2012 Decoded

Scott Walker's solid victory in Tuesday night's Wisconsin recall election will likely increase the pressure on President Obama to maximize his progress on what could be called the "Colorado path" to 270 Electoral College votes.

From a national perspective, Wisconsin's most important message may be that Democrats continue to face enormous difficulty among blue-collar whites, but don't yet face fatal defection from the cornerstones of their modern coalition, minorities, young people and white-collar whites, especially women. Walker's survival adds more evidence that Obama and other Democrats face huge headwinds this November in states where those blue-collar whites dominate the electorate, as they do in Wisconsin. And that will increase the pressure on the president (and his party, in Congressional races) to maximize their gains this fall in states, like Colorado and Virginia, where an upscale-downscale coalition of white-collar whites and minorities can fashion a majority.

In Walker's 2010 victory, the Republican ran better among both non-college and college-educated whites than John McCain did against Obama in 2010. But the biggest shift away from the Democrats came among Wisconsin's blue collar whites. In 2008, Obama carried 52 percent of Wisconsin whites without a college degree, one of his best showings anywhere. But in 2010, Tom Barrett, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee who lost the rematch to Walker last night, drew just 40 percent of them. Walker won a commanding 58 percent of non-college whites, up substantially from McCain's 47 percent two years earlier.