Plenty have noted that white voters in Ohio just didn't turn out in big enough numbers for Mitt Romney to win the state.
Saleno Zito notes that it wasn't a white, suburban problem; it was a white, rural problem.
Romney’s white-vote problem was nowhere more glaring than in Ohio, according to [Lara] Brown. She compared exit polls from 2012 and 2004, when Republicans won the state during George W. Bush’s re-election.
“The percentage of rural voters in the electorate declined by 6 percentage points, while the percentage of urban voters remained the same in both elections,” she said, adding that the number of suburban voters increased by 6 percentage points.
“What is interesting is that Romney did not have a problem with suburban voters,” said Brown. “Romney outperformed Obama in Ohio with suburban whites. Bush lost those voters to Kerry, 49-51, while Romney beat Obama, 51-47.
“So, if Obama sees no increase in urban voters over Kerry in Ohio and loses suburban voters, the problem points to the rural voter just not showing up.”
