Something interesting is popping up in recent swing state surveys. Obama is underperforming among black voters. According to Survey USA, John McCain is garnering a significant chunk of Black voters in critical swing states:
15% of Ohio African-Americans,
17% of Indiana African-Americans,
20% of New Jersey African-Americans,
21% of Florida African-Americans
These numbers seem remarkably high given the fact that George Bush got only 11% of the Black vote in 2004 and that was a marked improvement from 2000 when Bush got only 9% of the Black vote against Al Gore. How do we make sense of this?
This might be a particular phenomenon among Black voters in swing states. I went back to 2004 to compare Kerry’s performance to Obama at the same time in the race. According to Survey USA, these were the percent of Black voters who were supporting George Bush in early October of 2004.
Florida — 10/1 – 16%
Indiana — 10/3 – 16%
Ohio — 10/3 – 20%
New Jersey 10/3 15%
These figures are slightly lower than McCain’s totals at the same time in 2008. This given the fact that a) Obama is a Black candidate and b) 2008 is a much more favorable climate for Democrats.
More surprisingly, this represents a drop In support for Obama from June, when Survey USA was in the field in these states here were the results:
New Jersey – NA
It is an even greater drop if you look at polls during the primary (except for Ohio)
This raises a few interesting questions. Why is McCain’s support growing among Black voters in swing states? One answer might be fear of what an Obama president might do for race relations? The Boston globe had a headline reading “WHite Supremacists Hope Obama win Creates Backlash”
Another interesting question is whether a chunk of these voters “come home” to the Democratic party. To understand this, I looked at each state’s final exit poll and found some migration back to the Democrats.
What do you think explains all this?
Comments 3
Kenneth M. Kambara — October 1, 2008
Great compilation of stats. I recently saw the Black Politics Survey, which may shed light onto why demography and preferences seem to be out of whack.
"The survey also shows that the presidential race is a statistical dead heat and that there are wide racial and ethnic differences in the level of support for the two candidates. Obama has a slight edge over McCain - 47% to McCain's 45%, an advantage that is within the 2% statistical margin of error. 92% of blacks say they will vote for Obama compared to 4% for McCain. A majority of whites (56%) express support for McCain while a little more than a third of whites (36 %) reported support for Obama. A majority of Hispanics (57%) support Obama while a third of Hispanics backs McCain (33%)."
I don't know how to reconcile this with the SurveyUSA data, but I think what might be going on in the swing states is a complex interaction of race and other drivers of behavior. I'll have to look at this more in-depth to make any inferences, but looking at the California numbers (frequencies versus means), I can see that there is a diversity of opinion of blacks regarding both McCain and Obama.
Kenneth M. Kambara — October 1, 2008
The link to the Black Politics Survey didn't work above:
http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/publications/press_releases/black_politics_survery.html
jose — October 1, 2008
Hmmmm....interesting puzzle here. My morning class had some good issues to consider. Age might be an issue...older voters in general are more likely to support McCain. Another hypothesis could also be that swing states help produce swing state voters. It would be nice to look at breakouts in other polls like today's CNN/Time polls that have Obama with big leads in VA, PA, FL.