Why Don't People Who Benefit From Government Vote For The Democrats???

Since it was published last week, this story by the New York Times has been garnering a lot of coverage.  In great detail and nuance, it tackles a theme and a dilemma that has dominated our politics for at least the last generation.  As the story illustrates, and as their fantastic mapping shows, Americans have become increasingly dependent on government programs, especially entitlements--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, and other forms of income support.  At the same time, the willingness to pay for these programs has declined precipitously.  Hence, the current fiscal straits in which we find ourselves.  Ironically, among those most benefiting from these programs has been an attraction to anti-government rhetoric from the right.

In reading this story and exploring the corresponding map, I began to wonder just how those areas most dependent on government income voted over time.  While the story focused in on one county in Minnesota, I wanted to broaden the scope and see if any interesting patterns emerged.  What I decided to do was zoom in on those counties who had the highest degree of what we might call "dependence"--those who received more than 40% of their income from these sources--these are the counties colored dark red on the NYT map. 

In total, there are 82 counties nationwide that fall into this category (I excluded the Alaska census area because voting data wasn't available for it).  I produced a spreadsheet, seen below, that lists these counties--by state--along with their percentage of government "dependence" as well as two other variables that I thought might be revealing: their racial makeup shown as % white; and their poverty rate (both from Census data).  Oftentimes in our politics there has been an assumption that poverty and government dependence is concentrated in minority communities.  This data clearly refutes that.

Next, I wanted to see how each of these counties voted in recent elections.  Rather than code each election, I picked a few that I thought might be of particular interest.  I coded the two most recent presidential elections to see the most recent political behavior of these areas and to explore whether there was any noticeable short term change.  I then decided to look at 1992.  1992 is of note in that it, like 2008, was an election contested during an economic downturn and might produce similar "pro-government" sentiment in those areas of greatest need.  Similarly, I picked 1980.  Also conducted during economic difficulties, 1980 is notable for the rise of Ronald Reagan and the ascendancy of anti-government rhetoric.  Thus, as American politics began to transition away from the New Deal assumptions of the previous generation, we might wonder if areas strongly dependent on government resisted Reagan.  Finally, I picked the 1964 Johnson landslide.  The thinking here is that this election would probably represent the apex of pro-government voting.

In looking at the spreadsheet, very few clear cut trends emerge and there is certainly no correlation between government dependence and support for the Democratic party.  Things are much more complicated (and hence interesting).  Nonetheless, there are a number of things to take note of and explore.  In 2008, of these 82 counties, only 30 voted for Barack Obama.  This is the type of result that makes many Democrats' heads spin.  How is it, they ask, that those voters most benefitting from programs championed by Democrats vote "against their interests"???  This phenomenon garnered a lot of attention a few years back with the publication of Thomas Frank's "What's The Matter With Kansas?"  If we map this voting--coloring Obama counties Blue and McCain counties Red--we get the following:

The most interesting aspect of this map, I think, is the clustering of McCain counties in the Kentucky, Tennesse, Missouri region.  These counties are, as the data suggests, overwhelmingly white and poor.  They also tend to be mountainous, low population, counties in the Appalachian and Ozark ranges.  Looking at the voting over time, these are also counties that have remained, for the most part, consistently Republican.  Clearly, it seems as if there is more than just economics at play here.  Indeed, these areas have long had a political culture that has confounded Democrats' ability to compete, going back generations.  The one modern Democrat who performed well in this region, perhaps not surprisingly, was Bill Clinton.  Not only did Clinton win 60 of the 82 counties nationwide, he did particurly well in this cluster of KY/TN/MO counties--so much so that he won all three states in both 1992 and 1996.  No Democrat has won any of the three since.

How do we explain this change?  While these counties and regions have changed little over the past  decades, they were receptive to Clinton but not Obama (and Kerry).  Going back further, these counties also supported Carter and Johnson.  Is the shift a result of a broader movement against the Democrats, as hinted at in the original NYT story?  Is it the result of the fact that the most recent Democratic nominees were northerners who were perceived as foreign to this region's culture and people?  Clinton hailed from this area and both Carter and LBJ were southerners so there might be some credence to this hypothesis.

A few other observations. 1980 stands out as the year in which these counties' vote was most divided, with Reagan winning 42 and Carter 40 counties respectively.  Thus, the notion that this was perhaps a "tipping point" election may have some confirmation.

