Democrats, you have a problem

Democrats, you have a problem

I think that there are a few points that can be made about the 2014 midterms.

After repeatedly putting off any action on immigration until after the election, Obama announced just prior to the election that he would use his pen to enact immigration reform.  This served to motivate the Hispanic vote, but not in the way he intended.  Exit polls show that 36% of Hispanics voted Republican.  This is a huge change from 2012, when Hispanics voted Democrat at over 70%.  It turns out that quite a few law-abiding conservative Hispanics are not fans of illegal immigration or late-term abortion.http://www.cnn.com/election/2014/results/race/house#exit-polls
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president

Obama said in a speech on Oct. 2, "[M]ake no mistake: my policies are on the ballot."  I believe he thought that he could motivate that same base that re-elected him in 2012 to go to the polls by making the election about himself.  Think about it.  Up to that point in the election cycle, he had stayed in the background.  His poll numbers were approaching 40% nationally.  The Democrat incumbents had run away from him and were trying their best to disassociate themselves from their voting records.  Why would Obama, at that point, reinsert himself into the race?  Because he was convinced that he could motivate his base to go to the polls to vote Democrat by making the election about him.

This turned out to be a huge miscalculation.  It handed the Republicans powerful ammunition just 30 days prior to the election.

In his press conference Wednesday, Obama implied that since two thirds of the electorate didn't vote, he still had a mandate from the 2012 electorate to execute his vision.  I disagree.  Let's look at who didn't vote.  Obama's black base didn't vote.  Why?  I think his black base is angry with him.  They can't bring themselves to vote Republican, so what is the alternative?  How have the black community expressed their dissatisfaction in previous elections?  They stay home.  So Obama's claim that he still has a mandate is hogwash.  Everyone is mad, including his base.

The combined shift of the Hispanic vote and the unhappy black community is a real problem for the Democrats.  Do you think that the black vote will show up for Hillary?  I don't think so.  They're mad.  They're mad enough to not show up for Obama, even though he told them that he was on the ballot.  If the Democrats can't figure out a way to regain the lost Hispanic vote and convince their black base that they need to vote, then 2016 will be another tough year for them.

Let’s hope so.

By Sara Goss