At the Washington Post Kim Soffen and Scott Clement report that Trump’s victory in November was not due to a higher turnout from uneducated white voters as had been speculated:
White non-college-educated people were no more likely to vote in this presidential election than in the previous one. Trump’s victory was not due to a spike in turnout among his base supporters.
But there were significant changes in turnout in other demographics. Significant drops in black and Hispanic turnout in some states may have cost Hillary Clinton some previously blue states.
Turnout among blacks plummeted from 66 percent in 2012 to 59 percent in 2016 — similar to where it was when John Kerry was on the ballot. No other racial group saw such a substantial change between the elections.
When you break those numbers down further, a peculiar trend emerges: White people without college degrees turned out at just under 58 percent, less than a percentage point higher than in 2012.
In other words the reason that Obama won in 2008 and 2012 was due to the high black turnout in those election years. This year Obama wasn’t on the ballot and that black vote did’t materialize.
The effect was apparently particularly pronounced in Midwestern states:
The other states that flipped between the elections saw no meaningful change in white non-college-educated turnout. For many of them, what made the difference was the drop in black or Hispanic turnout. In Ohio, where Clinton lost by 8.6 points and Obama won by 2, black turnout dropped from 72 to 65 percent.
And in Michigan, where Clinton lost by a mere 0.3 percent and Obama won by 9, Hispanic turnout may have dropped by half, according to Census Bureau estimates. That number has a significant margin of error —14 points — but the drop is nonetheless significant.
I’m not sure what to make of those results but they can’t be comforting to Democrats. Will another black candidates be able to garner the support among blacks that Obama did? Will a black vice presidential candidate be able to supply the magic?
I also wonder if there’s been a sort of reverse Great Migration. Are all of those expected black voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin still there?
“I also wonder if there’s been a sort of reverse Great Migration. Are all of those expected black voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin still there?”
I read an article, perhaps last December, making just that point. However, they took it farther. Observing:
Black influence is being diluted as old, industrial cities rot and blacks diffuse to the Charlottes, Atlantas and Dallases of the world. Hispanics are far less prone to reflexive Democrat voting than blacks, and…it puts a tension particularly into electoral vote-rich Florida between leftish immigrants and rightish retirees. Both growing rapidly.
Florida is interesting. Generally not appreciated, it’s a big farm. And you have an awful lot of people on Harley’s or in RVs in the panhandle (and elsewhere) wearing MAGA clothing or stickers. You have Republican strongholds in SWF from Naples up to Tampa, and Democrats in this thing mostly indistinguishable from South America called Miami. I don’t really have a grasp on Orlando. Lots of different currents here, but unlike Chicago in IL, Miami doesn’t rule the state.
It makes the Democrats play for coastal cities latte drinkers and aggrieved minorities, while abandoning the upper Midwest and South, suspect. Prediction is hard, especially about the future.
Additional evidence: election results in North Carolina and Georgia.
And I should have noted, if its not obvious, that black migration can tip a WI or MI, but gets lost in just strengthening the Atlanta, Dallas or Charlotte county vote totals. And if they don’t even show……….
Reading Shattered is interesting. They really convinced themselves that they would take Georgia?
They were probably using voter registration lists. New registrations will show up when people move and register to vote in their new home districts. However, there won’t be a similar deregistration in the old district.
“Reading Shattered is interesting. They really convinced themselves that they would take Georgia?”
Wouldn’t be surprising. I think the Hillary was surrounded by a core of true believers. But, I think that i spar for the course. Romney really thought he was going to win.
Steve