Bush does not, after all, have rising support among black voters

[BrainGlutton]

Some Dopers in this forum have asserted – without providing cites – that Bush’s support level is rising among black voters, at least compared to what it was in 2000. This, apparently, is not true. From http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/:

October 26, 2004

Blacks and the 2004 Election

Yesterday’s New York Times had a front-page story on Kerry and Gore seeking to mobilize black voters for the Democratic ticket. No doubt they are and for good reason. The more black voters that show up on election day, the better for John Kerry.

More controversial is the story’s assertion, based on a recent national poll of African-Americans by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, that Bush is generating much more support among blacks than he did in 2000.

Now it is true that the Joint Center’s poll has Bush’s support among blacks at 18 percent, double the 9 percent the Joint Center recorded in their 2000 poll. It is also far more than the support the 2000 exit poll found for Bush (8 percent) and the average support Republican presidential candidates in the last three elections (10 percent).

But how credible is their 18 percent figure? Not very, in my view. Or in the view of Cornell Belcher, a pollster who focuses on African-Americans, who, according to the Times story:

said his surveys in battleground states showed Mr. Bush in single digits. Nationally, Mr. Belcher said, he has found only 10 percent of blacks approve even “somewhat” of Mr. Bush’s job performance, while 89 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

So who’s right? I think Belcher is. The overwhelming evidence from public polls is that Bush’s support among blacks is running very close to where it was in 2000 and not even in shouting distance of the Joint Center’s 18 percent figure. Consider these data, which I managed to ferret out from various polling sources:

1. A July poll of black RVs by BET/CBS News had Bush’s support at 10 percent.

2. Bush’s black support in the last week of WP/ABC tracking polls has been averaging 9 percent.

3. Bush’s average black support in the last four Pew polls has been 9 percent.

4. Bush’s average black support in the last week of national Zogby tracking polls has been 8 percent.

5. Bush’s support among black RVs averaged only 7 percent in three October Gallup polls.

Sounds like Bush can expect his black support in 2004 to closely resemble his black support in 2000.

Anyone care to contradict this?

[rfgdxm]

Is not a black vote for Bush like a cow voting for Ronald McDonald?

[Brutus]

@rfgdxm

Is not a black vote for Bush like a cow voting for Ronald McDonald?

Well that isn’t the least bit condescending.

[Munch]

I don’t see how that proves your point. It offers polls from “various polling sources”, some of which contradict your point by showing higher numbers now than in 2000, and Belcher’s numbers are only from battleground states (which is exactly one of the reasons they *are * battleground states).

Additionally, it’s from a blog titled “The Emerging Democratic MajorityWebLog - Donkey Rising”! Are you honestly putting this forward as a legitimate source?!?

Finally, if it’s true that “Some Dopers in this forum have asserted”, then why not present this information in THOSE threads? Did we really need Election Thread #12,634?

[John_Mace]

Poll: Bush Doubles Support Among Blacks

This is the poll in question. Why is it any better or any worse than any other poll?

[Alien]

@John Mace

Poll: Bush Doubles Support Among Blacks

This is the poll in question. Why is it any better or any worse than any other poll?

I think the answer is in the OP:

*1. A July poll of black RVs by BET/CBS News had Bush’s support at 10 percent.

2. Bush’s black support in the last week of WP/ABC tracking polls has been averaging 9 percent.

3. Bush’s average black support in the last four Pew polls has been 9 percent.

4. Bush’s average black support in the last week of national Zogby tracking polls has been 8 percent.

5. Bush’s support among black RVs averaged only 7 percent in three October Gallup polls.*

From what I’ve read, apparently Kerry’s biggest challenge would be to turn out the black vote this year, not to choose him over Bush.

[FisherQueen]

For whatever individual observation is worth:

I work in a large urban school, and more than half of my students are black. When we conducted an informal poll, only one black student said he would vote for Bush if he were of voting age. His classmates stared at him in stunned amazement. One of them blurted out, “I ain’t NEVER heard a black person say they’d vote for Bush before.”

[Blalron]

@Brutus

Well that isn’t the least bit condescending.

Pet peeve of mine, when people take analogies to mean that they exactly resemble the thing being analogized. They are similar insofar as it is voting against their own interests.

[Mr.Moto]

And how, praytell, would you know what those interests are?

You’re predicting an individual’s behavior based on his racial profile. Please explain, rfgdxm or Blalron, why this isn’t racism?

[Brutus]

@Blalron

Pet peeve of mine, when people take analogies to mean that they exactly resemble the thing being analogized. They are similar insofar as it is voting against their own interests.

Well no shit? Then maybe you can explain why black voters have monolitihic interests in Blalronville? And why you can presume to speak for what their interests obviously are?

[BrainGlutton]

@Mr. Moto

And how, praytell, would you know what those interests are?

You’re predicting an individual’s behavior based on his racial profile. Please explain, rfgdxm or Blalron, why this isn’t racism?

It is not racism to call attention to two fairly obvious facts:

1. Most African-Americans – roughly two-thirds – are poor. Working poor, or desperately poor.

2. The economic interests of poor people are not well served by the Bush Administration.

[Mr.Moto]

So your defense of this position, BrainGlutton, is to trot out still more stereotypes?

That’s pretty messed up.

[BrainGlutton]

@Mr. Moto

So your defense of this position, BrainGlutton, is to trot out still more stereotypes?

