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On 5/19/2010 8:32 AM, [email protected] wrote: > The shift - > preceding the current political realignment underway and the indispensable > condition making political realignment possible was that of a MASSIVE break > away > section of Anglo working class voters from the Republican party. The social > process setting events in motion are the deep and accelerating changes > taking place in the economy. That's not what happened in the 2008 elections. McCain got 55% of the white vote in 2008. This is a typical Republican result: for example, Bush got 54% of the white vote in 2000, when the popular vote was almost tied. Given that McCain lost by 7 percentage points, that he even INCREASED Republican white support is striking. It is even more striking because Republicans lost ground among the richest Americans who are nearly all white. This of necessity means there MUST have been an increase in Republican support among the lower-income whites to compensate. He won both among lower-income whites --those making less than $50,000, with a 4 percentage point advantage) and among whites making more than that by 13 percentage points. (All these comparisons are based on exit polls carried out on behalf of the major network news divisions, the cable news channels and the AP, and my own computations based on those and the popular vote.) What was different in 2008 mostly was not which way different demographic segments voted but who voted. Whites were 77% of the electorate in 2004 and 74% in 2008, whereas Blacks were 11% of the electorate in 2004 and 13% in 2008. Latinos were 8% in 2004 and 9% in 2008. Young people went from 18% to 22%. The big shifts in voter preference were among Latinos, where the Democrat lead went from 9 percent in 2004 to 36 (!) in 2008, and among young people, where a 9 percent Democrat lead in 2004 became a 34-point 2008 lead. Similarly, among Asians the Democrat lead went from 12 percentage points to 27 points. The Black Republican vote went from 11% (Bush) to 4% (McCain), in other words, not only did many more Blacks vote, roughly two-and-a-half million, but McCain lost most of Bush's Black vote. I don't have access to the cross-tabulations to break down subgroups right now, but my memory is that one big change in the youth vote was in its ethnic composition: there were a significantly higher percentage of Blacks and Latinos in that demographic in 2008 than in 2004. As is normal, lower-income groups favored the Democrat more strongly and as income increases, so does Republican support. Kerry had an 11 point lead on those making less than $50,000 in 2004 and Bush a 13 point lead on those over $50K. Obama increased the lead among the lower income group to 22% and tied Bush at 49% for those making over $50K. This means Obama gained 11 points among the lower income group and 13 among the higher. Taking into account 4 year's inflation, which is reflected in a drop of the lower income group from 45% of the voters to 38% 4 years later, the Democrat shift was in fact higher among higher income groups than among the lower. So, among people making $100,000 or more, Bush had a 17-percent lead that Obama completely erased. Among those making under $100,000, Obama increased the Democrat advantage from one point to 8. The most striking figure of all is that among those making more than $200,000, Bush had a 28 point advantage over Kerry. In this same group, Obama bested McCain by 6%. That's a 34-point swing. To make the demographics even more comparable, contrast those making over $150k in 2004 (7% of the voters) with those making over $200K in 2008 (6% of the voters). Obama turned a 21 point GOP advantage in 2004 into a 6 point Democrat advantage. In other words, among those most privileged layers closest to the ruling class there was a swing to the Democrats comparable to the one among Latinos and Asians. Finally, to put some vote numbers behind all this: Obama won by 8.5 million votes. Of those, the INCREASE in Black votes from what Kerry got was 4.5 million and among Latinos 2.8 million. These are very rough back-of-the-envelope estimates but they show the BIG MAJORITY of Obama's winning margin came from Blacks and Latinos. BOTTOM LINE: Obama's victory was due to a big increase in Black and Latino turnout and a disproportionately greater swing to the Democrats among Latinos and Asians, young people, and the very rich. The idea that white, working class voters carried out a "MASSIVE break away" from the Republicans is contradicted by the evidence. Joaquín (Full disclosure: I've worked analyzing exit polls in elections for news organizations for a couple of decades). ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