Looking at the race variable, while I've so far discussed the overwhelmingly white KY/TN/MO counties, there are a number of overwhelmingly African American counties represented in the data.  Specifically, Perry and Wilcox County Alabama, Marion County South Carolina, and Holmes, Jefferson, Humphreys, and Quitman Counties in Mississippi.  Here, as expected, there was overwhelming support for all of the recent Democratic candidates (back during the lead up to the 2008 election I did a series of posts on the interesting political geography of these regions--see here and here).  Also remember, when looking at the 1964 vote in these counties, that the Voting Rights Act had yet to be passed.  Next, there are a few counties with large Hispanic populations--see those in Texas as well as Mora and Guadalupe in New Mexico.  Finally, make note of some counties with a large Native American population--Apache in Arizona; Sioux in North Dakota; Buffalo and Shannon in South Dakota.  Like with the heavily African American counties, those with large Hispanic or Native American populations have voted as we would expect.

Perhaps the most confounding set of counties--and those that I will need to research more deeply--are those found in Michigan.  What is interesting about these counties is that they are overwhelmingly white, have high degrees of governement "dependence," but are not terribly poor.  Their poverty rates all hover near the statewide average of 15%.  So what explains this?  Going back to the original NYT map, you can separate out the different components of government support.  These counties show a heavy reliance on both Social Security and Medicare, suggesting a large elderly population.  At the same time, though, these counties also have large reliance on unemployment insurance.  In a lot of ways, these counties seem quite similar to Chisago County Minnesota which was the focus of the NYT story.

These are just a few observations based on a cursory examination of this data.  There's a lot more that I hope to delve into, especially focusing on individual counties or regions, in the coming weeks.  What does come through, though, is that voters and regions have voting histories and behaviors that don't fit into a simple narrative or explanation.  This is especially the case when it comes to the correlation between reliance on government and party support.  As the Times story makes clear, voters possess a series of often contradictory feelings and beliefs.  For those on the left who aspire for an electorate that will vote strictly along economic lines, this data is bound to frustrate. 



How Much Trouble are Democrats In If They're Losing the Most and Least White States???

Here’s an interesting finding from Lee Drutman at the Progressive Policy Institute regarding the decline in Democratic identification across the country. Testing a number of potential variables, the one with the strongest, statistically significant correlation is the percentage of the state’s population that is white. Thus, the more white a state is, the greater the decline in Democratic affiliation among its voters.

Back during the 2008 electoral season, I wrote a fair bit about Thomas Schaller’s “Whistling Past Dixie” which counseled Democratic candidates to essentially write off the possibility of winning Deep South states. Despite the fact that these states have the highest concentration of African American voters—the most solid part of the Democratic coalition—they have become the hardest states for Democrats to win. The reason, according to Schaller, is that the long history of racial polarization and antagonism in these states have produced a reaction among white voters:

The central irony of southern politics is that the nation’s most Republican region is home to half of all African Americans, the Democratic party’s most loyal voters. Unfortunately, racial antagonisms exacerbate the Democrats’ electoral problems in the South, creating a white countermobilization—a “backlash” so to speak—that fuels Republican victories. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, many of George W. Bush’s biggest wins came in southern states with the highest share of African Americans, and some Democratic congressional candidates are capturing as little as 30 percent of the white vote in the south.

Schaller’s book was written before the 2008 election and much of the analysis I did of President Obama’s victory confirmed his underlying thesis. For example, in a statistic that never fails to amaze me, John Kerry received a higher share of the white vote in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi than Barack Obama did.

Drutman doesn’t attempt to offer an explanation as to white might be driving the current trend of declining Democratic affiliation. He’s simply pointing out the correlation. It may, in fact, be a normal correction from the abnormally high gains made by Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. For example, some of these homogenous states such as New Hampshire and other parts of New England have been home to a traditional Yankee Republicanism. The current emphasis on economic and fiscal issues re-enforces that tradition.

Nonetheless, these numbers should be worrisome to Democrats going into 2012 and are worth watching as we move closer to the election.

Another Time the State Capitol Was Overtaken

I’ve been writing a lot over at the Washington Examiner about the events in Wisconsin, trying to add a bit of context to what has transpired. To continue with the historical discussion, I thought I’d say a few words about another time when the state capitol in Madison was overtaken by protesters.

Late last year I came across a book that I had long hoped someone would write. "The Selma of the North" by Patrick D. Jones tells the story of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee. One of the shortcomings of a lot of the civil rights history (thankfully being rectified in recent years) is that it has focused almost all of its attention on the south. Whereas the movement in the south was directed largely on the issues of voting rights, public accommodations, and other basic constitutional protections, the focus in the north was on a wholly different set of problems. With voting rights not in dispute, the problems confronted in the north were in many ways more intractable and divisive—and in reality still with us to this day. The major conflicts were around school integration (with busing being an especially contentious component) and housing.

