Kerry and African-American Voters -- Help me get the facts

[emulatorloo]

Again I was assailed by a friend who argues that African-American voters did not vote for Kerry because he alienated them. Corollaries of this argument were A) African-American voters turned out in greater numbers and voted enthusiastically for Clinton, Kerry's numbers devastatingly bad in comparison B) African-American voters were mad mad mad for Howard Dean and had Dean been in the general, he would have decimating Bush.

All pretty much 'conventional' wisdom that we have heard now and again at DU. . .which I had read somewhere was not supported by the facts. So I wanted to do a little digging to see what I could find.

I have been able to track down exit poll data on CNN Sitefor 1996 and 2004

1996 African American -- 10% of total voters | 12% for Dole, 84% for Clinton, 4% for Perot
2004 African American -- 11% of total voters | 11% for Bush, 88% for Kerry, 0% Nader

Not seeing support for this argument in these numbers. Probably need total turnout figures though too.

However I am having real trouble finding exit poll data for 2000 and earlier. . .any ideas? THANKS


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cnn 2004:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

cnn 1996:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll/index1.html

[TayTay]

1. Read this

http://www.hotterthanjuly.com/Community/Features/Civicreawake.pdf#search='Kerry%20AfricanAmerican%20voters%20Turnout'

[emulatorloo]

5. Thanks, Tay Tay, for the link . . . it is gonna get forwarded

I appreciate it.

[Mass]

2. Ruy Texeira's analysis on the same subject

He says that numbers show a different story where Kerry did nearly as well as Gore (who did the best of all recent Democrats, and better than Clinton 92 )

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001041.php

Despite media reports to the contrary, the GOP's inroads into the black vote have been limited at best, as Chris Bowers explains in an interesting wrap-up over at MyDD. Although Bush did increase his percentage of the black vote from 9 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2004, Bowers points out that John Kerry received 10 million African American votes more than did George Bush. This was a 25 percent increase over Gore's margin, significant because overall voter turnout increased by only 16 percent in 2004. This was the largest margin of African American votes for a presidential candidate in history. In a two-party, head-to-head comparison, Kerry's portion of the Black vote was even higher than Clinton's in '92 and '96. Lastly, and perhaps most encouraging for the 2006 congressional elections, African Americans, along with union members and voters under 30 are the three groups whose partisan self-identification shifted more strongly toward the Democratic Party in the '04 election, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey.

[emulatorloo]

4. Thank you - just what I needed. . .

EOM

[politicasista]

3. I am so tired of hearing this hindsight talk

I wish we would have just STFU and voted. Had we done that, Kerry would have been in the White House (minus election fraud).

Instead, all these whiny, ignorant people played right into the hands of Bush,Rove and the GOP with there "Dean could have done this, that, I don't like Kerry cause he don't fight, connect with me etc."

I posted some information to a poster about Kerry and the Downing Street Memo through private messages at Blackamericaweb.com about the Downing Street Memo, he said that Kerry should have brought this up during the election, instead he sat back and allowed the Swift Boat Liars to smear him and his military record, but he is glad he is talking about it now.

Opinions like that always make me feel like I am the only one, but I know I am not in the real world. :cry:

[emulatorloo]

6. Don't sweat it. . .these links Mass and Tay Tay provided show the strong

support Kerry had among African-American voters.

There are always going to be negative people, and it sounds like the people you describe who didn't go out to vote for Kerry are people who don't *ever* vote. . .

Votes that don't get cast can't be counted, and people who aren't willing to vote only have themselves to blame for not voting.

[JI7]

7. if you had not posted it that person would still probably not know about

it.

just like they didn't know about the things Kerry said and did during the campaign which the big media did not report.