US racial divide widens

Very striking looking at the exit polls giving racial breakdown how President Obama has been re-elected despite losing white support in every state recorded.

In Ohio, the six- point victory that McCain had over Obama amongst whites has now become a 15-point lead for Romney.

And you don’t have to look far to find out how that decline in white support for the Democrats has been replaced. In Florida, Obama was ahead of McCain by 15 points amongst Hispanics in 2008, now he is 22 points ahead of Romney amongst Hispanics.

Here’s the CNN exit poll breakdown by race which suggests that Romney across the nation got 59 per cent of the white vote to Obama’s 39 per cent. In his blog on the overnight results, Populus’ Rick Nye also points out how Romney moved ahead amongst men (white ones, I’m deducing) and he quotes the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s pre-emptive attempt to head off a reactionary bloodbath in his own party: “If we lose this election there is only one explanation – demographics… If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts.

“We’re not losing 95 per cent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.”

His blog also  argues  that the “phew, an incumbent can win in tough economic times” argument shouldn’t give David Cameron too much cause for comfort – Obama was trying to hold on to a winning result, David Cameron didn’t win and needs to move forwards.  That said, No. 10 is saying you can see in the Obama victory “seeds of a Conservative victory and how you get to that.” The PM’s peoples’ argument is that the Obama message – it’s slower than we hoped but we’re dealing with the mess we didn’t make – is a potent electoral force.

Elsewhere, if you believe what happens in the US happens here some time later, interesting to see Colorado voting to legalise the recreational use of marijuana and 2 states voting to legalise gay marriage.

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