Jones centers his narrative around the figure of Fr. James Groppi. A charismatic priest in Milwaukee who was radicalized by his experiences in an inner city Milwaukee parish and by his participation in the protests in the south, Groppi was an immensely polarizing figure in 1960’s Milwaukee. He became a leader of Milwaukee’s NAACP Youth Core and helped channel the movement’s energies around issues of education and open housing in Milwaukee. A great on-line resource about Milwaukee’s civil rights protests can be found at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library’s website.

To appreciate the complexity and intensity of the protests around housing, one needs to wrestle with the reality of how many northern cities evolved in the early and mid part of the 20th century. As the two Great Migrations saw the African American populations of cities like Milwaukee explode (it grew 700% between 1945 and 1970) the white populations of these cities resisted the need to accommodate the newcomers in anything other than the already existing, overcrowded urban core. For perhaps the best examination of this tension, check out Beryl Satter’s "Family Properties" that explores how Chicago wrestled with housing at the same time Groppi was agitating up the interstate in Milwaukee. To this day, Milwaukee and Chicago remain two of the most segregated cities in America.

In 1969, toward the end of his work in Milwaukee and as his militancy increased, Groppi turned his attention to the issue of welfare. In response to proposed cuts in the state budget (sound familiar???) aimed at poor women and children, Groppi led a march of welfare recipients from Milwaukee to Madison. There, they took over the chambers of the State Assembly for eleven hours before they were ejected and Groppi was arrested. While the protests gained the support of many in the anti-war community in Madison, its numbers where nowhere near what we’ve seen over the past month. Nonetheless, I was reminded of the Groppi marches when watching and reading the coverage of the current protests.

As a final note, it’s important to remember that the Civil Rights movement in the north, including the Milwaukee protests, drove a wedge between what was at that point two pillars of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition—African Americans and white, urban ethnics (many of whom belonged to unions). George Wallace, for example, received 31% of the vote in Milwaukee during his quixotic quest for the Democratic nomination in 1964. He famously kick started his Wisconsin campaign at Serb Hall, the hub of the white urban ethic community on Milwaukee’s South Side. As I wrote a few weeks back in discussing the plight of “Reagan Democrats,” the issue of race was one that led many of these voters to gravitate to the Republicans. While union voters have been coming back to the Democrats—and may now be in the midst of a sprint back to the left— what remains to be seen is whether a strong bond can be forged between these two oftentimes estranged voting blocs.

A Visit To Antietam: Why the Civil War Matters

Of all the topics that have been explored on this blog since its creation, the one that has received the most attention, both explicitly and implicitly, has been the role of race in our politics.  No doubt the 2008 campaign made much of this discussion necessary and inevitable.  However, this country’s tangled and troubled, yet sometimes hopeful history with race has fascinated me since I first became interested in politics.  I’ve always felt that it has been our most important societal cleavage and, while not always the most appropriate lens through which to view our politics—there are surely others like class, region, gender, etc.—it is the one that I always seem to come back to regardless of my starting point.

When we look at our country’s historical narrative, no event has shaped our society, politics, economy, and understanding of ourselves more than the Civil War.  I’d go so far as to argue that the Civil War, if it was indeed the “Second American Revolution,” serves as the point around which America’s story revolves.  Those issues that couldn’t be reconciled at the founding, most notably that of slavery, but also the fundamental question of the relationship between the states and the federal government, ultimately led to the conflict.  In its aftermath, we can also see how the Civil War has left a long wake.  As we know, the end of slavery did not heal its wounds and solve the “race problem” in this country.  In fact, it has in many ways gotten more complicated.  Furthermore, we still debate the role of government in our society even as the Civil War, as the greatest period of governmental expansion in our history, seemingly propelled us toward the reality of perpetual big government.  If indeed, as Faulkner tells us, “there is no past,” we are destined to reckon with the Civil War as long as we are Americans.  If nations have what I would term “existential moments” in which their very identity is debated and ultimately defined, the Civil War was ours.  So, if we want to understand American politics, including elections, we need to spend a lot of time thinking about that most vexing time.

As any student of the Civil War knows, there were numerous points at which the conflict could have turned.  In retrospect, the outcome may seem assured given the vast resource and manpower advantage of the Union and the seeming ill-preparedness of the Confederacy for the reality of secession.  Both sides enjoyed military victories and had momentum working in their favor at different points in time.  Yet, both sides failed to capitalize on their successes and both struggled mightily to keep their people committed to the fight.  The tragedy of the Civil War was not only that it seemed destined to occur in the first place, but that once engaged, both sides seemed destined for a war of bloody attrition that would stretch the country to its very limits.  With no common ground, however small, to compromise an end around, the conclusion would have to come through exhaustion and surrender rather than negotiation.

