New Study Finds Black Voter Turnout Plummeted In 2016 Election

[DonViejo]

By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published MAY 8, 2017 11:31 AM

A new study co-authored by political science professors and a policy analyst from the think tank Demos finds that Donald Trump’s electoral college victory in November depended heavily on an increase in white voter turnout and an even bigger decrease in turnout among African-American voters—particularly in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Comparing data from the voter file vendor Catalist and the U.S. Census Bureau, the researchers concluded: “Without those shifts in turnout from various racial and ethnic groups, these pivotal states might have gone not to Trump but to Clinton — giving Clinton an electoral college victory.”

The study, published Monday in the Washington Post‘s Monkey Cage blog, found that between 2012 and 2016, white voter turnout jumped 2.4 percent nationally, while black voter turnout fell 4.7 percent.

The split was even more dramatic in the midwestern states that tipped the scales for Trump. In Ohio, black voter turnout dropped 7.5 percent; in Wisconsin, it declined 12.3 percent; and in Michigan, it was down 12.4 percent.



more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/study-black-voters-2016-election-trump-hillary-wisconsin

[2naSalit]

1. Well, considering how

the community was purged and rejected by SOSs... they may have "turned out" but weren't allowed to vote, so....

[JCanete]

14. definitely a factor that shouldn't be ignored. nt

[bettyellen]

2. When are we going to see reporters interview black voters? Never.

[JHan]

7. Yes, a gutted voting rights act probably has nothing to do with it.

[LanternWaste]

12. Bless your heart.

It also happens when gerrymandering, a gutted VRA and systemic voter suppression is effective. However, I understand the need to channel each and every reason into one easy-to-digest, delicious little taste of bias.

Bless your heart.

[exboyfil]

13. Looks like Trump was extremely popular

Look at how the white voter percentages went up.

He got 2 M more votes than Romney.

[uponit7771]

22. Or voter suppression happens? ... yeah... see, when we ignore facts ... well....

[George II]

37. But it generally doesn't happen when one is very popular, which our Democratic candidate was.

[loyalsister]

38. "The New Jim Crow" was published in 2010 and continues to get a lot of attention

It was not a smear job. And it was not unfair. 13th was released on Netflix in October. It would not be surprising if both contributed to the unpopularity of our candidate.
Both articulated facts, numbers, and historical context that had been missing from conversations about race. It's nothing new, but it was laid out point by point and past political endorsements and behavior may have hurt our candidate.
It was a huge miscalculation to not factor in the awakening that book inspired and how important it would be to have a high black turnout.

[yodermon]

4. Crosscheck, eom.

[moda253]

6. This!

This hasn't gotten anywhere near enough play in conversations and the media.

[Turn CO Blue]

27. we don't even know the numbers cleared summarily off the voter rolls using Cross Check

hundreds of thousands but it was primarily black and brown voters, and many with Asian surnames too.

[progressoid]

28. Not necessarily. A lot of those states (WI, NY, DC, CA, etc) don't use crosscheck.

https://healthofstatedemocracies.org/factors/intercross.html

[nikibatts]

5. Pretty much thanks to the lies that were believed and spread by black activist groups led by

Prof. West, Smiley, Belafonte, Turner and others. There is no question about it. The fake news was real and the lies were rampant. Not much you can do about that except in hind sight.

[Dem2]

10. Thanks

Good post.

[JCanete]

17. what lies are you referring to that came out of Belafonte or West or Smiley's mouths? genuine

question.

[geek tragedy]

8. Though there are numerous causes, most prominent factor would be going from Obama to Clinton.

Similarly, African-American turnout spiked up when the Democrats went from Gore and Kerry to Obama.

[frazzled]

18. Yes, Obama received the highest black voter turnout ever

It was slightly less in 2012 than 2008, but it looks like mostly all that happened was it returned to normal levels. And then, yes, there were other issues about voter access, state by state. And yes, less enthusiasm overall. It would have been nice if the turnout had been higher. But then it would also have been nice if the 18-29 (Millennial) vote had been higher. That group remains the lowest turnout among all age groups.

[geek tragedy]

26. baseline for % turnout within demographic groups should be 2004 or 2016, not 2008 and 2012

Bush came really really close to winning Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2004, and Michigan was in doubt and only a few % points.

Democrats were way too overconfident in those states in 2016, given that we were running a vastly inferior candidate compared to Obama.

[frazzled]

30. No, not vastly inferior at all

She was more experienced and policy savvy than Obama (whom I supported over her in the 2008 primary, so I'm not being biased here), had the same positions, if not more progressive, in many areas. She simply had several things going against her: she was a woman, and she had had years of hateful, false accusations thrown at her.

She was a good candidate who, in my opinion, ran an excellent campaign (better than Kerry's, for sure).

The woman thing is still huge. Let me just venture that I dare say the recent race in France would have been significantly closer had LePen been a man. I still don't think her male version would have won (for many other reasons:Trump and Brexit, and a country, like Germany, that had already sustained a fascist regime that they're not anxious to repeat), but I do think it would have been quite a bit closer.

[geek tragedy]

34. Experience and policy knowledge are completely irrelevant to how good a candidate someone is.

Obama was one of the most gifted--if not the most gifted--politician of a generation. His political instincts and ability to connect with voters were extraordinary.

