Election 2012 and the 2010 Census

The 2012 election was one of the most bitterly fought and ideological in recent memory. From [Page 762]the presidential election to state-level contests, contrasting visions of the role of government dominated headlines. Moreover, racial and cultural wars over the future took place and demonstrated just how divided America may remain in the near future.

Since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, the United States has had to reckon with the meaning of race in contemporary society. More than 200 years after the founding of the country, Americans elected a biracial (black) man to the White House. In 2008 several factors played into the final elections results: (1) the failures of the administration of President George W. Bush, (2) the onset of the Great Recession (200709), (3) the public's weariness with the war in Iraq, (4) a lengthy and costly war in Afghanistan, and (5) one of the most heatedly run and dramatic presidential campaigns in decades. Also, the enormous number of Asians, African Americans, and Latinos who crowded the polling stations provided President Obama with a landslide victory, with more than 360 electoral votes and 53 percent of the popular vote.

When the new president was inaugurated, he faced challenges unique in the history of the presidency. Obama was considered by tens of millions of Americans to be fraudulent. Party lines were drawn and filibusters were used. Government virtually crawled along and failed to complete basic tasks. Death threats against the president spiked. Some parents refused to allow their children to hear the president's annual back-to-school message.

In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, in 2010 the voters gave the House of Representatives back to the Republicans and made serious inroads into the Democrats’ majority in the Senate. Republican presidential hopefuls considered their bid for the 2012 election. The new racial demographics signaled that change was coming, perhaps much more rapidly than previously thought.

In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted the decennial census, which was politically important for several reasons. It is used to reapportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as state legislatures. It is also used to formulate policy in various areas under the purview of the government. Furthermore, how the count is conducted—its methodology—is also a source for concern. Few political pundits took seriously the dramatic demographic shifts under way in the United States since the last census in 2000. Yet those shifts contributed greatly to the reelection of President Obama in 2012 and to Democratic gains in the House and Senate.