A new article coming out in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and discussed in this WaPo column, discusses the way people vote with regards to the race of the candidates. The study was conducted on gubernatorial and congressional races from 1982 through 2000.
In fact, white Republicans nationally are 25 percentage points more likely on average to vote for the Democratic senatorial candidate when the GOP hopeful is black, says economist Ebonya Washington of Yale University in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. White independents are similarly inclined to vote for the white Democrat when there’s a black Republican running.
Boo those racist Republicans, right? Well, yes and then look at the Democrats too:
But racially motivated crossover voting is not just a Republican phenomenon. Democrats also desert their party when its candidate is black, Washington found. In House races, white Democrats are 38 percentage points less likely to vote Democratic if their candidate is black.
Quarterly Journal of Economics
And in the concluding paragraph of the write-up, it is noted that there tends to not be a surge in turnout by blacks for black Republican candidates, only when the Democratic candidate is black.
Interesting stuff. The 2004 Keyes – Obama race comes to mind. With that race, white and black Democrats should have come out in droves for Obama and Obama won in a landslide by a 2 to 1 margin in just about every exit poll category available aside from those identifying themselves as Republican and/or Conservative. Keyes seemingly got an overwhelming majority of the white/conservative/protestant/republican vote according to the CNN exit poll.
But are voters as single-minded as this study is saying they are? Are we still thinking in that manner? Holy fucking Chroist, help us if that’s really true. I firmly believe that racism is just as bad as it was pre-Civil Rights movement. The racism is different, but, I feel just as nasty. But I can’t say anything from firsthand knowledge of that era.
I see this phenomenon in Philly. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but I’ll repeat it.
In the last mayoral election the Democrat was John Street (who is black) and the Republican was Sam Katz (who is white). In my mostly Italian-American neighborhood (at the time), John Street got about 18% of the vote. But Anna Verna, and Italian-American Democrat running for city council received about 85% of the vote.
That is a pretty clear indication that the white Democratic voters were willing to abandon a black candidate in droves, in favor of a white Republican.
Philly is a little distorted though. We don’t really have a Republican Party. So, the real battles are in the Democratic primaries. And those primaries are often racially divisive.
Indeedy, I remember you making that point a couple times to me. I know people who voted for Katz because they disliked Street so deeply, not based on race, but looking at the big picture – the way Philly’s demographics and entrenched Democratic politics work – it’s quite clear how people think. It’ll be interesting in 2007 when there will be [as of now] three whites and three blacks running for mayor.
One, it is not just black candidates, Hispanic candidates are also in the same boat. In 1996, Texas had a chance to vote out Phill Gramm, Victor Morales had a chance to win, all he need was for the white liberals to go and vote. Neither the state and national party came to the aid of Morales, Gramm with all his money was able to launch a media campaign that Morales couldn’t couldn’t even come close too.
In TX we have a Hispanic candidate running for Lt. Govorner and once again, the state party is not going to raise one finger to help. The white liberals are already writing this election off.
So why is it when we in the minority community tell people, it gets dismissed?
Indeedy, this is not simply a black candidate issue. It’s like a Lou Dobbs xenophobic tendency across the board.
I can’t think of a single Asian candidate for any office off the top of my head who even bothered to run. The only Asians in politics I can recall right now are Elaine Chao and Norman Mineta.
We should start supporting each candidates when our Party has decided to abandon us. We do it regardless what state we are in – sort of like forming our own caucus, the People United Causus. We can not let this divide and conquer game go on.
Just look at it, people South of the Border are being targeted for mass deportation, the Chinese are being threaten to be held in detention camps.
We need to come to the table and start talking how to share the power.
Stuff like this makes me glad I live in California – in Los Angeles – with a Latino mayor, dang it!
Not that we don’t have tons of problems and racism to spare, but I still think I live in a genuinely more multicultural environment than most.
I’ll never understand why people are so afraid. Really, it’ll work out fine. Our multi-racial/cultural/whatever make-up is such a huge strength and a competitive advantage. And so much more interesting and rich.
As a P.S., I bought a Team Mexico World Baseball Classic cap (I just love baseball. I do. It’s embarrassing), and it’s my current hat of choice. I’m going to wear it May 1st and hope people notice. I mean, I am a white girl fer shure, but I was born and raised in San Diego, and I am proud to celebrate Mexico and Mexican culture.
And your Latino mayor lead your immigration parade a couple weeks ago! Jealous. No big political figures showed their heads at ours here in Philly. Blech.