Throughout the war there were a number of battles and events that were crucial—Bull Run, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, the Wilderness, etc.  But for me, Antietam has always seemed the most pivotal and important.  Prior to the battle on September 17, 1862, the Confederacy had enjoyed a string of victories.  Beginning with Stonewall Jackson’s success in the Shenandoah Valley and McClellan’s decision to abandon his efforts against Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign, then followed quickly by the rout at Second Bull Run, Lee’s forces were emboldened enough to undertake their first serious incursion onto northern soil.  With aims on Washington, it was hoped that this thrust would bring about European recognition of the Confederacy and an end to the conflict in the South’s favor.   In pursuit, the hastily reorganized northern army, again under the command of the shortly deposed McClellan, tracked westward from Frederick Maryland, across the Catoctin Mountains.  The two armies, roughly 150,000 men total, converged on the tiny hamlet of Sharpsburg Maryland.  Situated between the meandering Antietam Creek to its east and the Potomac River to its rear, Sharpsburg would become the next spot of American soil upon which so much blood would be shed.

Given the run of recent events, the north needed a military victory badly.  What those positioning themselves on the Maryland countryside did not know was that a much larger and profound outcome hinged on the result.  For months, President Lincoln had struggled with how to address the issue of emancipation.  While Lincoln had not campaigned for the presidency as an abolitionist, the rapid secession of southern states was premised on the notion that he would nonetheless proceed down that path.  Without going off onto a tangent regarding Lincolns’ view of slavery and its relation to the war, by 1862 Lincoln had come to the conclusion that the issue could no longer continue to simmer on the back burner.  From the beginning of the conflict Lincoln had to balance his growing desire to attack the institution with his need to keep the non-seceded slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri in the Union.  Coupled with this was the dubiousness of whether an emancipation could even be enforced and for what ends.  Despite this, by the summer Lincoln had decided to move forward with an Emancipation Proclamation--but to couch it in a way that put the burden on the seceded southern states.  Should they not return to the Union after a designated period, slaves residing in such states would from that point forward be free.

Given the military doldrums of the spring and summer, however, Lincoln was in no position to issue the Proclamation.  It would smack of desperation and no doubt signal the weakness of the Union.  For it to have any effect, no doubt psychological more than practical, it had to be issued from a position of strength.  Thus, Lincoln needed a win.  

The Battle of Antietam would provide Lincoln the opportunity he so badly wanted, but at a tremendous cost.  September 17, 1862 was the single bloodiest day in American history.  Over 25,000 northern and southern troops were killed or wounded.  The battle raged over three quite distinct locales on the field.  For a comprehensive rundown of the battle, see here.  Dawn saw the advance of General Joseph Hooker’s First Corps from its position on the extreme north of the field.  With General Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates emerging from the West Woods, some of the war’s most brutal fighting took place in what has become known simply as “the Cornfield.”  The second theater that day, further south, occurred along a Confederate entrenchment along a sunken farm road.  The “Bloody Lane” saw wave upon wave of Union forces mowed down until an exhausted, disorganized, and spent Confederate line was finally breached and overtaken.  Finally, on the extreme southern end of the field, the Battle of Burnside Bridge raged throughout the day.  Aided by the natural fortifications provided by the rolling hills opposite Antietam Creek, a small force of Georgia troops was able to continuously repel Union General Burnside’s attempts at crossing the creek in order to unify with the other northern forces and crush Lee’s army.  Although ultimately able to break across, it was too late.  Lee was able to muster his army together, retreat across the Potomac, and continue to fight for 2 ½ more years.

With Lee’s thrust northward repelled, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.  As a result, the war became more explicitly about ending slavery.  As I wrote a few posts back, opinion within the Union ranks, and among northern voters, was decidedly mixed about waging a war on emancipationist aims.  Northern Democrats campaigned throughout the war to try and end the conflict and many were keen to do so without abolishing slavery.  That Lincoln was able to withstand such criticism and be overwhelmingly re-elected in 1864 signaled the desire of the country to see the war through.  In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that many of those on the front lines became much more opposed to the horrors of slavery once they confronted it directly during their campaigns southward (for an excellent overview of this, see Chandra Manning's "What This Cruel War Was Over").