Clinton herself--while certainly a formidably knowledgeable and intelligent career public servant--didn't have that touch on the campaign trail. Even her own staff referenced her "suboptimal instincts."

Clinton's biggest problem--leaving aside gender--was that she was never credible as a candidate of change the way that Bill was in 1992, or that Obama was in 2008, or that Bernie and yes Trump were in 2016. She was a status quo/establishment candidate in 2008, and even much moreso in 2016.

[frazzled]

39. Those judgments are evidence, imo,

of a double standard for male and female candidates. She was self-admittedly no great orator (though she gave an excellent convention speech), but she killed at debate skills, and brought many other virtues to the table that no male president perhaps ever did. Kerry and Gore were not great speech-givers either. A lot worse, imo. And her people skills were very good: did you watch her connect with people on a very personal level on the campaign trail and in town halls? I did. And everyone who has worked for her, in the Senate and State Department, extols her personal, caring style. We heard the testimonials from regular people she wrote to and followed throughout the years.

Yes, Obama was a cool guy, and a good guy. He's still my hero. But so is Hillary Clinton. She did nothing wrong besides exist.

The other factor we forgot to mention is the extreme bar to exceed for a Democrat getting elected after two terms of a Democrat. Hadn't happened since Martin Van Buren.(Both B. Clinton and Obama were fortunate to run after Republican presidencies—riding on the ever-fickle public's desire to switch gears and give the other side a try every so often.) One would have thought that Trump was the exception that would break the rule: so vulgar, ignorant, and hateful, it was difficult to see how more than a small contingent of equally ignorant, hateful people could picture him in the position and vote for him. That is the issue that has sent me into major existential crisis since November 8: how, no matter how "bad" you thought Hillary Clinton was, how could you not see the train wreck that Trump was. My faith in humanity was smashed, and still is.

[geek tragedy]

40. I see H. Clinton as very much similar to Gore and Kerry, with B. Clinton and Obama

being in a different category--charismatic, instinctive politicians who have genuine star power.

H. Clinton's campaign was most like Gore's 2000 campaign. Bad time in the cycle, Dems nominate a technocratic caretaker/holdover, emphasis on competence, knowledge and understanding yields a popular vote win and electoral college loss. And Gore suffered the worst media treatment of any presidential candidate in any election cycle--and was also suffering from being the subject of an FBI investigation.

Given a semi-rational electorate H. Clinton would have done to Tr*mp what Macron did to Le Pen. But the American electorate is extremely irrational and devoid of issues-based voters.

[delisen]

9. Vote Suppression Works if it is not forcefully challenged

Propaganda works if it is not completely discredited.

I was glad to see the French voters pick up the democracy torch. If German voters are also canny we may get some space to to turn things around.

[JI7]

21. The court striking down vra makes it more difficult

[uponit7771]

23. +1

[exboyfil]

11. On the one hand I smell a rat

Look at the states with the biggest drops. They were ones in which the Republican party controlled the voting apparatus (MI, WI, OH).

On the other hand - a 9% drop in DC?

Only a 2.1% drop in Pennsylvania?

[Retrograde]

15. I'd like to know more about where these numbers come from

Voter registration forms in my state don't list race or ethnicity, so I'm assuming the count for Black voters comes from looking at results from precincts or districts that have a large majority Black population, and making some assumptions about the actual voters.

[Exilednight]

41. Exit polling data.

[JI7]

16. And they will continue making it more difficult to impossible

for some to vote

[JudyM]

19. Michigan, especially Detroit, was a freaking mess.

http://time.com/4599886/detroit-voting-machine-failures-were-widespread-on-election-day/

[dembotoz]

20. never understood minority groups affection for bill

and in the spirit of truth, bill was not my fav either...perhaps that taints my perception.

This is not an attack on Mr Clinton but perhaps the clinton name had a lower resonance in that community
than was assumed.

Think hrc would have been better for these communities than bill, but in the end that apparently never got out

[uponit7771]

24. Or voter suppression?

[Turn CO Blue]

25. Was it truly lower turnout or purged voter rolls, suppression tactics, caging?

They're only comparing ONE SIDE of the data.

A good study would also compare the data points on the front end (voter registration rolls year over year), not just on the back end (voter turnout).

Otherwise, it's only HALF of a study.

[That Guy 888]

32. I'd like to hear more about that too. Ignoring GOP election fraud won't make it go away.

Every election cycle it gets more brazen as their voter pool of faux news believers dies off.

[Botany]

29. Trump is on record bragging about surpression of the black vote.

The story isn't about all the old pissed off white people who voted for Trump
but the millions of A.A. who were kept from voting or having their vote counted.

[progressoid]

31. Huh?

DU keeps telling me it was Bernie's fault.

[spanone]

33. republicans: mission accomplished.

[countryjake]

35. I suspect the continued blood flowing in our streets...

may be one of the contributing factors in the results of that study.

When nothing is done to even attempt to end the white supremacist system our nation's government functions under, while this country's Criminal InJustice System remains unchallenged, and actual Equality, both social and economic, is still as elusive as ever, (and getting worse by the year), it's naive to assume that the main targets, victims, and survivors of such oppression are unable to see clearly.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season'." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Black Lives Matter

[jack69]

36. Voter intimidation, etc.