“As Republicans think about how they can expand their voter base, the new data suggest that one of their biggest problems in the last presidential election was that so many less-educated whites sat home,” said Steven Camarota, CIS’ director of research and author of the report. CIS favors low levels of legal immigration

“These voters, who have been hit hard by the recession, have traditionally supported Republicans,” Camarota said. “It seems likely that by supporting the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, GOP legislators would further alienate these voters.”

To win the popular vote with female support, Romney would have needed four extra percentage points of the women’s vote (48 percent rather than the 44 he actually received), with each percentage point equating to 714,000 votes.