Socioeconomic facts are not stereotypes.

[Magiver]

BrainGlutton,

Politicians live and die as the result of polling data. Their every move is dictated by this information. Senator Kerry has been touring a lot of black churches lately. Maybe you have better polling data. Don’t know. Time will tell.

[Mr.Moto]

Ah, but your point number two is surely just your opinion, and is a common stereotype of Republicans.

As is your assumption that all black voters vote the same way, all of the time.

Why wouldn’t black voters split their votes between the Republicans and Democrats? Every single other identifiable group does so.

[erislover]

@Mr. Moto

Why wouldn’t black voters split their votes between the Republicans and Democrats? Every single other identifiable group does so.

Except for the media. And people working at universities. And I think the most recent one I heard was that the internet had a liberal bias so I guess " and except for the people on the internet".

However, it is certainly true that in this particular thread, the internet, the media, and universities were not accused of a bias. So, if we confine ourselves to this thread, I’ve just brought up a great big ol’ strawman.

Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a real position.

[BrainGlutton]

@Mr. Moto

Why wouldn’t black voters split their votes between the Republicans and Democrats?

They do split their vote, they just don’t split it evenly – the Dems typically get about 90% of it and that’s no different this year; reread the OP.

What is different this year is a lot more blacks registered and, I expect, much higher turnout on e-day.

[BrainGlutton]

@Mr. Moto

Ah, but your point number two is surely just your opinion, and is a common stereotype of Republicans.

Arguing that the Democratic Party has been more favorable to the interests of the poor than the Pubs have been (at least, ever since Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) is not stereotyping, it is an analysis very well grounded in history. For that matter, it is a conclusion the average person almost certainly would draw naturally from the simple research method of not storing one’s head in one’s rectum.

As for the economic status of African-Americans – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-Americans:

Economics and employment

Economically, blacks also have benefited from the advances made during the Civil Rights era. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed slightly. The black middle class has grown substantially. In 2000, some 47 percent of African Americans owned their homes. However, African Americans are still underrepresented in government and employment. In 1999, median income of African American households was $27,910 compared to $44,366 of non-Hispanic whites.

There is, however, a growing African-American underclass, undereducated, unemployed and marginalized. In times of economic hardship for the nation, African-Americans suffer disproportionately from job loss and underemployment, with the black underclass being hardest hit. The phrase “last hired and first fired” is reflected in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment figures. Nationwide, the September 2004 unemployment rate for blacks was 10.3 percent, more than twice that of their white counterparts, who were unemployed at the rate of 4.7 percent. In early 2004, black male unemployment in New York City soared to 48.2 percent. At the time of this writing, that figure is slightly higher at approximately 50 percent. Nearly one-fourth of the African-American population lives in poverty, a rate three times that of white Americans. In 2000, 19.1 percent of blacks lived below poverty level, as compared to 6.9 percent of whites.

The income gap between black and white families also continues to widen. Employed blacks earn only 77 percent of the wages of whites in comparable jobs, down from 82 percent in 1975. In 2000, only 16.6 percent of blacks 25 years and older earned bachelor’s or higher degrees, in contrast to 28.1 percent of whites. Although rates of births to unwed mothers among both blacks and whites have risen since the 1950s, the rate of such births among African Americans is three times the rate of whites.

Health

Black Americans have shorter life expectancies than the national average and often higher mortality rates for certain disease conditions. They suffer disproportionately from heart disease, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), hypertension, stroke, and diabetes. Blacks also require a disproportionately higher number of organ and tissue transplants, but the black donor rate is lower than that for whites. Lower-income blacks’ lack of access to quality health care; a general and well-documented pattern of race-based discrimination in health care delivery; as well as deep-seated distrust of the medical establishment occasioned, in part, by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study all are contributing factors to these trends.

The criminal justice system

Black experiences with and attitudes towards the criminal justice system differ markedly from whites. Although the of violent crime is dropping among blacks, more than one million African American men are currently in jail or prison. Homicide remains the leading cause of death among black men between the ages of 15 and 34. African Americans distrust the criminal justice system much more than do whites. In 1991, the brutal beating of an unarmed black motorist, Rodney King, by four Los Angeles police officers was captured on videotape. An all-white jury later acquitted the police officers, sparking riots in Los Angeles and protests around the country. Ten years later in June 2001, thousands of protesters in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine community gathered to protest what they charged was an ongoing pattern of police brutality that culminated in the death of an unarmed teenager a few weeks before. Issues of unnecessary or excessive force, police harassment, police corruption, racial profiling, suspicious deaths of black detainees while in police custody, and illegal detainment and interrogation are common problems that perpetuate black distrust of, and antipaty toward, public law enforcement.

So I don’t see how the well-documented support of African-Americans for the Democratic Party is irrational. Any black who votes Republican must be either really, really making it, or really, really socially conservative.

[Little_Nemo]

It’s like the joke: How can you tell how many black Republicans there are in the country? Go to the Republican National Convention and count them.

[John_Mace]

Well, Clarence Page apparently believes the higher poll data, and offers this reasoning:

What accounts for this black surge in Bush support? Bositis says most of it comes from conservative, church-going African-Americans who are over age 50, opposed to gay marriage and have not experienced a decline in their incomes during the Bush years.

On the flip side, Kerry’s strongest black support comes from the youngsters aged 18 to 35, who also happen to feel worse-off financially than older generations.