Obama had more charisma and Romney's 47% gaffes and Obama's attack ads had an effect on WWC voters. A significant amount of WWC that voted Obama but this time leaned GOP especially in the Midwest instead probably stayed home or voted for Obama because of the Obama campaign's effective strategy in painting him as out of touch.
Romney won non college-educated whites 61-36. Wasn't that the biggest margin by which the GOP won them since Reagan atleast? Romney won them by a bigger margin than Bush and McCain for sure.
Anyway, the race was winnable (but very tough) but Romney just ruined it. All the gaffes, the unnecessary hard-right turn on immigration, his botched up tax plan, letting Obama define him early (in hindsight he shouldn't have waited until the very last moment with his ad blitzkrieg, but that's easy to say in hindsight) and setting the wrong targets. Romney did win the groups he targeted, the problem was that these groups weren't enough to win the election. He severely underestimated minority turnout.
