Tag Archives: exit polls

Marriage Equality

Mythbusting the African American Vote and Prop 8

4 Comments

In the days after Proposition 8’s passage, much was made of a CNN Exit Poll showing 70% of African Americans voted for Prop 8. That poll had a number of problems including a small sample size. But the damage had been done, and it soon became conventional wisdom that black voters made the difference, that Obama brought out a huge wave of black anti-gay voters, etc.

But a further review of the evidence, more accurate exit polling, and academic analysis suggests that the 70% figure is way off, as David Mixner reports:

Dr. Fernando Guerra of Loyola’s Levy Center for the Study of Los Angeles did a far more extensive poll than CNN and found that the 70% figure was way too high. The figure is closer to 57% (still not acceptable) but a long way from the 70%. Other models that I have been running in an attempt to get the facts and not the emotions show the latter a more likely figure.

The other data that appears to be emerging (BUT yet to be totally verified) is that African-Americans who early voted (which was a huge number) voted YES while those on election day voted NO. Remember we did not do extensive campaigning in many of the African-American precincts until the final week or so which was long after tens of thousands had already voted. Our campaign was slow to use Obama’s opposition to Proposition Eight which he gave the day after the initiative qualified five months before the election.

That explanation makes much more sense than anything else I’ve seen. Early voters tend to be older and it would make sense if some of them in the African American community were strongly associated with Yes on 8 churches. Once the No on 8 campaign finally got its act somewhat together and did outreach to African Americans, we saw the rewards on Election Day.

Ultimately this reminds us how cheap, stupid, and misguided the scapegoating of African Americans over Prop 8 has been. Prop 8’s passage revealed that the marriage equality movement has a lot of outreach to do in this state – to older voters, voters living in “red California,” to some Latinos and African Americans but also to numerous white voters (if whites had voted strongly No, this discussion would be moot), to Asian and Pacific Islanders, to some religious groups, including LDS Californians.

When the next campaign happens we will be sure to not make these same mistakes. Outreach is going to happen early and often. Just as Barack Obama took his campaign to red America – organizing in places Democrats never before thought they could win, reaching out to voters Dems often ignored – so too must the Prop 8 campaign adopt an inclusive and assertive organizing strategy, mobilizing our base and doing outreach in every community that did not vote strongly enough for marriage equality.

Uncategorized

Nate Silver Mythbusts Prop 8

5 Comments

Earlier today Dan Walters repeated the canard that Obama brought new voters to the polls who voted for Prop 8, providing its margin of victory:

Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure’s margin of victory.

To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional – meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher – chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.

That brought out Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com to bust this particular myth:

But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters — the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) — voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

Now, it’s true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance — they were helpful on balance. If California’s electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.

That’s the first point we all need to internalize and repeat often – Obama brought out a more progressive electorate that improved on the 2004 numbers and made Prop 8 a closer battle than it might otherwise have been. And while Prop 8’s passage is a catastrophe no matter the margin of its victory, closer is better as we lay the groundwork for a repeal vote.

The second key point is Obama brought out a younger electorate, and that voters under 30 were strongly against Prop 8 – regardless of racial identification:

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8’s passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as ‘new’ voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren’t fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

At the end of the day, Prop 8’s passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

Perhaps what’s needed over the next few years is a California version of The Great Schlep – younger Californians, no matter the community in which they live or identify, ought to do all they can to convince their family members to not vote against marriage rights.

Even if that particular strategy isn’t used, Nate Silver’s analysis shows that the effort to turn Prop 8 into another opportunity to divide us on racial lines and to scapegoat African Americans is missing the point rather dramatically.