,
5 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
The thing is that this is how it was seen heading into the election: the 'midwestern firewall,' Bain, outsourcing, the autobailout, etc. Then the exits hit, Hispanics become the story, and Sean Hannity wants immigration reform a week or two later
But the exits were wrong about it all. Wrong about Obama's weakness with white voters, wrong about the age and educational composition of the electorate, wrong about the Hispanic turnout surge
nytimes.com/2016/06/10/ups…
nytimes.com/2016/06/10/ups…
I think you can make a case that this seemingly small thing--the 2012 exit poll and over-interperation of it--is really a major cause of a lot of what's gone haywire in American life over the years that followed
It's why the GOP establishment and Dems basically decided to abandon appealing to the white working class, which represented like 45% of the electorate.
Regardless of the specifics of what's happened since, I think it is fair to say that it is not healthy for a democracy if major political parties choose to downplay what turns out to be the country's largest demographic group
