There’s been a certain amount of triumphalism about the election of Tim Scott, Mia Love, and other minority and/or female candidates from Republicans who are tired of being told that the GOP consists entirely of old white males who are going to die soon:
.@g56yu Wait: @AmandaMarcotte blames White Male Voters? http://t.co/11bJWv4O43 She's not just crazy, she's BLIND! pic.twitter.com/SS2RFVt43a
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 6, 2014
But these people got elected on the votes of white men, and without the votes of blacks. This is from a “LunchTime Politics” email from Dr. Ron Faucheux of Clarus Consulting:
THE RACIAL DIVIDEBy Ron Faucheux
For decades, race has been a driving force in American politics. A look at the exit polling from last week’s election shows this reality continues unabated.
Across the nation, Republicans rolled up big majorities among white voters while Democrats won African Americans overwhelmingly.
Very few Republican candidates in the Senate contests we analyzed even hit double-digit percentages among black voters, and then just barely. Two GOP incumbents, Sen. John Cornyn in Texas and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, each won 10% of the black vote in their states. Scott, it should be noted, is one of only two African American U.S. senators currently serving. Other victorious Republican Senate contenders in big races were all in single-digits: Mitch McConnell in Kentucky (8%), Tom Cotton in Arkansas (3%), Thom Tillis in North Carolina (3%) and David Perdue in Georgia (7%).
More Republicans won double-digit percentages among African Americans in gubernatorial races than in the more polarized Senate contests, but still not many: Scott Walker in Wisconsin (10%), Nathan Deal in Georgia (10%), Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas (10%), Neel Kashkari in California (11%), Rick Scott in Florida (12%) and Rob Astorino in New York (14%). The highest percentage of black votes won by a Republican governor in the races we analyzed was John Kasich in Ohio––he received 26% against a Democrat whose campaign imploded a couple of months before Election Day.
On the flip side––most Democratic candidates lost white voters by big margins. There were only a few exceptions: California Gov. Jerry Brown captured 54% of his state’s white constituency––the highest percentage for any Democrat in the elections analyzed. [More]
So 97 percent of blacks voted against Tom Cotton and Thom Tillis.
In Ohio, 74 percent of blacks voted for Ed Fitzgerald, in spite of the fact that his “implosion” looked like this:
First was the poor fundraising, then a report that he was found by police in a car at 4:30 a.m. with a woman who was not his wife — and that he didn't have a driver's license for a decade — and finally nearly all of his top campaign staff deserting him. [Washington Post, August 26, 2014]
So Ed Fitzgerald (who is white) because he's a Democrat, got 74 percent of the black vote, and Tim Scott, who is black, because he's a black Republican, got 10 percent of the black vote.
Blacks vote for Democrats, because they think they gain as group from the policies of the Democratic party. They may be wrong, but that's what they think.
No conceivable amount of pandering by the Republicans is going to change that. Fortunately for the GOP, the Democrats are pandering even harder towards minorities, and that is starting to turn the white voters off.
