The Rise of the Non-Whites
I’m seeing Obama’s win spun all over the place as a heartwarming triumph of racial reconciliation. And that’s true if you mean reconciliation between African-Americans and Asian-Americans or Latinos. But when you look at the ethnic/racial breakdown in terms not only of the share of each group that Obama won, but also the share of the group in the total electorate, you’ll see that Obama owes virtually nothing to improved performance among non-Hispanic whites. Here’s my chart:
John Kerry won 41 percent of the (non-Hispanic — assume “white” = “non-Hispanic white” throughout this discussion) white vote, and Barack Obama improved to 43 percent of the white vote. But the white vote declined from 77 percent of the electorate to 74 percent of the electorate. As a result, 31.57 percent of voters were white people who voted for John Kerry in 2004. In 2008, the tally was very similar — 31.82 percent of voters were white people who voted for Barack Obama.
The big difference is that Obama increased the share of the black vote from 11 percent to 13 percent, increased the share of the “other” vote from 2 percent to 3 percent, grew his share of the black vote by seven percentage points, grew his share of the Hispanic vote by 13 (!) percentage points, grew his share of the Asian vote by five percentage points, and grew his share of the “other” vote by 11 percentage points. Consequently, while just 16.12 percent of 2004 voters were non-white for Kerry, fully 20.15 percent of 2008 voters were non-white for Obama. That 4.03 percentage point increase was the difference maker. McCain, despite the collapse in GOP party identification, despite Bush’s unpopularity, despite the economic crisis, held his own among white people. But he got slaughtered by a much bigger margin among non-whites, and his white base shrunk.
50 Responses to “The Rise of the Non-Whites”
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November 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am
But Matt, isn’t the fact that Whites turned out in the same numbers (slightly higher, actually) for an African-American candidate itself the point?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
if you’re going to use em dashes, please use them correctly. an em dash gets no spaces, like this “text’emdash’text”. an en dash does get spaces, “text ‘endash’ text”. you used an em dash with en dash spacing.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Did you have to make me ashamed to be a white person on this wonderful morning in America?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Glenn-you have to control for the fact that the incumbent was the most reviled President in modern history. Really hard to judge one way or the other given that. But again thats not what gave Obama a win.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Long term, I think this is troubling for republicans. For me it’s the code language they use like “real Americans” or “family values.” When I was a republican (we all make mistakes), I was welcome as long as my Jesus was blond, spoke only English, and preached tax cuts for the rich. Republicans have a tough row to hoe. They are getting older and have by and large given Hispanics a big “FU”.
Still, “white” votes are 74 percent of the electorate. If dems can continue to split that vote and republicans continue to shun “non-whites”, then it will be a long road in the wilderness for the republicans. Aside from the exorcist Jindal, who it the potential “non-white” republican face out there?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I agree. My concern a year ago was that white Kerry supporters would find rationalizations to vote Republican. I suspect that a small number actually did, but that they were more than replaced by young white voters.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I’m with Glenn on this one. There doesn’t need to be a flow of conservative (i.e., non-Kerry) whites voting for Obama to call it “racial reconciliation”–just evidence that Obama’s race didn’t hurt him in any serious way among white voters. Keeping pace with Kerry’s numbers among whites is exactly that evidence.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Historically, and correct me if I’m wrong, 80% of Dem.s and 80% of Rep.s vote the party line, regardless of what the nincompoops in Washington are doing. I’m with Glenn; a viable alternative explanation is that this data shows exactly how little race mattered in this election. What Matt is arguing, while it may be true, is not sufficiently supported by the data he’s providing.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I was thinking exactly what Glenn said.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I think lumping all white people together somewhat obscures what happened. As I understand it, Obama’s increase in share of the white vote versus Kerry came disproportionately from college-educated white voters. And while nationally that may not result in quite as many points as the trends among non-whites, I suspect in some individual states (and districts, if you are looking at this from the perspective of the Party as a whole), the addition of more college-educated white voters to the coalition was a difference-making development.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Matt uses letters incorrectly. He believes that as long as the letters he’s arranged, or their nearest neighbors on the keyboard, comprise some word in some language, he’s done his part. The rest is up to the reader. Expecting proper use of exotic instruments like the “emdash” is overoptimistic. I’d recommend applying your efforts to easier tasks like developing clean, cheap energy rather than correcting Matt’s usage.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I think your graph is portraying the data to coarsely, painting with to broad a brush.
Obama did much better with certain segments of white Americans than did John Kerry, much worse in others. This split is telling. This is where you should look to see the changes Obama wrought.
Here’s one premature (pre-analysis) take: Obama improved dramatically on Kerry’s performance with college educated (or better) white voters. Those who could see through the propaganda and fear mongering (after 8 years it’s about time), voted for Obama, those who were swayed by it did not, in very large numbers.
(an afterthought: how would these numbers have looked different if the VP had been Lieberman instead of Palin).
