Last week I had a discussion of the recent election with a friend of mine who considers herself a moderate. She complained to me that Obama won because African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for him because of his race, and she didn’t think that was right.
I disagreed with her. In the first place, I explained, African-Americans in recent decades always vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate for President (although not quite as much as they did for Obama). They have a very good reason for doing that, as going back at least as far as FDR, the Democratic candidate has always promoted policies that are more favorable to most African-Americans – and most other people as well – than the Republican candidate.
And secondly, I told her that Obama probably lost more white votes than he gained black votes because of his race.
But what about the claim that Obama needed the African-American vote to win this election? I didn’t say anything about that because I didn’t know if it was true. Not that it should matter. African-Americans should have just as much right to decide an election as anyone else. But still, the claim that he needed the African-American vote to win, if true and widely publicized (which Republicans are certain to do), could serve to hamper his presidency by making him seem to have a narrower mandate than he really does.
So, I thought that these things were worth considering and looking into. To assess the claim that Obama needed the African-American vote to win the election, I looked at state
exit polls for all 50 states. What I found I think is very interesting. But first let’s consider some historical perspective.
Racism in the old ConfederacyIt occurred to me that Obama was probably hurt badly in the 11 states of the old Confederacy, due to persisting racist attitudes. The states of the old Confederacy have not yet fully thrown off the attitudes of their slave holding past. As explained by James Loewen in “
Lies Across America – What our Historic Sites Get Wrong”, the southern landscape of the United States even today is filled with monuments and historical markers that celebrate and glorify the old Confederacy, with hardly a mention of the Union side of the Civil War, except in a very pejorative context. Worse yet, those monuments and historical markers do much to twist the facts, hide embarrassing events, and justify the “cause” that the Confederacy fought for.
Loewen’s book is full of examples of how historical markers in today’s South attempt to justify slavery. I had previously been aware of the many means by which slaveholders attempted to justify slavery, but until I read Loewen’s book I was unaware of the extent to which such self-deception continues even today, 143 years after the end of slavery. Here is just one example from Loewen’s book:
Historic markers in Tennessee honor
Nathan Bedford Forrest above any other person in the state, with a statue, an obelisk, and 32 historical markers – more than the three former U.S. Presidents from Tennessee combined, and more than any other person in any state in our country. Yet, as Loewen explains:
In so doing, the landscape honors one of the most vicious racists in U.S. history. Forrest had been a slave trader before the Civil War and sold people brought in illegally from Africa half a century after Congress supposedly ended that trade in 1808. During the war, he presided over massacres of surrendered black troops… After the war he hired black convict labor, the closest thing to slave labor, for his cotton plantation near Memphis.
In choosing to honor such a man above all others, the authorities in Tennessee essentially are honoring and justifying the slave trade, slavery itself, war crimes, and the terror used to subjugate the Black race for several decades following the Civil War.
The White vote in the old Confederacy in the 2008 presidential electionSo, I thought that it would be interesting to look at the white vote in the recent election. As I expected, in the 11 states of the old Confederacy, the white vote went overwhelmingly for McCain, with 10 of those 11 states delivering more than a 20 point White vote margin to McCain:
The White vote in states of the old ConfederacyAlabama: McCain + 78
Mississippi: McCain + 77
Louisiana: McCain + 70
Georgia: McCain + 53
South Carolina: McCain + 47
Texas: McCain + 47
Arkansas: McCain+ 38
North Carolina: McCain + 29
Tennessee: McCain + 29
Virginia: McCain + 21
Florida: McCain + 14Florida was the only old Confederacy state that gave McCain less than a 20 point margin. Florida is different than the other states of the old Confederacy in that it contains a much larger percentage of transplanted Northerners – in other words, people without a hereditary link to slave owners.
By contrast, of the 39 other states, in only 6 did White voters give McCain more than a 20 point margin. Those states included the border state of Kentucky, plus five deep red states that haven’t voted for a Democrat for President since the 1964 Lyndon Johnson landslide over Barry Goldwater (Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Idaho). Oklahoma’s White voters gave McCain the largest margin of those states – 42%.
The White vote in other statesThe contrast between the White vote in the states of the old Confederacy and most of the other states is tremendous. I was surprised to see the number of states in which Obama won the white vote, and the margins by which he won it:
States in which Obama won the White voteDistrict of Columbia: Obama + 74
Hawaii: Obama + 43
Vermont: Obama + 37
Massachusetts: Obama + 20
Rhode Island: Obama + 19
Maine: Obama + 18
Oregon: Obama + 17
Washington: Obama + 13
New Hampshire: Obama + 10
Wisconsin: Obama + 9
Delaware: Obama + 8
Minnesota: Obama + 7
California: Obama + 6
New York: Obama + 6
Connecticut: Obama + 5
Michigan: Obama + 4
Iowa: Obama + 4
Illinois: Obama + 3
Colorado: Obama + 2
Electoral votes: 222How Obama could have won the Electoral College with just the White and Hispanic voteWith only White voters voting, Obama would have won approximately 222 electoral votes – quite a respectable showing. But Obama also heavily won the Hispanic vote (+ 36), the Asian vote (+ 27), and all other races combined (+ 35). When just the Hispanic vote is added to the White vote, Obama picked up several more states:
States in which Obama won a combination of the White and Hispanic voteNew Mexico: Obama + 10
New Jersey: Obama + 5
Maryland: Obama + 4
Nevada: Obama + 3
Electoral votes: 35That would have given Obama a total of 257 electoral votes – just 13 shy of an Electoral College victory.
