If sheer numbers alone count, consider these statistics: In the 2000 presidential election, the Census Bureau said nearly 13 million African-Americans voted -- 84.2 percent of the 15.3 million who were registered, and 56.8 percent of all African-Americans who were both citizens and old enough to vote.
In 2000, African-American voters were 11.6 percent of all the Americans who voted -- the percentage just a bit lower than the overall percentage of African-Americans in the general population (13.28 percent).
(In a close race, analysts say black voter turnout could affect a candidate's chances of winning.) The vast majority -- 90 percent -- voted for Democrat Al Gore, while Republican George W. Bush picked up 9 percent of the black vote (Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received the remaining 1 percent).
Both major parties consider the black vote key to winning by a sizeable percentage in national elections.
What's on the voters' minds? University of Maryland political scientist Ronald Walters, author of "White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Policy and the Black Community" (Wayne State University Press, 2003), says five issues pop up immediately: jobs/economic well-being, including welfare reform, followed by criminal justice; education; health care; and the war in Iraq.
"Tax cuts (a key part of President Bush's economic plan) are not a real resonator," says Walters. "Voters are concerned about their quality of life and education, and about ultimately, about having a job."
Washington-based pollster Cornell Belcher says for younger voters, those between 18 and 35, the concerns are narrower: the lack of job creation and vanishing opportunities to make it into the middle class, and the ongoing expense of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
"(These voters) see the war as a function of oil and money and revenge," says Belcher. Moreover, Belcher says younger voters think money for scholarships and community development is vanishing to pay for the war. [...]
[...] Of particular interest to both the Republicans and the Democrats: a growing strand of voters not tied to either party. According to a 2002 survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 63 percent of African-American voters consider themselves Democrats, while 24 percent call themselves independents; 10 percent call themselves Republicans.
Among voters 18-35, the percentage of those calling themselves Democrats drops to 54 percent, independent jumps to 30-35 percent, and Republican drops slightly to 9 percent. Older black voters are more firmly in the Democratic camp, and the center says that regardless of political affiliation, black voters continue to support Democratic candidates in significant numbers.
Maryland political scientist Ronald Walters says regardless of approach, the parties and their candidates will be more successful if they talk about issues -- and the ways to pay for them. "President Bush has floated a couple of good ideas -- home ownership -- but there's no funding" to help would-be buyers, says Walters.
"He also mentioned drug rehabilitation in the State of the Union, but the link to faith-based programs raises skepticism among many voters."
The Democrats, meantime, may be losing their only opportunity to address voters' worries about jobs and other domestic issues, because of the growing preoccupation with a candidate's "electability" vs. Bush in November.
Walters argues voters could end up supporting a candidate whose domestic agenda fails to address their concerns.
Pollster Belcher says that if he were running for office, he would talk about wage growth, or rather, the low rate of wage growth -- 0.7 percent in the last quarter of 2003.
Belcher argues that even with low inflation rates (no change in the general level of prices in the last quarter of 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), young people are telling him it's getting harder for them to achieve or maintain a middle-class standard of living.
"This is a sleeping issue the (presidential) candidates are not addressing," he says.
| Walters' and Belchers' quotes in NBC correspondent Rosiland Jordan's MSNBC article "African-American voters and the 2004 elections" caught our eye
posted in articles on February 2, 2004 5:29 PM | t (0)
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