The Black and Youth Waves Were Real

I have noticed that several political writers and pundits have been claiming that African Americans and young people failed to turn out in the huge numbers that people were expecting. Recently the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza claimed that it is a "myth" that "a wave of African Americans and youth voters was the key to Obama's victory."

The truth is that African Americans and young people did turnout in large numbers for Barack Obama and were important to his victory.

According to exit polls, African Americans made up 11% of the total vote in 2004 and 13% in 2008. 2% does not sound like a lot, but that is a huge jump. That means African Americans increased their percent of the electorate by 18%. But overall turnout was higher in 2008 than it was in 2004, so in fact 22% more African Americans voted in 2008. A 22% increase in turnout among African Americans had a huge impact on Obama's victory. Not only did African Americans vote in large numbers, but they also voted more heavily for Obama. Obama received 32% more votes from African Americans than John Kerry. That allowed him to net 4.6 million more votes from the African American community than John Kerry. Only 3 million votes separated George W. Bush and John Kerry and 8.5 million votes separated Barack Obama and John McCain.

Similarly, the youth vote only increased from 17% of the electorate to 18%, but the vote was overwhelmingly for Obama. Barack Obama received 34% more votes from 18-29 year olds than John Kerry. That is a net positive of more than 5.9 million votes from youth voters than John Kerry.

32% more African American voters and 34% more youth voters showed up to cast a ballot for Barrack Obama than John Kerry. This is a huge surge given that overall turnout was higher only by 4% in 2008 than 2004. If John Kerry had preformed as well as Barack Obama among African Americans or young voters, he would have won the popular vote.

Beat the Pollsters (NC: Obama wins 54% to 46%, IN: Clinton wins 53% to 47%)

Given that Democratic primary has been more about demographics than policy, I'm going to use past exit polls and demographic data to predict what will happen tomorrow. I suspect that my simple analysis could easily beat the large polling companies.

Let's start with North Carolina:

NC is 22% African American. In the rest of the south, the percentage of the Democratic electorate that is African American tends to be between 135%-196% greater than their overall share of the population. The average is 166%. If the trend holds I would suspect African-Americans will make up 36.5% of the electorate tomorrow.

State	AA% of Population	AA% of Electorate	Percent Increase
Georgia	30	51	170%
Virginia	20	30	150%
Louisiana	32	48	150%
Alabama	26	51	196%
Mississippi	37	50	135%
Tennessee	17	29	171%
South Carolina	29	55	190%

It has been reported that 40% of all early voting has been by African American. I read that the Obama campaign has made early voting a large part of their campaign efforts so I suspect the overall AA percentage of the Democratic electorate will be slightly less than 40%.

North Carolina is better educated and wealthier than Mississippi and Alabama but slightly less educated and poorer than Georgia. Obama got 26% of the white vote in Mississippi and Alabama but received 43% of the white vote in Georgia. Given the current tone of the campaign and the election trends, I suspect Obama should receive about 34% of the white vote in North Carolina. So here is my breakdown of how North Carolina will look tomorrow:

Vote	Overall	Clinton	Obama
Africian American	36%	10%	90%
White (and Others)	63%	66%	34%
Overall	100%	46%	54%

Headline: Obama Wins 54% to 46%

Next let's look at Indiana:

Indiana should be very similar to Pennsylvania and Ohio, which Clinton won by 10 points. All three are rust belt states and in all three Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by the most prominent statewide Democratic office holder.

Indiana is less educated than Ohio and Pennsylvania and has few African Americans. This is good for Hillary Clinton. The only positive demographic figure for Obama is that Indiana has fewer citizens over 65. I'm assuming these slight differences will balance out. Given all this, Hillary Clinton should win Indiana by about 10 points.

The wild card element is how much the Chicago's media market overlap into Northern Indiana should help Obama. I think the effect will be noticeable but not game changing. While Indianans should as a result "know" Obama better, Obama should be very recognizable figure to most voters after this long primary battle. I would be surprised if the proximity factor helped Obama pick up more than an extra 2-4% of the vote.

Headline: Clinton Wins Indiana 53% to 47%

Sloppy Reporting, Pushing the Race Narrative

The Hispanic vote has been one of Hillary Clinton's most important constituencies. In most contests she won them by large margins. It is a fact that Hillary Clinton has done better with Hispanics than Barack Obama. There are many reasons that could explain why Hillary Clinton has preformed better among Hispanic voters, yet those reasons are almost never mentioned. Overwhelming the story has been not "Why does Clinton do well with Hispanics?" but, "What is Obama's problem with Hispanics?"

The media decided that Obama's poor performance was based on race. When Sergio Bendixen, a Clinton pollster, said, "The Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," the MSM took the statement at face value. The "Black-Brown divide" became the prism through which the Hispanic vote has been viewed. A disturbing narrative was created; Hispanics were not voting for Hillary Clinton, they were voting against a black man.
There are some personal reasons why Hispanics may have voted for Senator Clinton. Years ago she did some work trying to register Hispanic voters in Texas. Her husband appointed several prominent Hispanic officials, and the Clinton presidency was seen by many as a very good time for the community.

While race or personal loyalty may have played a small role in how Hispanics voted, I do not believe that 45 million Hispanic Americans are driven by a strong sense of personal loyalty or are by racism. I suspect that Hispanic Democratic primary voters are just like all other Democratic primary voters. I think the Hispanic vote is based on the samesocio-economic patterns that have defined the Caucasian vote so far.

I say "suspect" because the exit pollsters do not report on the Hispanic vote based on income or education. They do break down the vote based on age, gender, and party affiliation. On these three criteria the Hispanic vote does follow the same pattern as the Caucasian vote. Males, younger voters, and independents voted more for Obama. Females, senior citizens, and Democrats voted more for Clinton.

Exit polls demonstrate that Clinton's support is strongest among low income voters and those with the least formal education. Across the board, Clinton has preformed best with those making less than $50,000 a year and those with the least education. In California, for example, she received 80% of the vote from those who had not graduated high school. This pattern holds true both in states that have almost entirely Caucasian electorates and in states with large Hispanic populations.

Given that nationwide, the median income for a Hispanic household is 30% less than that for a white household and that the Hispanic community has the lowest proportion of individuals with high school diplomas, one could assume that the Hispanic Democratic electorate would also tend to be lower income and have less education. It would seem that Hispanics are following the same income/education pattern as Caucasian Democratic voters.