10/21/2008

Racist Voting?

The other day, I heard someone suggesting that blacks were voting for Obama solely because he is black. So, I did a little digging.

Harris Polls says that Obama has an 88 point lead over McCain among black voters. CNN’s exit polling after the 2004 election showed that Kerry had a 77% lead over Bush (88% vs. 11%) among black voters. Their exit polling after the 2000 election showed Gore with an 80% lead over Bush (90% vs. 10%) among black voters.

So around 75-80% of the lead can be attributed to blacks as a demographic preferring democratic candidates. What about the remaining 8-10%?

Well, lets not forget that the democratic candidate lost both the 2000 and 2004 elections. In 2000, he led in the overall popular vote by about 0.5%. In 2004, he trailed in the overall popular vote by about 1.5%. In contrast Harris says that Obama has about an 8% lead among all registered voters right now. So, Obama is doing about 8-10% better in the runup to this election than the previous democratic candidates were .

It all fits pretty neatly together… and without having to invoke any racist voting behavior on the part of African americans.

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