[Vision2020] Election Data Dive

Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Sat Nov 10 08:08:25 PST 2012


  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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November 9, 2012
Election Data Dive By CHARLES M. BLOW

Since this may be my last column about the 2012 elections, let’s have some
fun. Allow me to arm you with a collection of facts and data about the
election results <http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president> that
you can use at your next cocktail party, during your next coffee break or
during your next P.T.A. meeting.

First, a comment about the exit polls from which most of these data are
drawn: They were conducted only in 30 states. And, unfortunately, the
balance of states polled tilted heavily toward those won by President
Obama. Of the 25 states Obama won, exit polls were conducted in all but
three. Obama also won the District of Columbia, which had no exit polls. Of
the 24 states Mitt Romney won, exit polls were conducted only in eight.

(Obama is leading in Florida, which would be a 26th state won by Obama and
a state for which there are exit polls. However, The New York Times had not
yet called the state at the time of publication.)

With those caveats, let’s dive in:

• My analysis of the 2008 election found that even if every black person in
America had stayed home on Election Day, Obama would still have won the
presidency. That’s because the white vote and Hispanic vote were strong
enough to push him over the needed 270 votes to win the Electoral College.

This year is a different story. This year, his path to victory required a
broader coalition.

Without the Democratic black vote joining with that of liberal whites and
Hispanics on Tuesday, Obama would likely have lost half the states that he
won. This fact may embolden those who say that the president should more
directly address issues facing the African-American community.

• There may have been a backlash against voter suppression laws, bringing
more minorities to the polls, not fewer. The share of Hispanic voters rose
in many states won by Obama. That can be attributed both to the surging
Hispanic population in the country and to the Obama campaign’s incredible
get-out-the-vote operation. It is less clear why the black vote held steady
or grew in many of those states. In Ohio, for example, blacks jumped from
being 11 percent of the voters in 2008 to 15 percent this year. Threaten to
steal something, and its owner’s grip grows tighter.

• Romney won nine of the 11 states that were once in the Confederacy.

• Romney also won eight of the 10 states with the lowest population
density: Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho,
Nebraska and Utah. Obama won New Mexico and Nevada. (Hello. Hello. Hello.
Is there an echo in here?)

• Romney’s biggest margin of victory came in Utah, home of the Mormon
Church. Utah was one of three states in which Romney won every county. The
other two were West Virginia and Oklahoma. Obama won every county in four
states: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.

• This year was the first presidential election in which there were more
Asian-American voters (11 percent) in California than African-American ones
(8 percent). In 2008, 6 percent were Asian-American and 10 percent were
African-American. In fact, there were more Asian-American voters than
African-American voters in Washington and Oregon, the other two Pacific
Coast states, this year, too.

• Among the states in which exit polls were conducted, Obama won the lowest
percentage of the white vote in the state with the highest percentage of
black voters. That state was the ever-reliable Mississippi, where Romney
made his famous “I like grits” comment. Thirty-six percent of the voters in
Mississippi are black. Obama won a mere 10 percent of the white vote there.

Conversely, Obama won one of his highest percentages of white voters in the
state with the fewest minority voters: Maine. Ninety-five percent of
Maine’s voters were white, and 57 percent of them voted for Obama. That
ties with one other state for the highest percent of whites voting for
Obama: Massachusetts, where 86 percent of the voters are white.

In fact, Obama won the white vote only in states with small minority voting
populations. The others Obama won were Iowa (93 percent white), New
Hampshire (93 percent white), Oregon (88 percent white), Connecticut (79
percent white) and Washington State (76 percent white).

This is quite a curious phenomenon.

• Obama won all four states that begin with “New” (New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New Mexico and New York), but he lost all five that begin with a
direction (North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and
West Virginia). O.K., I threw that one in for fun.

Now, political junkies, go forth and spout facts!

•

I invite you to join me on Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow>and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow>, or e-mail me at
chblow at nytimes.com.




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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