Next year will mark the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  No doubt there will be much discussion about the currency of the Civil War for modern day Americans.  For me, its relevance is obvious, especially if we are being honest with ourselves about the war's cause--slavery.  When we think about the long arc of America’s history with race, the Battle of Antietam is one of those few events which changed the trajectory of our nation.

**Photos taken September 24, 2010.

Voting for Mayor in the "City Too Busy To Hate"

Some interesting results from yesterday's mayoral runoff in Atlanta. The race pitted Kasim Reed, the Democratic candidate and a former state senator against independent City Councilwoman Mary Norwood. The result--a tentative 620 vote win by Reed--has triggered calls for a recount, something Norwood is entitled to by law and which Reed has pledged to adhere to. What's interesting about this election is not so much the results, but what they might say about the role race plays in voting. I've spent a lot of time on this site talking about the racial dimension of American voting behavior, much too much to recount ad nauseum here. Suffice it to say, its an issue, especially in many southern states. The results in Atlanta, however, go against the conventional wisdom that whites won't vote for blacks and blacks won't vote for whites (especially when running against a black opponent). Reed is black; Norwood is white.

Lets look at some numbers. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports the results by city council district (and also precinct) here and also provides an excellent interactive map of the city. Their data also includes each district's white and black population %. From this I created the following chart:

What we see is that the voting does not show a consistent correlation between the racial makeup of the electorate and its vote. If we were to hypothesize an electorate perfectly polarized by race, we'd expect each candidate's performance to essentially match the racial composition of each district. That is far from what happened. In the three whitest districts (6, 7, and 8) Reed did better than we might expect. Likewise, in the four blackest districts (4, 10, 11, and 12) Norwood also outperformed expectations based solely on race. These numbers are even more interesting when we throw the variable of party into the mix. We would assume that those whitest parts of Atlanta, located in the northern part of the city, would be the most Republican. That he still reasonably well here is quite fascinating. Likewise, although Norwood campaigned as an Independent, she has more often than not voted as a Republican in past elections. That she could perform so well in heavily black areas further suggests that there were some interesting dynamics at play.

When the Civil Rights Movement threw much of the south into turmoil, there was a saying that Atlanta--which didn't produce the violence seen in places like Birmingham, Selma, and Oxford--was a "City Too Busy To Hate." Maybe yesterday's vote was an indication that many people in Dixie have moved on.

Riposte to My Last Post--ElectionDissection.com Book Club

After my last post I got to wondering whether I was being a little hard on the Palmetto State. Pulling out V.O. Key when talking about the south (and race) is certainly heavy artillery, but his conclusions--while valid in 1949--may no longer hold. So we should maybe look at more recent history. To help with this, I recently came across a book that was specifically designed to be an update of Key's "Southern Politics." From the title you get a sense that the authors wanted to take another look, state by state, at what Key explored. "The Transformation of Southern Politics," written by Jack Bass and Walter DeVries shows how, in the years after Key, two party politics began to emerge across the south. Whereas Key found factionalism within the solidly Democratic south to be the traditional form of politics, we here start to see the makings of more "rational" competition between the parties.

I should note, though, that this book was written in 1976 so we don't have the opportunity to explore the full arc of southern political transformation to the point where the region is now the most Republican part of the country. Indeed, in many of the states Bass and DeVries explore, parity between the parties had yet to emerge by the mid-70's. Nonetheless, the process was under way, spurred by several events and forces. Among these was the 1949 Dixiecrat revolt, Barry Goldwater's 1964 inroads in Dixie, as well as a social transformation that saw a massive in-migration into the south from many northern states. While these forces tended to help Republicans, Democrats also saw their politics transform--and this is a process the authors focus on. With the 1965 Voting Rights Act's passage, southern politicians could no longer ignore the numerical strength of black voters. In fact, they now had the incentive to court them. Thus, the 60's and 70's saw the emergence of many Democratic politicians who were much more moderate, and indeed sometimes progressive, on the issue of race in comparison to their predecessors. Jimmy Carter is probably the best example but lesser known figures like Ernest Hollings in South Carolina, Dale Bumpers in Arkansas, and Reubin Askew in Florida saw their rise assisted by black votes. Another consequence of the Voting Rights Act's passage, along with the breakup of malapportioned state legislative districts, was the election of sizable numbers of black politicians. Thus, Key's "Southern Politics" is very much in recession by this time.


