Many of those who were surprised by President Obama’s re-election wondered how the incumbent was able to survive such dismal economic news. J.T. Young, a former Bush administration staffer in the Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget, writes for Barron’s that Republican Mitt Romney failed “to make a sufficiently convincing case on the money issues.” Put simply, economics “sank” Romney.

Amazingly, 23% of voters rated the economy “excellent” or “good.” Of those, 90% voted for Obama. Of the 77% of voters rating the economy “not so good” or “poor,” 38% supported Obama. …

… Considering the weak economy, the exploding spending, and huge deficits of the past four years, it’s amazing that Romney could not make a better case for managing the economy and the deficit — almost as amazing as the ability of 23% of those polled to perceive a healthy economy in 2012. …

… How politically important was the Republican failure to exploit the money issues? That 23% of the electorate who thought the economy was excellent or good is a minority group as large as blacks and Hispanics combined. And this 23% provided Obama more votes than blacks and Hispanics combined.

If the Republican campaign could have moved about 5% of the electorate from the camp of those voting on their favorable impression of the economy to those who saw it as not so good or poor and voting accordingly, that would have been roughly enough to flip the popular vote to Romney. To get the same effect by successfully courting Hispanics, Romney would have had to win roughly an additional 20% of their vote — a tall order.