Black Southern Voters, Poised to Play a Historic Role.

[elleng]

Southern black voters don’t usually play a decisive role in national elections. They were systematically disenfranchised for 100 years after the end of the Civil War. Since the days of Jim Crow, a fairly unified white Southern vote has often determined the outcome of elections.

This November could be different. Nearly five decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, black voters in the South are poised to play a pivotal role in this year’s midterm elections. If Democrats win the South and hold the Senate, they will do so because of Southern black voters.

The timing — 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and 49 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act — is not entirely coincidental. The trends increasing the clout of black voters reflect a complete cycle of generational replacement in the post-Jim Crow era. White voters who came of age as loyal Democrats have largely died off, while the vast majority of black voters have been able to vote for their entire adult lives — and many have developed the habit of doing so.

This year’s closest contests include North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia. Black voters will most likely represent more than half of all Democratic voters in Louisiana and Georgia, and nearly half in North Carolina. Arkansas, another state with a large black population, is also among the competitive states. . .

But there has not been a year since Reconstruction when a party has depended so completely on black voters, in so many Southern states, in such a close national contest. President Carter, for instance, won by a comfortable margin in most of Dixie, with strong support among white voters. In 1998, Senate control was not at stake, and Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina was icing on the cake.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/upshot/black-southern-voters-poised-to-play-a-historic-role.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Great article ...

that answers the question: Who REALLY is the Democratic Party's base?

If Democrats win this November, black voters will probably represent a larger share of the winning party’s supporters in important states than at any time since Reconstruction. Their influence is not just a product of the Senate map. It also reflects the collapse in Southern white support for Democrats, an increase in black turnout and the reversal of a century-long trend of black outmigration from the South.

[jwirr]

2. Good news. We cannot do it without them.

[Wounded Bear]

3. K & R

We need all Democrats to GOTV this fall.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. The SCOTUS will have the final say, if those uppity so-and-so's tip the results in an undesired

direction. Think the sequel to Bush v. Gore (2000).

[AndyTiedye]

5. If They are Allowed to Vote

The rapeuglicans will be stepping up the voter suppression beyond anything we have seen before,
emboldened by the timely overturning of a key section of the Voting Rights Act. Everything they
have done before to prevent black people from voting, they will be doing more of, and they will
certainly adopt some new tactics that would have been out-of-bounds before.

We have to be ready for them.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Obama got over 80% of the vote in several AL, GA, and MS counties ...

of course, these were counties with low population, so the states overall went red. But it does remind us that there are plenty of islands of blue in the red South.

(Yes, folks, there are such things as predominantly black, predominantly rural counties. So before you assume all rural districts vote red ... )

http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MS#president

[flamingdem]

7. K&R

[toddwv]

8. I hope so.

I'd love to see the shock on the right-wings' faces if the black vote combined with women voters to produce a rout in November.

It would be a double shock because the right knows that 2016 is not likely to be a good year for them. Maybe it would motivate them to reassess their "hate everything" stance and mitigate their obstructionist tendencies. I doubt it because extremists never truly learn.