Election Factoids

Election Factoids from My Mailbox

"Scoop,

I've been poring over the results data obsessively and found three tidbits your readers might be interested in:

1) A lot of people voted for Obama and a Republican House Rep. A LOT of people voted Romney and Democratic Senator, not clear how many but NY, CA and FL are skewing it absurdly far when you tally the total votes, even with the underperformance in MA, CT and NV. Obama won by 2.5 points, House dems won by 0.5 or less. In 2008 the spreads were 7 and 10. The Dems didn't lose on gerrymandering; they put up shitty candidates in races they could have competed in and won.

2) Mississippi swung to Obama by 4 points from 2008 to 2012. It swung to Obama by 6 points from 2004 to 2008. If you look at the swings of the Deep South in general, GA, AL, MS and LA, it went swinging to to Obama by 6.5 points in 2008. It gave up nothing to Romney whatsoever in 2012. You can tack on FL, AR and SC and the picture is basically the same. There are several possible explanations but the most logical one is that the Democrats' fundamentals in the South have swung 6 points in their favor in the last four years. And the implications of that are staggering.

3) Alaska swung 13 points to Obama. 'So what?,' you say, "Palin wasn't on the ticket." It's not that simple. In 2008 the entire GOP ticket massively outperformed polls. By about 12 points. Turnout was surprisingly low. The precincts in the state as a whole stayed a little static or swung a bit to Obama. The greater Anchorage area had a big shift to McCain over 2004. And the low turnout seems mostly to have happened in Anchorage. I'm virtually certain that when the vote is analyzed they're going to find there are 25,000-30,000 more people in the Anchorage area who voted this year. And that it's the only place that had a big swing to Obama in any Red State. Do I need to spell this out? The only question who called in the fix in 2008."

Scoop's note:

I can't address areas #1 and #3, but Mississippi is easy enough to explain. You're looking at an explanation for how Obama 2012 gained 8 points from Kerry 2004, going from -19 (59-40) to -11 (55-44). In other words, it's not eight points were really looking for, but four. How did Obama go from Kerry's 40% to 44%?

In the 2004 Presidential election, 65% of Mississippi's voters were white. In 2012, the number had dropped to 59%. Not only were there more non-white voters in 2012, but a higher percentage of them voted Democratic. In 2004 Kerry got 90% of the black vote. That sounds impressive until you realize that Obama got 96%!! Overall, black Kerry voters accounted for 30.6% of the electorate in 2004, while black Obama voters accounted for 34.6% in 2012.

And there are the four points you were seeking.

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But here's the other side of the equation.

First of all, white people are still 59% of the Mississippi electorate, and 89% of them voted for Romney. That means white voters alone accounted for a sure 52.5% for Romney, which would give him the state even if every single non-white voter in the state had voted for Obama (which they almost did!).

Secondly, it is by no means certain that those levels of African-American turnout and support will continue when the Dems field Hillary or some other bland white person in 2016. I'm not sure we are viewing a trend in the south, or simply a temporary spike caused by the black community's understandable enthusiasm for the first African-American candidate. My guess is that the turnout of black voters will regress to the 2004 level in 2016, and that Hillary will ease back down toward a Kerry level of 40% of the Mississippi vote from Obama's 43% (2008) or 44% (2012).

I haven't looked at every Southern state, but I have to think a similar dynamic is in play elsewhere as well. The South has a lot of African-American voters, and the last two elections gave them a very strong reason to go to the polls. I guess only time will tell how much of that goodwill and enthusiasm will carry over to the next white Democratic candidate.