In their chapter on South Carolina titled "The Changing Politics of Color," Bass and DeVries suggest that the state's politics, along with Tennessee's, were the furthest along in developing a true two party system. The responsibility for the growth and early maturation of SC's Republicans can be most ascribed to Strom Thurmond. After first bolting the Democrats to run as a Dixiecrat in 1948, Thurmond joined the Republican ranks and was elected to the Senate. One story that I found fascinating in Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" was the role that Thurmond played in the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. By providing affirmation of Nixon's bona fides (some would call this a wink and a nod to the "Southern Strategy"), Nixon was able to win South Carolina, not only denying it to George Wallace who swept the rest of the Deep South, but helping to cement his victory over Hubert Humphrey.

While South Carolinian, and southern politics more broadly, was changing, that's not to say that some of the characteristics Key identified had disappeared. Voting could still be very racially polarized. In his recent look at southern politics, Thomas Schaller argues that white southern voters oftentimes increase their participation in response to high levels of black voting--in other words, the fear that black voters could tilt elections leads whites to vote in reaction to them (and thus for Republicans). Bass and DeVries found a similar phenomenon in South Carolina:

A look at county data reveals, as expected, that the combination of heavy black population and a high rate of black participation greatly stimulates white political participation. Whites in all 12 of the majority black counties were registered at a higher percentage than the state average of 61.3 percent. In ten of the counties the white registration rate was more than 15 points higher than the statewide rate. As a percentage of those registered, whites in the majority black counties voted at a slightly higher rate than the state average, and blacks in those counties at a rate about equal to the state average.

Thus, there's a mixture of both fluidity and stability in the politics of the south. What we need to look at next is the subsequent chapter of southern political history--the rise of Reagan, the maturation of the Republican Party across the region, and its subsequent dominance epitomized in the 1994 congressional election. Bass and DeVries have updated the version that I have so that is probably the best place to start but I'll try and search out some more works, comprehensive in scope, to continue this process of exploration.

From Now On, Is Everything About Race???

Over the past week, especially since President Obama’s health care speech to Congress, the political debate in Washington and across the country has reached a heightened sense of craziness. Crystallized by the outburst of South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson—and the subsequent vote of disapproval in the House yesterday—the issue of race has once again been raised. Wilson’s “You lie!” comment has been interpreted in a variety of ways, with many arguing that racism lies not far beneath the surface. The most high profile advocate of this position is former President jimmy Carter. Commentary about Wilson’s motivations has been more divided.

As readers of this blog know, the role of race in American politics and society fascinates me. The Obama candidacy and now presidency have presented us with the opportunity to look, perhaps as never before, at how race defines and divides us. In theorizing about race, though, we need to be extremely careful—not because of the sensitivity of the issue and a fear of being either too overly or insufficiently “politically correct”—but because of how difficult it is to prove anything, especially when it comes to individuals’ motivations, beliefs, and biases. A case for such humility was made recently by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his blog over at The Atlantic (one of my favorites).

So having said this, I want to proceed gingerly in talking about this series of events. Nonetheless, the Wilson case brings to the fore some fascinating political/geographical history--stuff that gets us excited here. Whenever I’ve ventured to talk about race, especially in terms of its salience in the south, I turn to the great work by V.O. Key, “Southern Politics,” originally published in 1949. Key’s work was a landmark study of how the “solid south” evolved in the post-bellum south. In his introduction, Key argues

In its grand outlines the politics of the South revolves around the position of the Negro. It is at times interpreted as a politics of cotton, as a politics of free trade, as a politics of agrarian poverty, or as a politics of planter and plutocrat. Although such interpretations have a superficial validity, in the last analysis the major peculiarities of southern politics go back to the Negro. Whatever phase of the southern political process one seeks to understand, sooner or later the trail of inquiry leads to the Negro.

The main “peculiarity” Key explores is why traditional two party politics never emerged in the south after the Civil War. Whereas “rational” politics entails conflicts around economic issues—and thus divides the classes—such cleavages never took hold in the south’s politics. The reason, for Key, was because the fear of black advancement and political political power united both rich and poor whites. Even though poor whites and blacks shared many economic interests, an alliance between the two never congealed. Thus, southern politics was more factional than ideological, playing out completely within the arena of the Democratic party which, due to Jim Crow, was a totally white enterprise.

In Key’s analysis of individual southern states, he found that this type of politics was most entrenched in those areas with the largest black populations. The “blacker” a state or county, the greater incentive there was for whites to unite. Of all the southern states, South Carolina had the second largest black population, second only to Mississippi. In fact, Key entitled his chapter on the Palmetto State “The Politics of Color.” He opens this chapter by noting:

South Carolina has had a succession of spectacular race orators who almost blanket out the achievements of its abler and more temperate leaders, such as James F. Byrnes. While others shared their views, the politicians of South Carolina—and Mississippi—have put the white-supremacy case most bitterly, most uncompromisingly, most vindictively.

