bush four years ago. So even if McCain had equaled the president's numbers from 2004 (and he did not), he still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes) -- and lost the election. McCain didn't lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Obama broadened his base.
Overall, the Democratic surge now threatens to expand long-term urban ascendancy to the Suburbs:
Unlike his two Democratic predecessors, Obama won the suburbs by a margin of 50-48 (compared with their losing margins of 5 and 2 points respectively in 2000 and 2004). And Obama did far better than Gore and Kerry among adults under age 45, college grads and persons with some college. He won the fast-growing Hispanic population by a 36 point margin (67-31) double Kerry's margin of 18 points, as well as the black and Asian voter groups by significantly higher margins. And while whites, overall, still favored Republicans, GOP margins shrunk substantially from 2004 for white men (down to 16 point from 25) as well as white women (down to 7 points from 11). Some part of this decline in GOP margins can be attributed to the voting proclivities of new, younger whites (Obama actually carried whites 18-29 by 10 points, the only age group among whites he carried) and white college grads, who continued their long term political migration toward the Democratic Party.This Democratic demographic breakout owes much to shifts occurring in metropolitan areas- both cities and their suburbs. Long bastions of Democratic support, America's cities gave even a larger margin to Obama than to his predecessors. But the fact that the suburbs also went Obama's way underscores the role of metro areas as anchors to the new Democratic surge.
America has long been a center-left nation. The Obama victory may have finally given this progressive nation permission to vote as such. 6.4 million moderates, Two-thirds of young voters and Hispanics, and a new suburban majority, these election results and demographics now strongly indicate that the electorate of the future could deliver the holy grail of progressive politics: an enduring progressive majority.
So where do we go from here? The simple answer is this: be successful. If Democrats can solve real problems for the electorate, they will be strongly rewarded.
But now that the election has been won, work needs to begin on crucial issues these groups care about-affordable housing, good schools, health care, transportation and, for new Americans, the pathways toward achieving upward mobility and the American Dream. It's a tall order indeed, but if the Democrats can fill that order, the stage is set to make them the rising party of the early 21st century.
Just as the 2008 election was the Democrats' to win, so, too, now is the opportunity to become the governing majority of the 21st Century. If you thought the last two years were important to the party, just get ready for the next two. Obama's election wasn't the end of anything. It was, in nearly every way, just the beginning. Saddle up, folks. It's time to deliver for the American people, and that means all hands on deck.