November 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I with Matt on this one. The 2008 election is really the first time we saw a successful running by the NEW Democratic coalition (blacks, hispanics, non-white immigrants, young whites and educated whites).
The days of trying to glue together union members, urban white ethnics and blacks are long gone.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Good post. I’m hoping Matthew will do a post on the hardcore racist vote, which Obama won by 57-41. Racists for Obama, unite! (Luckily, only 2% of the voters were hardcore racists.)
Non-hardcore racists seem to have split in favor of Obama by the same percentage as non-racists.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I’m sorry, I have no idea what the vertical axis represents. Someone please help.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Botswana Meat Commission FC,
I’m not sure you ARE with Matt. Judging from this post, at least, he seems to be implying increased support from the last two groups on your list (young whites and educated whites) was not an important component of the success of the new coalition.
But hopefully he quickly realizes the error of his ways and starts breaking down white people into the relevant subgroups.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
“Good post. I’m hoping Matthew will do a post on the hardcore racist vote, which Obama won by 57-41. Racists for Obama, unite! (Luckily, only 2% of the voters were hardcore racists.)”
The funny thing is that it really is a good post.
Matthew illuminated well.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Fuck your cynicism, Matthew. 43% of white Americans (along 53% of the country as a whole) just voted to elect an African American the President of the United States. Any way you slice it, that’s big deal.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:06 am
That’s some serious glass half emptyism. The fact that Barack Hussein Obama improved Kerry’s pull among whites, even slightly, with the pull skewing young is a huge deal. The fact that he did that while performing so well among black voters (that ‘white people’ didn’t freak out because of the ‘block vote’) is amazing. The fact that he did so in the teeth of a fairly large quantity of nasty appeals which, if not overtly racial, reached for the cultural divide is amazing.
That is truly, truly some serious glass half emptyism. Stand back and take in the moment!
November 5th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I thought Democrats have always lost the white votes, at least recently? Am I wrong? Even good old boy Clinton lost, right? The fact that Obama did not do worse than Kerry should be the point. Surely Matt is not expecting that white voters who normally vote Republicans would suddenly switch Democrats just because Obama is black to somehow prove racial reconciliation?
November 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am
OK, so improving the white vote didn’t make a big difference– but Obama did better than Kerry among white voters while not, in fact, being white himself.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Re: side from the exorcist Jindal, who it the potential “non-white” republican face out there?
Alan Keyes, of course. As for Jindal, I rather like him, though I don’t agree with most of his policies.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:37 am
It’s also possible that the Republicans might abandon their economic and largely Southern white identity and transformed themselves into a socially conservative, economically left-leaning movement that could appeal to many highly religious African American and Latino voters. Possible, but hardly likeley.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I agree with the optimists here, but note that even if Matt is right, Obama’s presidency will probably cause racial reconciliation by, if nothing else, making racism harder to ignore.
Andrew Sullivan seems like a prime example of this. He was never one of the more hateful or reactionary conservatives, but he hyped The Bell Curve and opposes affirmative action. He endorsed and supported Obama for other reasons, along with a lot of other non-crazy Republicans and ex-Republicans.
But now that they have identified with Obama, and already pushed back against some racially-tinged and outright racist attacks, I think they’ll be more likely to do so going forward, even on issues where they might otherwise agree with the substance of the criticism.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
The stat is a bit misleading because the independent vote was higher, and presumably nearly all white. Where can I find a McCain/Bush comparison?
November 5th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Matt-
I think a straight percentage comparison here is not telling the story correctly.
Obama got 2% higher share of whites in a much bigger electorate which saw much higher turnout!
In terms of aggregate #, McCain only slightly underperformed Bush and outperformed Kerry-whether this holds up on a state by state level we will have to see.
But very clearly, anecdotally at least. Obama got many people to vote who had not voted ever or for decades including whites. If we can show comparable performance on a state by state level of McCain to Bush, the case can be made that the whole Obama package-hope + inspiration with an wextraordinary political machine made the difference.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
“transformed themselves into a socially conservative, economically left-leaning movement that could appeal to many highly religious African American and Latino voters.”
Um, that’s impossible: White Protestant social conservatism in America was explicitly founded on incorporating a defense of late-stage capitalism. The Fundamentals, which were funded by a pair of rather wingnutty oil moguls (not the best soil for left-leaning economics), explicitly and repeatedly state the formula “evolution = socialism = new Biblical scholarship = anti-Christian.”
November 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Obama got 2% higher share of whites in a much bigger electorate which saw much higher turnout!
Anyone have actual turnout figures?
November 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
What troubles me most about Matt’s blog entry is this statement: you’ll see that Obama owes virtually nothing to improved performance among non-Hispanic whites. I hope you mean to say Obama’s victory owes virtually nothing to improved performance among non-Hispanic whites.
