How Many Votes Did Obama Lose Because He Was Black? A Whole Lot.
It should come as no surprise that racial animus was a factor in the historic 2008 presidential election, but until recently it was unclear how many votes Barack Obama lost because he was an African-American.
The answer, according to a new study that analyzed data from nearly 200 media markets which included over 99 percent of voters, is dramatic: Racial prejudice cost Obama between 3 and 5 percent of the vote, meaning he would have won between 56.7 and 58.7 percent of the vote if the country as a whole was as tolerant as its most tolerant area.
Researcher Seth Stephens-Davidowitz used Google methodology to grapple with people’s unwillingness to reveal racial prejudice in polls and surveys and his results comport with other similar analyses using more traditional methods of determining racial prejudice.
Meanwhile, researchers Simon Jackman and Lynn Vavreck concluded in a second study (.pdf) that if Obama was replaced with a white candidate, the Democrats would have won the 2008 election regardless of who they nominated, but the average Democratic Party nominee from the last 16 years, and either John Edwards or Hillary Clinton, would have done better against McCain than Obama with a 3 percentage point increase for Edwards and Clinton by a mere half a percentage point.
A third study (.pdf) by Benjamin Highton estimated the effect of white prejudice on white voting and then “removed” the prejudice effect to see what additional states Obama might have won, along with attempting to give a sense of the uncertainty about the prediction. He found that Obama probably would have won in a landslide: About 450 electoral votes instead of the 365 that he received.
In the run-up to the election, polls found that a small percentage of voters said they might turn away from Obama because of his race, a confirmation that few people will admit to be racially prejudiced.
An AP-Yahoo News poll found that Obama would receive about 6 percentage points more support if there was no racial animus, and the results suggested that 40 percent of white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, including more than a third of white Democrats and independents. A small percentage of voters — 2.5 percent of those surveyed — said they may turn away from Obama because of his race.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicated that race would play a big role.
Asked if race would be a factor in their vote, 37 percent of respondents said yes. But of that group, many are Republicans who are not likely to vote for any Democrat, and some are Democrats who may vote for Obama because of his race.
Of the 8 percent of Democrats who told CNN they plan to vote for Obama’s GOP rival, Sen. John McCain, half said race was a factor.
27 Responses to “How Many Votes Did Obama Lose Because He Was Black? A Whole Lot.”
He lost MO because he is black. Granted, it was close, but close enough for racists to make a difference.
granted I have no data to back this up…just many many boat and river trips in the state.
So what should we do about that? Set up a regulatory body to ensure people are voting against candidates for “good” reasons rather than “bad” ones?
OK, I haven’t had time to parse the methodology but it sounds like they’re strictly factoring in the lost votes from whites who voted according to racial animus but not simultaneously factoring in the extra votes from the historically unprecedented black voter turnout?
Certainly nothing wrong with an attempt to measure the downside for Obama of being black, but at the level reported here I’m pretty sure it was outweighed by the upside (not to mention that many WHITE voters were more likely to have voted for Obama because of his race, as expressed by the pride in voting for the first African American president. I doubt that many voted for him strictly for that reason, but it certainly caused a buzz that led to greater turnout among whites and nonwhites.)
CStanley:
You are correct. Only the white vote was factored in, and that has been criticized by some observers as skewing the result.
Having weighed this until my head felt like it would explode, I have to disagree. The white vote was the white vote, period, and only that vote is pertinent in an analysis of racial prejudice against Obama because the number of Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders and other minorities who might be prejudice against blacks would be statistically insignificant.
The black vote and the reasons for that vote are an entirely different matter, as is turnout.
The bottom line if the studies are to be believed, and I do believe them overall, is that racism is alive and well in the voting booth. No surprise there.
Shaun, it’s not so much that I disagree that this was an accurate way of measuring prejudice…but where I disagree is the conclusion that this ‘cost him votes’ overall because I think that the net result was probably positive rather than negative if the AA vote tallies had been factored in.
CStanley:
I see your point . . . but a vote against Obama because of his skin color is a “cost” vote regardless of the AA turnout.
“So what should we do about that? Set up a regulatory body to ensure people are voting against candidates for “good” reasons rather than “bad” ones?”
If the data can be believed, perhaps step one would be to acknowledge that we’re not in a post-racial era, and that that does make a difference in real things for real people? Maybe have the humungous portion of the white population of the US stop pretending racism doesn’t exist, or can only be manifested in violent ways by dudes with swastica tattoos?
People are allowed to be as racist and as idiotic as they want, and they’re allowed to write in the Grand Dragon of the KKK for president if that’s who suits them. We don’t have to change our voting laws to look at 3-5% of the voting population and realize that very, very few of those people are active members of racist organizations. Your suggestion that the reactionary leftists must be plotting some sort of groupthink laws is ridiculous. That’s not the only way to change things, Dr J. There’s value in this, even if it only means that the next time folks like you proclaim that nothing that ever happens could possibly be connected to racism because nobody involved came out and said “I hate black people! N-word!”, we can remind you that, no, that’s not always what racism looks like.
