Growth in support from whites largely explains the Republican midterm wave

USApp Managing Editor, Chris Gilson looks at the best in Last week saw the Democratic Party midterm elections lose control of the Senate and its representation in the House fall to numbers not seen in nearly 70 years. Christopher T. Stout looks at concerns that a decline in turnout from black, Latino, and Asian American voters contributed to the Democrats’ defeat. Using exit poll data, he finds that while these groups were underrepresented in the midterms, they voted in numbers similar to that of previous elections, and that they did not switch to the Republican Party. To explain the Democratic Party’s poor performance, he argues that we need to look to the growth in white Republican support, which has increased by 9 percent since 2006.