The Black vote in 2008

Pardon me if I begin this with a little crowing, since I attracted considerable heat months ago by declaring that Barack Obama would win this election in a landslide and that the Black vote would reach unprecedented levels.

Both of these materialized. So, I will go on to describe briefly the performance of the Black vote in this election, knowing that it is always dangerous to talk statistics this soon after the election is over, with votes still being counted. But I will try to give some estimates nevertheless.

First, the impression that the Black community turned out to vote in big numbers was confirmed by the fact that it reached 25 percent of the total Democratic vote, given that the total vote was more than about 125 million and Barack Obama won by more than 52 percent.

This was also based on the estimate that the Black vote turned at a rate of 95 percent of those registered and 60 percent of those eligible. Nevertheless, we are not able to claim, as before, that the Black vote was the decisive difference in the election, because the increase in voting was elevated by all groups.

When one looks back in this history of the Black turnout, the highest level was in 1964, at 58.6 percent, a year before the Voting Rights Act was passed.

This was because of the tremendous enthusiasm toward Lyndon Johnson who had provided the leadership to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So, a turnout of 60 percent of all eligible voters would be historic.

In any case, this performance means that no one group can claim to have been the decisive vote in this landslide because Obama won nearly all of the demographic groups, those under 18-35 and 35-65, those under $50,000 and those over, and both genders. But about 52 percent of whites and about the same number of the elderly voted for John McCain.

Therefore, one must add to the 48 percent of Whites who voted for Barack Obama, the Black vote and the fact that 65 percent of Hispanics, 77 percent of Jews and 55 percent of Asians put him over the top.

The performance of these groups was magnified by the fact that so many of the white voters in the conservative rural areas were not motivated to vote.

Where the high turnout of the Black vote obviously made a difference was in North Carolina and Virginia. Both of these states were firmly in the Republican “red state” column traditionally, but the high turnout of Black voters, together with a coalition of Whites and the youth vote surprisingly pushed them into Obama’s camp. One could say the same thing about three northern states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Black churches all over the country were once again hotbeds of activism, as their buses rolled both for registration drives and for get-out-the-vote activities on election day. The day before the election however, Barack Obama had a conference call with Black leaders, many of whom were ministers, to stimulate them to participate strongly in turnout activities.

Near the end of the call, they heard Rev. Joseph Lowery's moving call for them to saddle up, once again, and help to fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream.

In the spirit of this call, after the election, in North Carolina Grammy winning Pastor, Shirley Caesar-Williams said that, “God has vindicated the Black folks.”

About 40 percent of the new voters were Black, and it was amazing that so many Blacks who had never voted before came literally out of the woodwork to vote for Obama, spurred on by the fact that now, perhaps a Black person had arrived who could truly win the White House if they supported him.

About one-third of all early voters were Black, and this group, together with those who exercise the absentee ballots were wise, because they cut down the long wait in lines at polling stations and as such, cut down the voter disfranchisement tactics that were prepared for them by Republican operatives.

For example, if you voted early or by absentee, for example, it was often impossible for someone to check your ID at the polling station, as is allowed in many states. So this practice should be continued. Could Obama have won without the Black vote? Not really. More than the voting was in this.

Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park.

______

Copyright 2008 Chicago Defender. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.