Not only does Obama owe it to everyone who voted for him to be their president, but he owes it to the whole country.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Relevant to this discussion, on the front page of the NY Times there are a series of maps, on of which show in which counties Obama did worse than Kerry. While there are some patches of Arizona, Alaska and Massachusetts (which can be explained by McCain, Palin and Kerry respectively) most of the counties are located on a strip starting in SW Pennsylvania, down through West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Eastern Oklahoma, down all the way to Cajun country. Those counties are all Southern and White, so you can see how White Southerners trended. It seems that in other parts of the country Whites moved towards Obama. Whites in, say, Indiana or North Dakota, and in many other places, trended towards Obama.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
i think danny is right. i spot-checked 2004 vs. 2008 exits in places like alabama by race; the average hides a change in the distribution regionally.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Re: Um, that’s impossible: White Protestant social conservatism in America was explicitly founded on incorporating a defense of late-stage capitalism.
So what? That was in the 19th century. Many of those people also favored Prohibition and opposed women voting back in the day. Neither postion is at all common nowadays (in fact, both are markers of true fringe nutcasery). Movements wander away from their founding principles all the time. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are not what they were in 1870. And the Huckabee boomlet shows that among Evangelicals there is plenty of room for economic populism if not outright leftism. The only thing reall holding this back is the fact that many of the Religious Right leaders are themselves very wealthy men who have no desire to inflame the passions of hoi polloi on these matters.
Re: Whites in, say, Indiana or North Dakota, and in many other places, trended towards Obama.
When not much else was going on last night, CNN did some county analysis in IN, VA and FL, showing that even in randomly chosen rural counties going for McCain in those states Obama was often doing better, even much better, than Kerry had done.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
So to combine these two lines of discussion, even supposing they wanted to, how does the GOP survive the transition from a party whose support is increasingly concentrated as per the NYT map into a party “that could appeal to many highly religious African American and Latino voters”? I agree that there may be ways in which economically and socially this coalition makes sense, but can they actually get over the racial and cultural issues? Not to get reverse-Rovian, but wouldn’t it be pretty easy for interested parties to wedge apart that coalition just by, say, bringing up something like immigration, affirmative action, English as an official language, or so on? Indeed, having spent so long getting these people to vote against their economic interests basically through fear of the other, can the GOP really flip that switch into reverse?
November 5th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Your logic is flawed. When looking at the 2% difference at the top of the bars, don’t ignore the rest of the bar. Remember it represents tens of millions of European-American voters who just voted for Obama.
A decline in support for the Democratic candidate from 2004 to 2008 among Americans of European heritage might have been interpreted as reflecting racist attitudes among those few (though there may have been other reasons). The fact that Obama did slightly better than Kerry, could indicate that Obama was supported by European-Americans simply because he was the Democratic candidate and ran a good campaign. Race was not an over-riding issue. And that is good.
The data better supports the assertion of racial reconciliation, though it is weak evidence.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I think there’s no way we can discuss “White People” without first separating the regions.
Ohio and PA were called really quick last night – He took 46% of the White Vote in Ohio, and IIRC he took 50+% of the white vote in PA.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
But Matt, isn’t the fact that Whites turned out in the same numbers (slightly higher, actually) for an African-American candidate itself the point?
Yeah, but Bush wasn’t the most unpopular President ever back in 2004. Otherwise he would’ve lost in a landslide. The conditions were way more favorable for a Democrat this time around – yet Obama got the same share of the white vote. I think it’s a pretty safe inference that his race was a drag. And I mean, imagine if he was a pretentious awkward douche like Kerry. How awful would he have done then? He’s a brilliant politician, charismatic likable guy, running in the most favorable political environment for a Democratic presidential candidate since at least 1976, and he didn’t improve on Kerry’s share of the white vote. That’s the point.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
DTM,
Not necessarily. I don’t think the motivation has been ‘fear of the other’ as much as it has been ideological opposition to the ideas about personal morality promulgated by liberals. Republican campaigns in the last 20 years or so have been heavy on talk about abortion, gun rights, homosexuality, and so forth, and not (at least as far as I can tell) about appeals to race. You can paint immigration as a race issue if you want, but I’ve never perceived it that way. It seems clear to me that from a neo-Thomistic point of view, mass immigration is generally a bad thing, as it undermines local identity and solidarity with one’s community, and contributes to more individualism in society. In Europe, of course, there is the additional problem that immigration contributes to the creeping Islamization of society. On the other hand I don’t get very excited one way or the other about immigration, other than that I think calling it a race issue is ridiculous. One of Britain’s strongest opponents of creeping Islamization and the cultural effects of immigration, is Bishop Nazir-Ali, who is himself a Pakistani immigrant of Muslim origin.
Ultimately of course it doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what Black and Latino people think. If they feel that affirmative action, making Spanish a coequal language to English, and allowing relatively liberal immigration policies are important to them, then any party that wishes to appeal to them will need to support those issues. Personally I feel that changing to a bilingual society and allowing more immigration would be well worth being able to build a socially conservative, economically progressive coalition.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Can it be said that this is the first time in the history of Western Civilization that Whites, and particularly White males, did not determine the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth? Consider Ancient Greece, Rome, Great Britain, the U.S., etc.
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