Bringing Race Back In: Black Politicians, Deracialization, and Voting Behavior in the Age of Obama by Christopher T Stout

Author:Christopher T Stout [Stout, Christopher T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, History & Theory
ISBN: 9780813936697
Google: sZz3AwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 24207612
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2014-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

Source: 1988 and 2008 American National Election Study. *Significant at .05. Test of means assesses whether Democratic respondents were more or less likely to vote in the 1988 or 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Too few Latinos were surveyed in 1988 to draw any conclusions about this population.

Table 6 displays the percentage of Democrats who voted in the 1988 and 2008 Democratic presidential primaries by race/ethnicity.18 African Americans turned out at similar rates both in 2008 and 1988. More than half of eligible African Americans voted when Barack Obama or Jesse Jackson was on the ballot.19 The results suggest that Jackson, the more racialized black candidate, was not able to mobilize black voters more than Obama, the post-racial black candidate. These results provide more evidence that black candidates who utilize positive racial appeals are not able to mobilize African Americans to a greater degree than their deracialized counterparts. While black turnout did not differ between 1988 and 2008, the presence of a black candidate boosted black turnout relative to whites who generally possess socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., higher socioeconomic status) that make them more likely to vote. In fact, black turnout exceeded that of white voters in 1988 by more than 7 percent.

White Democratic turnout in the 2008 primaries significantly exceeded white turnout twenty years earlier. It rose from 44 percent in 1988 to 53 percent in 2008. The 9 percent difference in turnout is statistically significant at .05. The result may suggest that Jackson’s racialized rhetoric alienated some white Democratic voters. However, the result may also be attributed to the large amount of money spent by the 2008 presidential candidates to mobilize voters. Also, whites may have turned out at higher rates in 2008 because they were more excited about the candidates than they had been in 1988. While most Democrats were enthusiastic about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, many felt that the 1988 presidential candidates were less exciting. For example, former New York governor Mario Cuomo made a joke in 1988 in which a mugger seizes a Democratic voter in Central Park, puts a knife to his throat, and asks, “Which is it: Dukakis, Jackson, or Gore?” “Go ahead and kill me,” replies the victim.20

While there are too few eligible Latino voters in the 1988 ANES to draw inferences about their participation rates, in 2008 it appears that a substantial portion of the Latino community voted when Clinton and Obama battled for the nomination. Almost half of Latino Democrats voted in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. While Latinos generally lag far behind whites and blacks in terms of voting rates, the 2008 election appeared in some ways to erase racial/ethnic disparities in turnout.

Table 7 presents the levels of electoral support for black candidates among black, white, and Latino voters in 1988 and 2008. These results are derived from 1988 and 2008 primary state exit polls. In both elections, the race of the respondent played a large role in predicting vote choice. Black voters overwhelmingly supported both Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama over their Democratic rivals.

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