Does this history make Joe Wilson’s outburst racist? Who knows. Is he responsible for this history? Of course not. But history is hard to escape and it shapes people’s context and it shapes our culture. And when we’re discussing American history and especially that of the south and its politics, we can’t ignore race, even though doing so would make us more comfortable. We should also recognize that others will consider it and have their own judgments shaped by their particular experiences and histories. An interesting aspect of the Wilson brouhaha has been the role played by fellow SC congressman, and Democratic Whip, James Clyburn. Clyburn represents the neighboring district in the state and has a storied personal history as a leader of the civil rights struggle there. That he was the member driving the move to admonish Wilson should remind us how personal this issue can be.

Interestingly—and here we can find more sure footing—when one looks at Congressman Wilson’s district, one finds that his district is not one where we’d expect quite the level of demagoguery that Key described. The 2nd District finds itself, of the state’s 6, in the middle in terms of its racial composition. It is the third “blackest” with African Americans making up roughly 26% of the population. Also, it has the highest median income in the state and the highest proportion of residents with a college degree. Recent conventional wisdom has suggested that those with higher incomes and education will be the least likely to hold unenlightened views on race. In last year’s presidential race the 2nd was Obama’s third best district, giving him 45% of the vote. Furthermore, as has been noted at length over the past week, Wilson had a relatively close re-election last time, garnering only 54% of the vote. Both candidates have used the events of the past week to rake in huge sums of money for next year’s rematch. Thus, there doesn't seem to be much incentive, in a purely political sense, for Wilson to become the new incarnation of George Wallace.

So where does this leave us??? The fact that we’ve been focused on the meaning of two words over the past week—and that this meaning has been interpreted by many to have sinister racial undertones—tells us that we’ve not yet arrived at a mythical “post racial” America. Given our history and how much in is entwined into our consciousness, perhaps we never will. Where it does leave us is with a realization that these types of debates, clashes, and parsings of words are going to be with us for a while. The Obama presidency makes this unavoidable. However much we might want our political fights (in the best sense of the word) to be “just” about health care, the economy, education, and the like, they won’t be. Beneath the surface of all of these will be the unspoken, and often loudly spoken, role of race in America. We best proceed humbly.

**Top image, slave map of South Carolina, originally published in The Atlantic in 1861.

What Do We Know About White People???

I’ve been meaning to do some number crunching on the role of race in the presidential election, given how much discussion and coverage it received during the campaign. While I wrote about this subject a bunch prior to the election, I haven’t done much in depth analysis in the aftermath so let’s return to the topic. For this post I want to focus pretty much exclusively on the “white vote.” We know that among African American voters, not only was Barack Obama’s vote overwhelming (about 95%) but also that there wasn’t much variance across regions or states. While some of the states with high African American populations moved into the Democratic camp this year (North Carolina, Virginia) others did not (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc.). It is this latter group of states that was the focus of the oft cited (and discussed here) “Schaller Effect”—the tendency of southern states with large black populations to have white electorates that vote overwhelmingly Republican. Essentially, Schaller argues, the politics of these states have become so defined by the issue of race over the decades that white voters, regardless of class, education, religion, etc., tilt Republican. With an African American on the ballot this year we got a chance to test this theory like never before.

To look at how white voters cast their ballots this year, and to determine whether any underlying patterns exist, I gathered the exit poll data compiled by CNN. The resulting spreadsheet is available here. Nationwide, Obama won 43% of the white vote. When we look at the vote preference based on race, we see that Obama won a majority of the white vote in 18 states, plus the District of Columbia. The map at left highlights those states and shows a pretty clear geographic clustering in the northeast, upper Midwest, and Pacific states with the exception of Colorado--a new battleground between the parties. If the electorate was 100% white he would have received 222 electoral votes, not enough to win the presidency. Thus, we look to those states where he lost the white vote (to varying degrees), but found a large enough minority electorate (black, Latino, Asian, etc.) to overcome his poorer showing among whites. This netted him an additional 10 states (FL, IN, MD, NV, NJ, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA) and provided him the solid electoral college victory that propelled him to the presidency. While there’s probably not anything overly surprising here—Democrats have for years had to rely on a multi-racial coalition to win the White House—looking at the raw numbers is instructive.

Conversely, if we look at the McCain vote among whites, we see a strong geographical dimension to his support. Nationwide, McCain received 55% of the white vote. The map left highlights those states where his white support was the highest--over 10% above his national average. Thus, in a cluster of mostly southern states the Republican nominee got 2/3 or more of the white vote.

