Did having a person of color on the #Presidential_Ticket in 2008 and 2012 raise voter turnout among the #Democratic_Party’s most loyal constituency?
A comparison of the total number of registered voters and total ballots cast in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections in the Harris County Zip Code areas with the highest percentage of African American population shows the Black vote’s importance in a Presidential election.
The voter turnout in predominantly African American Harris County Zip Code areas was 57% in 2012 when President Barack Obama was on the ballot, and 52% in 2016 when he was not. Also, a review of the aggregate voting and registration totals in Harris County’s State Representative Districts held by African Americans, garnered from Harris County’s Election website, shows a 3% decrease in voter turnout from 59% in 2012 to 56% in 2016. More significantly, if the number of ballots the predominantly African-American zip code areas in Harris County produced in the 2000 November Election is used as a baseline to measure voter participation in succeeding Presidential Elections, the growth was a respectable 13% in 2004 and a remarkable 32% in 2008 and 2012.
The zip code areas analyzed include 77004, 77016, 77031, 7026, 77028, 77033, 77047, 77048, 77051, 77078 77091. Of Harris County’s overall African Americans population, these zip code areas comprise about a third of the County’s African American Population.
In Texas, the application to register to vote does not require persons to provide race or ethnicity. So, there is no certain way to know who is registered to vote or who voted in zip code areas or political districts that are perceived as predominately African American. Even so, according to the US Census, in the eleven zip code areas examined, African Americans constitute 78% of the population; and, Latinos constitute 16%. However, age and citizenship status greatly diminish the Latino population’s electoral strength in these zip codes. This means, there is a high probability that about 90% or more of the electorate in these zip code areas is African American.
In any Election, voter decreases of 3% to 5% from a political party’s most faithful voters make a big difference in the outcome of a contest in jurisdictions where the election is close. If the lower voter turnout in 2016 in Harris County in predominantly African American areas also occurred in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin, that may explain the result in the contest for President of the US.
In Harris County, the result in the 2016 Presidential race favored the White female Democratic Party affiliated candidate by 12%. For that reason, some politicos believe the local outcomes were due to the presence of a White female on the Presidential ticket. While it may be true that the White female candidate won the nationwide popular vote, politicos should know that in Harris County 59% of the citizen voting age population is comprised by Americans of African, Latino, and Asian descent. And, in Harris County, and probably in jurisdictions with similar demographics, these groups contribute up to two-thirds of the votes Democratic candidates receive in presidential elections.
There are many factors which determined the outcome of the US Presidential Elections which have taken place in the last fifty years. Of twelve elections, Democratic Party affiliated candidates have won five times. In 1976, the Democratic Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter won by sweeping the South. The election result may have been the aftermath of Republican US President Richard Nixon’s impeachment and eventual resignation, and the weak candidacy of Republican Gerald Ford. In 1992, William Jefferson Clinton, another southern Democratic Party candidate, won the Presidency without winning 50% of the vote in a single state in the nation. In that instance, the Independent candidacy of billionaire Texan Ross Perot was the determining factor of the election result. In 1996, Clinton was re-elected largely because of the power of incumbency, a booming economy, weak opposition and another Independent Presidential bid by Ross Perot.
Since 1972, Barack Obama has been the only Democratic Party candidate in twelve contests for the Presidency who obtained the office with a clear majority of support from the voters in each state which he won (without any asterisks).
Each election has its own dynamic. But, no one can deny that in electoral politics, in the end, it is always about who is on the ballot that can compel voters of color to the polls in numbers that will make the difference like President Obama did in 2008 and 2012.
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(Héctor de Leon is the writer of Hector de Leon Perspective. Hector has devoted his life to carrying out initiatives via private and public entities to provide citizens the information to understand and access the voting process.)
