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After back-to-back presidential victories, there clearly is an “Obama majority in American politics” … as long as Obama is on the ballot. But will that majority exist in the future? The evidence we have so far suggests not.
Take Prince William County in northern Virginia, which was recently identified by The New York Times as the poster county for the Obama Majority. In 2008 and 2012 over 160,000 voters turned out to give Obama identical 16 point margins over John McCain and Mitt Romney respectively. But in 2009, when Obama was not on the ballot, only 75,000 voters turned out to vote in Prince William and Republican Bob McDonnell crushed Democratic Creigh Deeds by an even bigger 18-point margin. Then in 2010, again with no Obama on the ballot, 91,000 Prince William voters turned out to vote and they voted for Republican House candidates, 52 percent to 46 percent.
If the Obama Majority supposedly arrived in 2008, where did it go in 2009 and 2010? Will it show up in 2014 or 2016? Even Obama’s closest advisers sound skeptical. “The organization doesn’t exist without belief in the candidate,” White House senior adviser David Plouffe told Politico after November’s election. “They turned out for Barack Obama. It was all because of him.”
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I don't know what the racial make up of the county is, but I suspect the missing voters are blacks who show up when Obama is on the ballot out of tribal affinity. As I have noted before the votes are not out of self interest since Obama;s presidency has been a disaster for most blacks who don't go to work for Obama.
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