Today’s New York Times has a very interesting article, written by Jeremy W. Peters, Richard Fausset and Michael Wines, about how Hillary Clinton is faring among Black voters.
I am going to show you the first few paragraphs – in gold, with my comments in blue. And then let’s talk about what is not mentioned at all.
African-Americans are failing to vote at the robust levels they did four years ago in several states that could help decide the presidential election, creating a vexing problem for Hillary Clinton as she clings to a deteriorating lead over Donald J. Trump with Election Day just a week away. Can this possibly be a surprise? Common sense would tell us that a Black, 51 year old incumbent with young children would generate more enthusiasm among Black voters than a White, 69 year old woman with grandchildren.
As tens of millions of Americans cast ballots in what will be the largest-ever mobilization of early voters in a presidential election, the numbers have started to point toward a slump that many Democrats feared might materialize without the nation’s first black president on the ticket. There you go. But you’re leaving something out: the Trump factor. Sadly, it is left out of the rest of the article as well.
The reasons for the decline appear to be both political and logistical, with lower voter enthusiasm and newly enacted impediments to voting at play. In North Carolina, where a federal appeals court accused Republicans of an “almost surgical” assault on black turnout and Republican-run election boards curtailed early-voting sites, black turnout is down 16 percent. White turnout, however, is up 15 percent. Democrats are planning an aggressive final push, including a visit by President Obama to the state on Wednesday. If we only saw this paragraph, the toss-in of “almost surgical” assault on black turnout would be pretty significant. But keep reading.
But in Florida, which extended early voting after long lines left some voters waiting for hours in 2012, African-Americans’ share of the electorate that has gone to the polls in person so far has decreased, to 15 percent today from 25 percent four years ago. Whoa, wait a minute. If Florida, without that “almost surgical” assault on black turnout, shows virtually the same lower percentage of Black voting, maybe it’s not an assault on Black turnout, maybe it’s that Black voters aren’t especially enthused about voting for Hillary Clinton.
Very telling. But there’s something missing; something more than just the obvious expectation of lower enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton than for Barack Obama.
What’s missing is the impact of an elevated level of enthusiasm for Black voters who support Donald Trump.
The same common sense which tells us that Black voters, in aggregate, will be more motivated by a youngish Black presidential candidate than an older White one, tells us that Black voters who buck the establishment to vote Trump will have a higher degree of motivation.
These are the believers; the people who looked at Black inner city neighborhoods after decades of Democrat-only governance, thought about Trump’s “What the hell do you have to lose” message, and decided he had a point. The people who are willing to take a stand that most Black people do not, and almost certainly have to deal with arguments, even disdain, from their friends and relatives over it. Of course they are likely to be more motivated voters.
So Ms. Clinton’s problem with Black voters is two-fold: lower enthusiasm among the still-large majority who would prefer her, and higher enthusiasm for the segment – small though it might be – preferring her opponent.
That’s a negative daily double if there ever was one.
And in some states – major ones, like Florida, North Carolina and Michigan among others – it wind up being the difference that decides this election.
