Somebody: All that's been demonstrated is that people on the left (and across the political spectrum) will adhere tenaciously to their point of view regardless of the evidence and that debates like this thread change precious few minds.
Speaking of the evidence, I was looking at the Pew data on the latest elections. I was curious to see how this mid-term election compared to it's immediate predecessor, which was in 2006, not 2008. In some respects my suspicions were confirmed, but in other ways Dennis, Alan, and Marvin's arguments were substantiated.
In terms of race, there's no support for the idea that minorities that their turnout was depressed in this mid-term. The percentages of voters for for blacks (10%), Latinos (8%) and Asians (4%) were exactly what they were four years ago. Of course, if you set the bar high and expect blacks to continue to come out in force for white congressional candidates and governors as they did for Obama, then this will still provide support for the blame the President view.
On the other hand, the turnout of the relatively young, including the 18-29 and 30-44 cohorts did decline a bit, by 3 percentage points, while the 65 and older group grew. This provides some evidence for the idea that young people were disheartened politically in this election. Meanwhile the percentage of voters making less than $50,000 declined also by 3%.
However, as CB's been arguing, the data by and large supports the idea that the bulk of the explanation for the Republican tidal wave lies not with Democratic core constituencies but with independents. It was independents who showed by far the most significant shift in this election. From supporting Democrats by 57% to 39% for the Republicans in 2006, they reversed the ratio and went with the Republicans by 55% and with the Democrats by 39%.
In other words, it was self-identified independents, whose turnout moreover increased a bit in this election, who provided the margin for the Republican landslide in this mid-term. Would independents have been wooed by a more liberal administration into supporting their representatives in Congress? Well, that's the question yet to be resolved.
Link: <http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1789/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-analysis>