| Race and Support For Obama
First, Franklin looked at race ("White Vote for Obama in the States"), comparing state-level support for Obama to the percentage of blacks in the electorate. As many had noted, the shift away from Obama in the upland South corresponded with counties having small black populations. How did these compare with other parts of the South, they wondered, where increased black support could mask increased white antipathy. What Franklin found looked pretty dramatic in the way of declining support beyond a certain threashold (click image to enlarge):
However this was due to just a handful of Deep South states, as can be seen in the lower right quadrant.
As DemFromCT noted at DKos, "White Vote And The South":
I have no intention of doing any South bashing....
But for now, that right lower quadrant is the GOP's regional base; by 2012, TX will be a swing state.
And the GOP? Beyond that right lower quadrant, they've got more work to do than we do, if they ever want to be a national party again.
Responding to feedback in the comments, Franklin did a second post ("White Vote for Obama in the States, Part 2"), which, above all produced this graph, showing how relatively little Obama's performance differed from Kerry's (click image to enlarge):
Yes, Obama underperformed him in the Deep South, but that was already a hard sell for any Dem. Franklin's comments are worth quoting at length:
For states below 25% African American, the trend line for Obama is above that for Kerry, indicating a general improvement among whites. (Note this is the TREND, individual states may differ-- see below.) But in the deepest of Southern states, which are also the states with the highest African American percentages, Obama falls below the Kerry vote. Now this is based on just four states, GA, AL, MS and LA, but those are also the states in which Obama had his worst performance with white voters.
So in terms of the overall trend, Obama generally improved among whites, but the shift in trend towards the right of the chart is significant....
Three of the four deep south states dropped clearly below their 2004 white support for Kerry. Georgia did not, matching it's 23% white support for the Democrat in both years. Mississippi, the lowest state in 2004, shifted from 14% to 11%, while my home state of Alabama dropped from 19% to 10%, claiming the prize for lowest white support for Obama of any state in the Union. Louisiana went from 24% to 14%, the largest point drop of all.
One other southern state registered a notable drop, Arkansas fell from 36% white support for Kerry to 30% for Obama.
Other states that declined in white support did so by small amounts and for obvious political reasons: Alaska, Arizona and ... Massachusetts.
Two other non-southern states showed small declines: New Mexico (43% down to 42%) and West Virginia (42% down to 41%). All these last five are inside the confidence interval for no change.
There were a number of states with considerable increases (labeled in the chart for a five point or greater gain.) The most interesting are North Carolina (up from 27% to 35%) and Virginia (up from 32% to 39%.) Clearly Obama could not have won those states on the white vote alone, but those shifts amount to roughly a 5-6 point boost in statewide vote share, certainly enough to matter.
Also interesting are traditional red states Indiana and Kansas, with gains from 34% to 45% and from 34% to 40% respectively. Also Montana and North Dakota are notable, with gains from 39% to 45% and from 35% to 42%. While the Democrat didn't win three of these four states, these shifts demonstrate that they are no longer as out of reach for Dems as recent past elections might have suggested.
Support For Obama Across Demographic Groups
One reason Obama improved his standing with white voters in some significant red states outside the Deep South is the sheer breadth of his increased appeal across almost all demographic groups, which brings us to Franklin's second focus.
First is a chart showing the relative sizes and shifts of 83 demographic groups. Those above the diagonal shifted toward Obama from Kerry's 2004 performance, those below it shifted away from Obama. Tellingly, only three groups moved away--"small town," "decided last 3 days," and--perhaps surprisingly "gay". (Click image to enlarge):
For close up of central region in a new window, click here.
A different view of this data arranges all the demographic groups in order of how much they shifted (click image to enlarge):
In today's world, with today's targetted communications and the kind of diverse volunteer base he has, this sort of broad-based gain amongst almost all demographic groups is extremely promising. Of course he has to govern well, and solve some very difficult problems. That goes without saying. But what these graphs show is that the gains earned since 2004 are so broadly distributed that Obama is exceptionally well poised to reap the just rewards for any success through demographically specific communications.
Of course, marketers are now using even more fine-tuned ways of identifying people, so I'm not suggesting that Obama will use these specific groups to map communications strategy. Rather, I'm saying that this analysis shows extremely broad potential for even more targetted outreach to effectively persuade.
A 53% win is nothing to sneeze at after the past 40 years. But this analysis should persuade anyone that we have very strong potential to significantly increase that margin in 4 years. Naturally, solving realworld problems comes first and foremost. But if we do that this data shows a very strong indication that we can reap the rewards of long-term political dominance. |