All of the above noted states very likely would have gone to Obama even without the African-American vote. In addition, there is one more state that he
might have won without the African-American vote – Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, which would have put him over the top.
With just the White vote, Obama would have lost Pennsylvania by about 3% according to the exit polls. When the Hispanic vote is added to the white vote, McCain’s lead would have been cut to about 0.7%. But with rounding errors and statistical variation, it could have gone either way. In addition, 2% of the Pennsylvania vote was accounted for by other races. The voting behavior of those other races in Pennsylvania was not measured, due to a small sample size. But they probably voted heavily for Obama in Pennsylvania, as they did nation-wide. That could have made up the remaining difference. So, Pennsylvania could have gone either way without the African-American vote. If it would have gone to Obama, that would have given him 278 electoral votes and the Presidency – even without a single African-American voting.
Race related attitudesOnly 9% of voters said that race was an important factor in their vote, and only 2% said that it was the
most important factor. 80% said that it was of no importance at all. Furthermore, of those who said that race was an important factor, Obama won by 7%, whereas of those who said that race was not important, Obama won by an almost identical 6%.
This all suggests that race had little to do with the results of this election. But perhaps many people just weren’t willing to
admit the extent to which race influenced their vote.
Another way to approach this question is to ask voters “
In the next few years, race relations will…” Analysis of the answers to that question was very interesting, in that it showed a very strong correlation between voting for Obama and optimism about race relations in our country.
Race relations will…. Get much better: Obama + 49
Get somewhat better: Obama + 38 Stay about the same: McCain + 10
Get somewhat worse: McCain + 36
Get much worse: McCain + 55That’s amazing. Though Obama and McCain voters split almost equally on the question of whether race was an important factor in their vote, voters who were optimistic about race relations in our country voted overwhelmingly for Obama, whereas voters who were pessimistic about race relations in our country voted overwhelmingly for McCain. Unfortunately, the answers to that question were not broken down by state. But if they had been, I would wager a lot of money that voters from the states of the old Confederacy voiced much more pessimism about race relations in our country than did voters from the other states.
SummaryRacism is still alive in our country, but it is much more evident in regions where slavery flourished into the mid-19th Century.
The reason for that is clear. Almost everyone has a great need to think of him or herself as a good person. Slavery was a brutal system that dehumanized its victims. How can a person think of himself as a good person when he brutalizes and dehumanizes other people for economic gain? The only way to do that is to tell yourself and make yourself believe that those whom you dehumanize are barely human to start with. Those were the attitudes that prevailed in the U.S. South during the slavery era.
But long-standing attitudes don’t just suddenly disappear when the stimulus that gave rise to them disappears. If the attitudes are deeply felt, they are transmitted down through the generations. Consequently, long after slavery ended in the South the former slaves and their descendents were marginalized, brutalized, discriminated against, and dehumanized – as evidenced by the proliferation of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the South.
While racial prejudice in other parts of our nation receded, as evidenced by the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it remained strong in the South. Not only did these events not change attitudes in the South, but they resulted in
widespread migration of Southerners from the Democratic to the Republican Party, in retaliation against the Democratic Party, which most Southerners held responsible for these happenings. For example, following the 1960 election, all 22 U.S. Senators from the South were Democrats. By 2005, 18 of 22 U.S. Senators from the South were Republicans.
These attitudes were reflected in the 2008 Presidential election – as evidenced by White Southerners and those who are pessimistic about race relations in our country voting overwhelmingly for John McCain.
In marked contrast, White voters from other regions of the country voted for Barack Obama in large enough numbers that, by themselves they would have given him 18 states and 222 electoral votes. In 4 or 5 additional states, White voters voted for Obama in large enough numbers that, when combined with Hispanic voters they would have given him at least a total of at least 257 electoral votes, and possibly as many as 278 – enough for an Electoral College victory. The support of African-American voters combined with Whites and other races to give Obama 5 additional previously red states (Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio, plus an electoral vote from Nebraska), for a total of 28 states and an electoral landslide of 365-173.
But it is a heartwarming testament to the decline of racism outside of the Southern United States that an African-American received so many White votes for president that he might have won a nation-wide Electoral College victory even without the votes of African-Americans. I have to admit that prior to 2008 I did not imagine that I would see an African-American elected President of the United States in my lifetime – even
with the African-American vote.