“but a vote against Obama because of his skin color is a “cost” vote regardless of the AA turnout.”
In a world with no racism — the world where these numbers reported wouldn’t exist — the fact that Obama is black wouldn’t necessarily mean a bump in black voters. Of course, it would also mean that black voters would be turning out in better numbers anyway. So I don’t think the point really matters either way.
roro80:
It also is my view that the point doesn’t really matter either way.
I could see this among older voters who just couldn’t seem to come to terms with voting for a black man for president- my mother-in-law, a lifetime Democrat couldn’t overcome her prejudice despite her dislike of McCain.
The study uses the uses of the “N-word” (in Google searches) as a proxy for racial bias and then correlates that how Obama did with respect to Kerry. It assumes that if the vote for Obama didn’t increase as much in places where racially charged words were used in searches, that lack of increase reflects “votes lost” due to racism.
While it is actually an interesting paper, the reaction in they general public, as usual, seems to be reading too much into it. Aside from the question of whether the use of racially charged words in searches really indicates “racial animus”, you have the general issue of correlation vs. causation. The paper probably draws the mostly likely conclusion, but one shouldn’t be fooled that there is a real level of uncertainty inherent in all this.
This idea that we we can say that Obama’s share of the vote would have been 3-5% higher if he was white is probably to uncertainly to mean much. It assumes there are not other causes the hurt him (racism not discovered) or help him (people who vote for him because he was black, better press coverage because of the “historic” nature of his candidacy, etc.) This is almost certainly wrong.
C’mon, we know racism no longer exists – especially on the right! Hallelujah! It’s a new day! . . . . . . (Hey now, don’t be lookin in that closet!)
correlation vs. causation Too funny!.. Thanks davidpsummers
Setting aside quibbles over whether the president represents “real people”, whether winning by a few more percent is a “real difference” and whether the studies even demonstrated that, what would the acknowledgment you’re describing accomplish?
Liberal writers keep citing case after case of “racism” disconnected from both significant consequences and proposed remedies, so the ensuing arguments seem purely semantic. Sure, by some definitions of “racism”, the Republicans are guilty, and the tea partiers are guilty, and a good fraction of voters in Missouri are guilty. But if you’re not proposing to do anything about it, and if the alleged “victim” is the most powerful man on the planet, what does it matter?
I’m sure some people voted against Obama because he’s black, and others voted for him for the same reason. Probably some voted against him because he’s too tall, or not tall enough, or because he’s a Muslim, or a Democrat, or because he’s not a war hero, or because he’s from Chicago, or Hawaii, or Kenya. These matters are probably of concern to the Obama campaign, but I don’t see why any of us should care, much less fund studies on the subject.
I’m still wondering how a man, half black heritage and half white heritage and raised by white people, is identified as black only… not by only some others, but expecially, seemingly, by himself. This is a mystery to me yet. Political expedience I suppose is one explanation, but that would mean a huge number of the electorate would have to be blind and deaf and uniformed to buy that a biracial person is only black or only white. Maybe the needle is stuck, but Barack is both white and black: he is biracial. I wonder too, is that where the backlash really is, against what used to be called ‘mixed blood’ and worse monikers. Just wondering out loud, just an .02
Dr. J —
“Setting aside quibbles over whether the president represents “real people”, whether winning by a few more percent is a “real difference””
I was talking about the voters, not the president. Those voters are likely coworkers and bosses and…people who interact with other people. I thought that was obvious — please excuse the lack of clarity.
“Liberal writers keep citing case after case of “racism” disconnected from both significant consequences and proposed remedies, so the ensuing arguments seem purely semantic.”
Well, no. The reason it’s important to talk about racism against the president is because he represents as far as anyone, really, can go. If a light-skinned, super-rich, well-educated, good-looking black man who also happens to be the most powerful person in the world is subject to the ugliness of racism, it’s absolutely unbelievable that normal, “real” people don’t experience it. And, really, “case after case” shows that it does, in fact, have huge consequences (“real” ones), and solutions are difficult to find but many have been proposed. Many have been enacted, and many are being fought for right now. Things not helpful? Pretending there’s no problem. Pretending that all the real, lived experiences, as well as the resulting data, doesn’t exist in order to pretend we live in a post-racial world is pretty crappy, in my opinion.
And sure, all the anti-tall-bigots sure did come out to the polls to vote against Obama. That’s a great theory, dude. You’ve cracked the code. Jesus Christ, Dr. J.
I’m pretty sure I saw a similar study of how many Americans didn’t vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic. End of the day its SCOREBOARD!
It’s curious that none of the posts on the topic here ever seem to identify these huge, real consequences, much less discuss solutions. They point to Congressional opposition to Obama, or incendiary things Rush Limbaugh said, or race-based political cartoons. And we’re left to infer that therefore Racism is alive and well, and Racism is causing great actual harm to real people somewhere, but the harm and the people are never identified. That’s conspiracy-theory reasoning: taking evidence of any one piece of the conspiracy to mean all the much-worse things you’ve imagined are true too.
