Yes, Racism Cost Obama Four Million Votes

[n2doc]

BY SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ

As a graduate student in economics, I have used Google search data to quantify the cost of racism on President Barack Obama's vote total. I compared the rate at which areas made racist searches on Google to Obama’s vote share, controlling for the vote share of the previous Democratic candidate, John Kerry in 2004. After a large set of robustness checks, I estimated that Obama lost about 4 percentage points of the popular vote (more than 4 million total votes) from racism in both 2008 and 2012. Furthermore, he only gained about 1 percentage point from increased black turnout, and I found little evidence that he gained additional white voters due to his race.

In a recent piece, The New Republic's Nate Cohn took issue with my findings. "Much of the correlation between racist searches and Obama’s performance can be explained by two important trends in political geography that pre-date the first black presidential candidate," he wrote, pointing to "the long term decline in Democratic fortunes in the South and Appalachia" and that "Western states … possess an anti-incumbent streak."

I can see why someone would be skeptical that racism was such a large factor, given that Obama won 53 percent of the electorate in 2008 and 52 percent of the electorate in 2012. But most agree that 2008 was a remarkably favorable year for Democrats, and that Obama's 2012 performance was middling for an incumbent. In addition, I do take seriously the possibility of an "Emerging Democratic Majority" as well as the possibility that Obama is an unusually skilled campaigner who ran unusually effective campaigns. In other words, a candidate with these advantages might have performed significantly better were it not for racism.

As a researcher applying a new data source to a difficult problem, I am always open to alternative explanations for my findings. However, neither of Cohn’s two arguments fits the data. Cohn first hypothesizes that some of Obama's poor performance, relative to Kerry's, in places with the highest racist search rates was the continuation of a long-term trend away from the Democratic Party in those places.


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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112915/author-obama-racism-study-responds-nate-cohn-criticism

[John2]

1. I agree with his

analysis and Obama himself refuse to recognize the history of racism in this country. Obama became President both times because of the basic fact, the country is changing demographically by math numbers. The fact remains that he got only 39 percent of the white vote, which was less than 2008, while his percent of the minority vote rose. There is a large minority of the white vote, mainly in the North and West, that are hardcore Liberals. That is probably at least 90 percent, maybe even more of that 39 percent of whites. The country is basically divided along those lines. And the safety net programs favor their interests more. He would even get more votes among Whites, if there wasn't outright racism and voting against their own interests. Instead of thinking about other Americans as those people, they should see them as other Americans like themselves, because their interests are the same. The republicans have a tight hold on the South because of this. If you look at the voting numbers along racial lines by region, this is explicit. Obama did well among all demographics, except one. Yet it is tailored as the other Demographics are wrong and voting along racial lines and not the one Demographic. It is either race or every Demographic is stupid except whites in those regions. I did not vote for President Obama both times just because he was Black. I hope the President doesn't believe that himself also. They did not vote for him to cut anything. They voted for him to fight for their issues. Anything less would be considered a betrayal.