Ask the Expert: Ruy Teixeira on the Path to 270 Electoral Votes

What are the two major forces that will shape the 2012 election?

A: Well the title of our report is "The Path to 270: Demographics Vs. Economics in the 2012 Election." And that about summarizes it in terms of the two competing forces.

On the one hand, very obviously the economy hasn’t been doing very well for quite a while under Obama’s watch. And while it has improved some, it hasn't improved nearly as much as most voters would like. We have an unemployment rate that's about 8.5 percent. Growth is slow. And people are feeling that. So that really helps the challenger in this coming election.

On the other hand, Obama will benefit from the fact that the demographic coalition that elected him and supported him so strongly in 2008 will be quite a bit larger in 2012. For example, we would expect the minority share of voters to be a couple of percentage points higher, go up to 28 percent. We would expect the white working-class share of the vote, which is the part most hostile to Mr. Obama, to go down by three percentage points. And we would expect white, college graduate voters, educated white voters who are more empathetic to Obama, their share should increase by about a percentage point.

Where will the 2012 election's main battlegrounds be fought?

A:The demographic changes that we have been talking about, they have affected all of the different states and the different regions that are in play. And the three chief regions are the New South, the Southwest, and the Midwest/Rust Belt states, which are the biggest block. The rate of demographic change is different in each area and the challenges Obama will face are different in each area.

What role will turnout play in the election?

A: Well the issue of turnout is going to be very important in this election. We have projected that 28 percent of voters in the coming election should be minorities. And Obama can reasonably hope to get about 75 percent of them. Keeping minority turnout up, that's critical, I think, to the Obama campaign's plans to reap that demographic dividend.