Another way we might approach these numbers is to go to those states with the largest black populations relative to the state as a whole. Here we get to the phenomenon described by Schaller—how does Obama do among whites in the “blackest” states?? At left is a chart showing his performance among whites in the 15 states with the most significant black electorates. Overall, he won 8 of these states. However, with the exception of Washington, DC, Obama received a majority of the white vote in only 3 (Joe Biden’s Delaware, his home state of Illinois, and New York). He received more than his national average (43%) in only one additional state—Maryland. When we look at his performance in the Deep South states we seem to see evidence of the white backlash Schaller talked about with his extremely poor showing among whites in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina standing out. These states have large black populations but saw whites vote strongly Republican, a point noted in the map above as well.

What happens when we look at the inverse of these states—i.e. the “least black” ones?? Does McCain do as well as he did in the Deep South or did we see, conversely, Obama do really well? If McCain does equally well we might conclude that northern and southern whites aren’t really that different. If there is a geographical difference, maybe there is something to the hypothesis of racialized voting in the South. At left is a chart showing the 15 “least black” states in the country and Obama’s % of the white vote in each. Here his performance is much better. He won 8 of these states overall and in 7 of these 8 (with the exception of New Mexico) he not only got higher than his national average among whites, he won a majority of white voters. In fact, had some states in this group had a sizable enough minority population—Montana, the Dakotas—he may have added their electoral votes to his total as well. Clearly, it seems, there is a difference among white voters based on geography.

From this, can we conclude that white southerners voted against Obama because he was black?? Not necessarily. An alternative hypothesis is that these voters voted against Obama not because he’s black, but because he’s a Democrat. To get a better sense of what happened in November we need to go back further in time. Let’s look at 2004 when you had two white candidates on the ballot. If the results among white voters are quite similar to what we saw in 2008, our conclusions might need a bit more nuance. By looking at 2004 we can also get a sense of what changes might be taking place across the electorate and whether there is a geographic pattern. Thus, I also gathered the statewide CNN exit polls from the Bush/Kerry contest. What do we see?? Nationwide there wasn’t much difference between the support Obama and Kerry received among whites. In fact, Obama did better, getting 43% of the white vote to Kerry’s 41%.

Looking at the results state by state, we see that in all but 7 states, Obama did better among white voters than Kerry. In 8 states the performance of the two Democrats was identical. In the remaining 35 states, plus DC, Obama did better among whites than Kerry. If you look at the 18 states where Obama’s gains were the greatest (5% or more), he won 13. Four of these states voted Republican in 2004 (Indiana, Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia). Thus, while the black and Hispanic vote was crucial in helping bring these states over to Obama’s side, we can’t ignore his increased performance among white voters as well.

Whereas Obama won 8 of the blackest states, Kerry only won 5. In these states, Kerry received below his national average among white voters (41%) in 8. Aided partially by increased support among African American voters (and also changes in turnout among whites and Republicans, plus greater support among Hispanics), Obama was able to outperform Kerry electorally. Narrowing further in on the white vote (and getting at the Schaller Effect) we see that in these states, Obama’s performance was worse than Kerry’s in four (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Given that 2008 was a much better environment for Democrats than 2004 this is quite interesting. With a faltering economy, an unpopular president leaving office, and unprecedented national organization and fundraising, he did worse among some whites than did a candidate that, while white, was hardly a “good ‘ol boy.” Kerry, portrayed as elite, effete, “French,” and the epitome of northeastern liberalism outperformed Obama in much of the old Confederacy. Plus, given Bush’s cultural affinity with the South, his evangelical faith, and his political rearing in Texas, you’d have expected him to have high levels of support among southern whites. That McCain did better among some states’ white voters lends credence to Schaller’s argument, it seems.

So where does that leave us? With the low level of support Obama received among white voters in some states--relative to John Kerry and in an extremely favorable electoral environment--its hard to discount the assertion that race played some role in the vote. While some of these states have been heavily Republican, we saw Obama outperform Kerry among whites in equally Republican states in other parts of the country. We've also seen many of these states elect Democrats to other offices. The fact that white voters behaved differently in various parts of the country suggests that race is an issue that cuts across the electorate in a multitude of ways. Because race has been intertwined with politics in some places, and completely absent in others, we shouldn't make sweeping assertions about how important this cleavage is. Rather, we should approach the issue with nuance, an appreciation for historical context, and a willingness to explore multiple explanations for the outcomes we've observed. Given that we've had only one election to test our hypotheses, we should hold off on definitive statements until there's more data to parse.