SEAN TRENDE: Why 2012 Postmortems Overstate Republican Woes. “I’ve long argued that these postmortems are overwrought, and nothing about the results altered that. After all, the demographic changes in that election were more attributable to a surprisingly large number of white voters staying home (fewer whites voted last year than in 2004, despite steady growth in absolute numbers) than to any rapid growth in minority votes. The GOP performed about as well in November as we would have expected given the state of the economy; in fact, the exit polls suggest that the GOP actually fared quite well on key policy questions, demographic changes notwithstanding.”