Divided America by Earl Black & Merle Black

Author:Earl Black & Merle Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Two groups of white women—nonevangelical Protestants and Catholics—were the most important swing groups. For both groups, the Democratic base exceeded the Republican base in the Democratic strongholds and the Midwest. A very different pattern prevailed in the Republican strongholds, where majorities of Catholic women and nonevangelical Protestant women were Republicans or conservative independents.

In the combined Democratic strongholds, the Democratic base exceeded the Republican base by 10 points (48 percent to 38 percent) among all voters. Because the size of the Democratic advantage varies among the states of the Northeast and the Pacific Coast, and because short-term electoral factors do not always benefit the party with a larger base, Democrats do not win all of the elections in their strongholds. But as long as their substantial advantage persists in the electorate, Democrats should win most elections for federal offices in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast—as they have done in recent cycles. In 2004 Democrats had huge victories in their two regional strongholds: 98 percent of the electoral vote, 69 percent of the Senate seats, and 63 percent of the House seats. Democrats and liberal independents in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast accounted for two-fifths of the nation’s entire Democratic base.

For the combined Northeast and Pacific Coast electorate, the three most pro-Democratic groups—African Americans, non-Christian whites, and New Minorities—made up 42 percent of all voters. Large majorities of each group were part of the Democratic base. In addition, pluralities of nonevangelical white Protestant women and white Catholic women, another 25 percent of the voters, were Democrats or liberal independents. Of the three pro-Republican groups in the Democratic strongholds, the Republican base was a majority only among white evangelical Protestants, a group that cast only 12 percent of the vote. The Republican base outnumbered the Democratic base by much smaller margins among nonevangelical white Protestant men and white Catholic men. Republican weakness in the Democratic strongholds was striking: the GOP led the Democrats among groups that made up only one-third of all voters in the combined Northeast and Pacific Coast.

Very different patterns occurred in the Republican strongholds of the South and the Mountains/Plains, where the Republican base exceeded the Democratic base by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent. Bush won 100 percent of the electoral votes in the two Republican strongholds. In addition, the Republicans held 65 percent of the House seats and 75 percent of the Senate seats. Republicans and conservative independent voters in the South and the Mountains/ Plains accounted for 45 percent of the entire Republican base in the United States.

The Republicans’ advantage in their regional strongholds has been based on their strength among five of the eight groups presented in table 5.1. White evangelical Protestants—by far the most pro-Republican group—made up 30 percent of the voters in the Republican strongholds. Among the white evangelical Protestants, the Republican base outnumbered the Democratic base by 72 percent to 21 percent. They were two and one-half times as large in the Republican strongholds as they were in the Democratic strongholds.

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