2012 Election
Primary Factors Contributing to Obama's Victory in 2012 Presidential Election
For some, the outcome of the 2012 U.S. presidential election was a foregone conclusion; incumbent presidents rarely lose their second election, and the challenger did not provide enough of a contrast to warrant a change in leadership at this point in history. For others, it came as a sudden surprise, an unexpected upheaval that challenged the very premise of their worldview. In either case, the theories about how Barack Obama secured a second term abounded even before the vote counting was officially over, and there is no shortage of opinions of the subject. While it is difficult if not impossible to attribute the outcome to any single factor, a close analysis can at least provide some insight into which factors played the biggest part. Performing this analysis reveals that a combination of concerted get-out-the-vote efforts, a mutable, inconsistent opponent, and substantial demographic shifts are the primary factors that allowed President Obama to overcome a weak economy and lower-than-ideal approval ratings in order to secure a second term. The question of which factors contributed to Obama's victory is not merely idle speculation or a topic reserved for wonks and political junkies, because although presidential elections only occur once every four years, the factors that shape their outcomes ultimately end up affecting every element of public life. Thus, determining the factors behind Obama's victory will not only provide insight into how the "game" of campaigning is played, but also more fundamental information about what direction the United States is going, socially, culturally, and politically in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Methodology
As mentioned above, determining the single most important factor of any given election is close to impossible, because there are simply too many variables to account for the relative import of every one. Furthermore, the very nature of democracy makes it impossible to get a truly accurate view of every voter's intention and reason for voting the way he or she did, forcing one to rely on less precise metrics in order to determine the weight of any given factor. However, this does not mean that a robust, critically-sound methodology is impossible; rather, one must simply acknowledge the practical limits of this kind of investigation at the outset. To begin developing this methodology, it is necessary to distinguish between a few different factors influencing different stages of the voting process, because even if one could know every single voter's intention, this would still leave the question of what factors determined who voted in the first place. Thus, one must be careful to consider not only the factors influencing voters' choice of candidate, but also the social and structural factors that determine who actually constitutes the voting public.
Aside from the obvious legal parameters determining who is eligible to vote, there are larger demographic patterns of voting practices that can play a substantial role in influencing the election. The massive industry of punditry and constant news means that there is no shortage of reporting and commentary on these kinds of demographic predictors, and thus a close look at these analyses of voting turnout tendencies for certain demographics will provide the first step in attempting to determine the major factors contributing to the outcome of the election.
In addition, the centrality of race as a key factor in America's political history has generated academic interest as well, and thus certain peer-reviewed studies can provide additional insight into this subject, including work examining how perceptions of race affect people's attitudes toward public policy.
As will be seen in the analysis, understanding the influence of demographic voting patterns is especially relevant for this particular election, because part of Obama's success...
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