I’m asking for a higher standard of evidence. If you want to talk about real harm, talk about real harm. A guy who won his election by a few points less than he might have isn’t a great poster child. Especially if his race might actually have won him more votes than it cost him.
And I’m also asking for solutions. Rains will fall, and toes will get stubbed, and people will offend each other for this reason and that. Problems you can’t fix generally aren’t worth kvetching about. If solutions have been proposed, let’s talk about them.
Dr J, I’m not going to recreate a hundred thousand studies, experiences, and pieces of activism here for you. There are excellent resources out there that do nothing but talk about these issues if you’re interested. A few topics have been covered here, but it’s a political blog, so it’s scarcely surprising that we get stories about politics.
What is it lately around here with righties telling me I need to recreate thousands of hours of work here for them to believe that they exist? Did everyone collectively forget how to use the google? I mean, i know the pount is to derail and just get me to get exhausted and frustrated so i’ll go away by making me document and notate and hyperlink every piece of evidence ever on a particular topic, but Jeez….it’s just such an intellectually dishonest way to discuss things. Like racism is proven not to exist if I don’t want to personally solve and/or recreate the work done toward solving all the problems of the wold.
Actually the point is to understand why Shaun and you and others find it useful to keep writing in this pattern: defining racism in the vaguest way, reporting fresh discoveries of it in fairly benign situations, and not proposing any solutions that might draw meaningful debate. You must perceive some benefit from it, but what?
Yeah, that’s not what you asked. Meaningful discussion of such things is pretty useless when it is always (yes, always) derailed by people like you who seem extremely entrenched with the idea that it doesn’t exist. I’ve had many, many useful conversations discussing different aspects of racism and how to combat it. Having to go back and justify in every single case that yes, this concept does exist, it is real, it has effects is not conducive to such things. I mean, seriously, Dr J, when discussing matters of race, how many times have you insisted on this board that suchnsuch situation couldn’t possibly be racist? There is literally nothing racist enough to justify it to people like you — having a public personality yell the n-word over and over again, Pat WhatsHisButt rewriting history to make slavery seem awesome, people literally voting for the white guy against the black guy because the black guy is black, people of color being more likely to die due to lack of insurance, more likely to be out of work, more likely not to be able to afford college, more likely to get many diseases, more likely to be victims of violence, make less on the dollar for the same job, have worse health care and health care results even when controlled for income, less likely to be called back on their resume if they have a black or ethnic “sounding” name, less likely to get the job if they go in to interview, more likely to be living in poverty, less likely to have proper nutrition, less likely to receive a good *public* education, … and hell, I haven’t even gotten into any of the intersection issues involving women of color or LGBT people of color or disabled people of color or how the particular non-white race changes the stats and the experiences on basically every single one of these situations.
Yeah, maybe none of that matters to you. For people to whom it does matter, I have had great success in having productive discussions. They don’t happen if I have to spend my time looking up specific articles and studies and personal experiences on all of them (which won’t be taken seriously by you anyway) to just get to “hey, there’s a problem here”, at which point you then expect me to spend as much or more time discussing every plan that every existed to fix said problem. So go off and pretend everything’s just a matter of bootstraps and my inability to have a goal or a vision, and that that makes every problem simply not exist. Oh would that I had such power.
roro:
Amen and ‘Illegitimi non carborundum’
One of your fans.
Not once. I’ve said it depends entirely on your definition, and that you favor a broader one than I do.
A variety of causes contribute to people of color having less insurance and employment, more violence and disease. We should focus on the causes we have leverage to fix. We don’t have much leverage to fix racism, if you define that as subtle biases inside millions of white people’s heads, so to blame all these problems on racism is to pour concrete over them. We have dramatically more leverage to fix more specific causes. How about we improve schools? How about we end the war on drugs?
@Dorian — ah, thanks hun, and likewise. Big hugs.
@Dr J — First, uh…yes you have. Second, that’s not how I define racism, but we’ve talked about all that before. Third, improving schools and ending the war on drugs would be great. However, if they’re done in ways that don’t take into account the communities most affected (or, as is often the case in education, any extra money is thrown at programs that basically benefit white rich kids), you’re not actually going to show any improvement. Furthermore, you’re not going to get any leverage to make the changes needed if “it’s because they’re lazy” is given as the reason these problems exist in the first place.
Geez, Roro, that might be the closest you’ve come to agreeing with me in a year. I’ll take it.
@Roro – Above you see why many (me at least) have stopped even trying to communicate with “these people”… They live on another planet and are obviously unable to understand words written in the English language.
How could anyone who had read the comments in this thread come to the conclusion that you were agreeing with “J”?
Heaven (pun intended) help us!
I didn’t quite say she was agreeing, did I, Steve? Just that this was the closest she’d gotten to it; we have some common ground on schools and the war on drugs. You’d perhaps prefer I highlight our points of disagreement? It seems to me we’ve had plenty of those already.