It may seem a strange day to talk about voters in the abstract when Reagan has just shuffled off his mortal coil, but I have nothing much to add to the discussion of his life, so ...
Josh Marshall commented last week on the inanity [and covert racism] of commentators who claim that without black voters Democrats would be a hopeless, permanent minority party.
With Stephanie Herseth's narrow victory in South Dakota last Tuesday this meme is being repeated, though this time with the claim that Herseth's majority came from Native Americans.
It's nothing more than a tautology to say that without some of the votes a party got, they would lose.
But it's a willful misunderstanding of this special election in particular to claim that it was the Indian reservation that ensured Herseth's victory. Native Americans in South Dakota, like blacks across the country, are [as a group] among the Democrats most reliable constituencies. And getting your strong supporters to the polls is part of winning.
But in the June '04 SD special election, where Herseth reversed the result of the 2002 general election, what changed was that Herseth narrowed the margin in Pennington County (Rapid City), and reversed the results in Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls).
Given that turnout in American elections is pretty low, it's possible, but unlikely, that few individual people changed their votes. What's more likely is that among white people living in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, there were people who changed their minds; who had voted for Janklow in 2002 and now voted for Herseth.
As Ruy Tuxeria will tell you, there's a name for these people who do not consistently vote for the same party -- independents. And it's among those voters that the story of seats changing hands really lies. Those people provide the margin, not the most loyal voters.