This essay will study the 2012 Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, in which he sought re-election against his opponent Mitt Romney. Obama was able to retain the presidency with 51% of the popular vote to Romney’s 47% and with 332 electoral college votes against 206 (FEC, 2013). Obama did see a reduction in both popular and electoral college votes from 2012, nevertheless he became the first president since Ronald Reagan to win a majority of the popular vote twice. The analysis will focus on three prominent factors that can help to explain the success of the Obama campaign, these are: structural factors such as the economy and partisanship, the use of technology and social media and finally the get out the vote initiatives specifically in regard to minorities. Obama inherited a poor economy and saw limited growth during his first term in office, but thanks to variety of reasons including increased partisanship he was able to shake off some of the blame. Social media had a noticeable role in 2012 and Obama was able to make use of the modern technology in much more valuable ways relative to Romney. Overall, this essay will argue that while structural factors where important, studies on the subject show that they still left the election firmly in the balance. Social media was a significant factor in helping youth turnout and making Obama portray himself as being more personable but this was part of an overall strategy that ensured high turnout from minorities. Therefore, Obama’s success with minorities was the essential factor that assured Obama a second term in office.
The economy is often a key issue in presidential elections and voters will often reward or punish the incumbent candidate based on their perception of the economy (Erikson & Wlezien, 2012). In the case of 2012 this election was no different, about two-thirds of the electorate acknowledged the economy as the most important issue during 2012 (Gallup, 2013). Partisanship is another element that can help determine elections, models that feature party identification are usually a good indicator in forecasting American elections (Lewis-Beck, et al., 2008). Combined, partisanship can determine how the electorate perceives the economic outlook to be (Gerber & Huber, 2009). An identifier with the incumbent party is likely to be positive in their outlook and vice-versa. Factors such as the economy and partisanship fall under a branch which Sides and Vavreck in ‘The Gamble’ (2013) call ‘chance’ factors which are out of the candidate’s control. These factors are found to be the most important in predicting an election (ibid).
In 2012, the US economy was still struggling and was perceived to be doing poorly by 68% of the American electorate in October of election year (Jacobson, 2013). In addition, only 43% of Americans were in approval of Obama’s handling of the economy (PollingReport, 2012). This shows there was a gap between those who thought the economy was doing badly and those who blamed Obama for it. Perhaps the reason for this gap was voters blaming Bush during an era of increasing partisanship, with Bush being the president when the recession first struck. While only 43% of people approved of Obama’s management of the economy, he still managed to receive 51% of the votes come election-day. One explanation for this could be that Obama was effective in moving the agenda away from the economy and simultaneously Romney struggled to maintain a focus on the economy (Holbrook, 2012). But ‘The Gamble’ argues that the economy was front and centre of both candidate’s campaigns and the reason why Obama was more popular than predictions expected was that he remained popular with Democrats (Sides & Vavreck, 2013). This evidence, correlating with Sides & Vavreck’s analysis (2013), shows that Obama was the favourite to win the election before the official campaign began. This shows in the final results, where Obama wins 92% of the Democrat vote and is evidence of the increasing partisanship of the electorate, and did Romney manage to receive 93% of the Republican vote (CNN, 2012). But Democrats made 38% of the voters on polling day while Republicans were only 32% of the total.
Not all of the literature forecasting the election was in agreement that Obama was the favourite to win and most saw the election has being a very close race. Holbrook (2012) viewed Obama as a slight favourite due to the economic conditions at the time, though this analysis in minimal in terms of its analysis at public opinion at the time. Even taking into account the analysis of economic data and partisanship both candidates still looked to be closely matches. On the whole, what the analysis shows is that the structural factors meant that the election was still firmly in the balance and the campaign itself was still to play a vital role in determining the winner.
In the 21st century technology has become an essential tool for political candidates in election campaigns. The election of 2008 saw Obama have the most advanced use of social media of any candidate running for presidency in history (Bimber, 2014). The following four years saw technology and social media grow even more in its importance. By 2012, Twitter was viewed as being a necessity for political candidates (Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). With the internet becoming an important source of political news and the number one source for millennials it has become omni-present in election campaigns (McKay, 2017). By 2012, Twitter had 500 million users, with 140 million of those users being from the US (Semiocast, 2012).
Right from the start, Obama used the internet and social media, his re-election bid was announced through a YouTube video that was linked to a tweet. His methods kept to the political convention at the time and his campaign staff were responsible for the vast majority of the tweets sent from his account following the professional model (Adams & McCorkindale, 2013). His methods were reflected in his following statistics on Twitter, on election-day Obama had 22 million followers compared to Romney only having 1.7 million (Gainous & Wagner, 2014). Obama was able to communicate with a significant constituency through Twitter and other social media platforms and this in particular could have helped his appeal with the young, Obama won 60% of the 18-29 demographic (CNN, 2012). His main message through social media was one of hope and enthusiasm (Bronstein, 2013). By primarily focusing on positive rhetoric Obama was able to appear personally likable (Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). This contrasted quite well with Romney who struggled with his image and was regularly seen as an uptight character compared to Obama who was viewed as likeable, empathetic and warm (Sides & Vavreck, 2013).
