Study: Romney Needed Just Four Percent More of Women's Vote, Three Percent of Whites

The Center for Immigration Studies released a study of who voted in the last election, determining that 4.2 million whites lacking a college education stayed home in 2012.

The share of eligible Hispanics who voted in 2012 was lower than in 2008, while the number of African-Americans was higher than in 2008, CIS found. If eligible white voters turned out at the same rate as in 2004, 4.7 million more of them would have voted — including the 4.2 million without college education.

If Hispanic turnout had been what it was in 2008, 450,000 more Hispanics would have voted.

Overall, 61.8 percent of eligible voters turned out in 2012, down from 63.6 percent in 2008 and 63.8 percent in 2004, CIS said.

With President Obama receiving five million more votes than Mitt Romney, the study also looked at what would have been needed for the former Massachusetts governor to have won the popular vote.

Romney could won the popular vote with these scenarios, CIS found:

• If Romney had won 48 percent of the women’s vote instead of the 44 percent he got
• If he had won 21 percent of the black vote instead of the 5 percent he received
• If he had won 50 percent of the Hispanic vote instead of the 27 percent he got
• If he had gotten 62 percent of the white vote instead of the 59 percent he received

“The Voting and Registration Supplement collected by the Census Bureau is a valuable data source for examining who was eligible to vote and who actually voted. The voting supplement results, reported in the tables, show the great diversity of the American electorate,” CIS concluded.

“The electorate is comprised of numerous overlapping voting blocs. Many factors influence voting decisions, including race, education, income, gender, occupation, marital status, and age. Furthermore, there is ideology, party identification, religion, and voters’ perception of a candidates’ character that are not included in the Census data, but certainly matter a great deal. It would be a mistake to think of the electorate as one dimensional.”