Voters

Which group of voters’ support for (or opposition to) Mitt Romney will hinge the most on his vice presidential choice?  According to a newly released Politico-George Washington University poll, the answer is:  Republicans under the age of 45.   

The poll asked likely voters across the political spectrum, “How much impact will Mitt Romney’s choice of a Vice Presidential running mate have on your vote?  Would you say that this selection will be extremely, very, somewhat, or not at all impactful on your decision about voting for Mitt Romney?”

By a margin of 26 percentage points, likely voters as a whole said that Romney’s choice would have no impact (61 percent), rather than at least some impact (35 percent), on their decision about whether to vote for him.  Republican voters, meanwhile, split just about right down the middle on the question — 51 percent said Romney’s decision would have no impact, while 48 percent said it would have at least some impact. 

By a margin of 12 points the other way, however, Republican voters under the age of 45 — a group that makes up over 15 percent of the total electorate (according to the poll) — said that the choice would matter.  Among GOP voters under 45 years of age, 56 percent said that Romney’s choice would have at least some impact on their decision about whether to vote for him, while only 45 percent said that it would have no impact.  (There’s a slight rounding error.)  That’s a 38-point swing (from minus-26 to plus-12) from voters as a whole, and a 15-point swing (from minus-3 to plus-12) from Republicans as a whole. 

In fact, among any group of voters that includes at least 10 percent of the total electorate (and the poll breaks up voters into about every imaginable subgroup), Republicans under the age of 45 care the most about Romney’s vice presidential pick.

Now that President Obama has signed his health care bill into law, people are saying that the overhaul will do this or will do that. But given the pains to which the Democrats went to structuring the legislation so as to avoid presenting its true ($2 trillion-plus) ten-year costs to the American people, it's really more accurate to continue to say that the legislation would do this or that. For the Democrats won't ever get to implement their health care overhaul in any meaningful way unless President Obama wins reelection, or unless enough Obamacare-supporting Democrats remain in Congress to thwart the following five-word agenda: Repeal, and then real reform.