White flight and the Democrats

Fully 60% of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections; only 37% supported Democrats. Not even in Republicans’ 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote. Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the white flight from the Democratic Party. The new data show that white voters not only strongly preferred Republican House and Senate candidates but also registered deep disappointment with Obama’s performance, hostility toward the cornerstones of the current Democratic agenda, and widespread skepticism about the expansive role for Washington embedded in the party’s priorities. On each of those questions, minority voters expressed almost exactly the opposite view from whites. These results could carry profound implications for 2012. They suggest that economic recovery alone may not solve Obama’s problems with many of the white voters who stampeded toward the Republican Party in 2010.