The use of data analytics was crucial to the Obama campaign who used a persuasion model in order to predict success when it came to specific issues and messages (Greenwald, 2013). This strategy was combined with the use of an app which they linked with Facebook. Due to the link 85% of the people who signed up listed their phone number and through the use of targeted sharing, 600,000 supporters and 5 million contacts could be accessed (Scherer, 2012). This enabled the campaign to be able to personally encourage people to register, donate or look at a video which they specifically designed to persuade potential voters in swing states. In comparison with the Romney campaign, this was a lot more sophisticated model of technology. (ibid) Overall, a much more advanced use of technology when compared to his opponent could have had a significant impact in helping Obama to energise his base and help with turnout especially with his key constituencies of the young and ethnic minorities.
A significant factor that led to Obama’s election in 2008 was his success in garnering the minority vote. Latinos voted by 72% for Obama in 2008 which was a 19% increase compared to the Democrat John Kerry in 2004 (Barreto, 2008). Obama also achieved a record 95% of the African American vote amidst record high turnout for the demographic (CNN, 2008). Therefore, for Obama to win re-election in 2012 it would become essential that he managed to retain his success with ethnic minorities. In particular as Obama’s coalition of the young, single women and ethnic minorities continues to grow in number in a changing America (Bositis, 2012). Latinos for example according the 2010 US census, reached 50.5 million of the population which represents 16% of the overall country (Wallace, 2012).
Since the 1960s, the Democratic agenda has been seen as favouring minorities (Frey, 2012). During Obama’s first term in office he had a mixed record when it came to introducing policies that could be viewed as benefiting the minority communities. Looking specifically at Latinos, early on his presidency Obama had a particularly aggressive immigration policy when it came to the deportation of illegal immigrants (Wallace, 2012). In contrast, the enactment of ObamaCare was hugely significant for Latinos who lacked insurance coverage more than any other ethnicity (ibid). His appointments to his administration included more Latinos than any president in history after the end of his first year, and this included the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor as the first Supreme Court justice of Latino origin (Post, 2009). Therefore, it was becoming clear that Obama was attempting to retain Hispanic support so that he would be re-elected in 2012.
During the last year of his first term in office, Obama seemed to implement policies specifically targeted at ethnic minorities and this could have been a direct attempt to receive their votes in the election. The most striking example of this was the implantation of the Dream Act which granted amnesty to children of illegal immigrants, which Obama announced in the summer of election year (Delahunty & Yoo, 2013). This contrasted with Romney and the Republican party in general who were viewed as having moved towards the right of the political spectrum because of factors such as the Tea Party movement (Williamson, et al., 2011). By 2012, the Republicans were increasingly seen as party that only represents the white and Romney struggled to change that image (Shear, 2012). Obama was able to successfully distinguish himself with Romney on these issues as the announcement of the Dream Act coincided with the Republicans being too harsh on immigration issues (Sides & Vavreck, 2013).
Obama’s strategy to gain as many minority votes as possible centred around get-out-the-vote initiatives especially in the important swing states (Bositis, 2012). These types of methods included the social media techniques which helped to boost registration and turnout. Specific online advertisements were used to target Latinos living in swing states (Kaye, 2012). Also in terms of turnout, Obama also had help from special interest groups, in particular the NAACP who helped register 400,000 voters in 2012 (Greenblatt, 2012).
Obama’s pursuit of the minority voting blocs proved to be hugely successful as shown by the election results. In terms of African Americans, Obama was able to achieve the support of 93% of the demographic amidst substantially high African American turnout especially in the important swing states (CNN, 2012). The turnout for African Americans exceeded the turnout percentage of the white population (Bositis, 2012). Hispanic turnout at 48% was down slightly from 2008 but a record 11.2 million Hispanics voted in 2012 (Lopez & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2013). The final figures showed that Obama won 71% of their support compared to Romney’s 27% and that Hispanics made up 8.4% of the electorate (Lopez & Taylor, 2012). This success with the minority population proved crucial in ensuring that Obama won a second term in office. Ethnic minorities were very important constituencies in swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Virginia where Obama won only by a slight margin and which were the states that pushed Obama over the 270 electoral college votes mark (Bositis, 2012)The importance of minorities is highlighted even further by the fact that Obama only managed to garner the support of 39% of the white vote (CNN, 2012). Thus, from the statistics it seems that it was Obama’s popularity with minority voting coalitions that were able to push him over the line and win the presidential election.
To conclude, the structural factors of the economy and partisanship largely cancelled each other out and any advantage that Obama might have had before the official campaign began was minimal over Romney. The actual campaign itself saw Obama use technology in a much more meaningful way compared to Romney. In particular in showing his personal and family side and using the latest technology and apps to help ensure voter registration and turnout amongst his supporters. Overall, the main factor that won Obama the election was the historic support he received from ethnic minorities in which he was able to maintain from the 2008 election to his re-election in 2012. Through his policies enacted during his time in office, his campaigning for their support and the obvious differences between himself and Romney and the Republican party, Obama was able to earn high support from minority demographics. The various factors all linked together underneath the overarching factor that Obama was able to have high turnout among his base support which was a coalition of minorities.