Dems definitely did much better than expected with turnout and the minority turnout for Obama did not sag from 2008, which a host of pundits expected.
Romney never seemed to win over social conservatives/evangelicals either. That group stood behind a whole host of possible challengers before settling on Santorum and then Romney didn't shore support up with that group post-nomination. Maybe if he'd chosen someone like Mike Pence to shore that up he would've come out okay, but the Paul Ryan pick did little to get GOP voters to the polls in big numbers.
Agree with bolded. Although Romney's official platform was pro-life, conservative, he had a shaky history -- he had a liberal healthcare plan in Massachusetts, he was once pro-choice. Some conservatives didn't trust him. The term "RINO" came up often.
The thing is though, Romney won 78% of Evangelicals and they comprised 26% of the electorate. Those are Bush numbers and Turnout. Even in 2016, Evangelicals were 26% of the electorate, but cast 81% of their votes for Trump, but Trump also had Scalia's seat in the cards.
Romney's problem was not with Evangelicals, Romney's problem was that he was boxed out on three sides.
1. Romney's image "as the guy who comes to lay you off" as Mike Huckabee put it, prevented him for cashing in on the populist conservative potential in the Midwest the way that Trump did. Romney also backed away from the immigration issue and wasn't effective at leveraging the China currency manipulation issue as a trade populist message. I think a large reason for this was donor influence and there you might have a point. Had Romney been able to command more base donors, he might not have depended on the big business investor class for donations. This prevented him from winning IA, WI, MI and OH, and also prevented him from running up the margins in non-Philly metro PA.
2. Romney's pivot to the right on social issues to satisfy the base, prevented him from expanding in socially moderate suburbs in places like Colorado and NOVA, as well as the Philly Burbs.
3. Romney's immigration positions kept him locked into lower percentages with Hispanics, but even beyond that his embrace of Paul Ryan also hurt him in both this group and the Midwest Populist group.
Frankly, in trying to preserve completely the Reaganite balance, Mittens locked himself out. He should have picked one area and pushed it hard to generate enthusiasm. He couldn't deviate from the base on social issues and he couldn't undo how he got nominated. Romney's only real chance was to go hot and heavy on trade and immigration populism the same way Trump did, but even then he still had his reputation and Bain background working against him.
