To state that the 2008 presidential election was historic is, of course, now a bit passé. The election, however, was historic. Not only did 2008 witness the first African-American and female candidates with a legitimate chance of winning the presidency (and the first woman on the national Republican ticket), the American electorate, in fact, elected the country’s first African-American president. Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 was in part the result several forces (a very unpopular incumbent president, an equally unpopular war, and an historic economic crisis just before the election) that came together to advantage the Democratic candidate and disadvantage his Republican rival, John McCain.
In a recent paper, Seth McKee and I argued that another factor crucial to Obama’s victory was his ability to change the composition of the electorate by bringing in traditionally low participation groups such as the young (18-29), African-Americans, and Hispanics (McKee and Hill, 2009). Turnout for all three groups increased between 2004 and 2008 with African-Americans experiencing the largest increase of any demographic group (eight points) and young and Hispanic citizens witnessing smaller but nonetheless noticeable increases. Most other demographic groups (e.g. older Americans, whites as a group) also experienced modest increases in turnout.
The increases noted above are based on data taken from the Census Bureau’s 2004 and 2008 Current Population Survey: Voter Supplements and represent national trends. Presidential elections, of course, take place within the context of the Electoral College, and thus there is variation in the nature of the presidential election across states. Specifically competition levels across states vary considerably, with some states being highly competitive (e.g. Florida and Ohio) and other states (most of them) uncompetitive (e.g. Massachusetts and Utah). Electoral competition is crucial to turnout because it stimulates interest in the electorate and more importantly induces the parties and candidates to expend resources to win the votes of potential supporters. Because of the great variation in competition across states, Seth and I hypothesized that the increases in turnout among our three groups of interest (the young, African-Americans, and Hispanics) would be greater in competitive states than in non-competitive states.
Figure 1 presents the probability of voting for young, African-Americans, and Hispanic citizens across five categories1 of state level competition in the Electoral College.2 
As the graph suggests we were partially correct in that the probability of voting for both young and Hispanic citizens increased substantially across the five levels of competition. However, there appears to be little to no substantive relationship between state-level competition and turnout among African-Americans. The probability of voting for African-Americans increased a very modest two points across the five categories of competition. Figure 2 examines this same relationship among 18-29 year olds. All three groups (the young, African-American, and Hispanic) experienced increases in the probability of voting across levels of competition, although the increase for African-Americans was smaller than for white and Hispanic young citizens.
Taken together, Figures 1 and 2 tell an interesting story about the 2008 presidential election and electoral participation in general. Given that African-Americans experienced the greatest increase in turnout between 2004 and 2008 among all demographic groups, the lack of effect of competition on their participation rates suggests the candidacy of Barack Obama in itself was enough to mobilize African-American citizens to show up on Election Day. This result is not all that surprising. Regardless of demographic characteristics, when a person believes her vote (and thus her preferences) will be heard and considered she is much more likely to be engaged in the process and thus more likely to participate (Conway 2002). For minority groups the presence of a minority candidate sends the message that “this person understands me and will represent my wishes in government,” and therefore individuals from these groups should be more likely to cast a ballot on Election Day.
This effect is even greater when minorities hold positions of power. Bobo and Gilliam (1990) found that in cities controlled by African-American leaders (e.g. Detroit, Atlanta, etc.), not only was turnout among African-Americans higher than white citizens, but levels of interest in politics, political efficacy, and knowledge in politics were also higher among African-Americans. As the authors note, the presence of African-American leadership sends a cue to African-American citizens that policy outputs will be based on a consideration of their preferences and consequently their level of engagement increases.
Most political scientists now agree that one of the keys to increasing levels of turnout in the United States is increased mobilization efforts on the part of the parties and candidates. However, the historic and successful candidacy of Barack Obama suggests that increasing turnout among out groups such as racial minorities may take more than concentrated efforts to induce them into the voting booth. The presence of minority candidates and elected officials sends the message that the concerns and preferences of minorities will be considered in the halls of government and thus another key to increasing turnout among these groups may, in fact, be increasing the number of minority candidates running for office at the local, state, and national levels.
Notes
1 The five categories of Electoral College competition are coded as follows: 0=a state considered safe by both presidential campaigns (Least Competitive); 1=a state considered safe by one campaign and leaning by the other; 2=a state considered leaning by both campaigns; 3=a state considered leaning by one campaign and a battleground by the other; 4=a state considered a battleground by both campaigns (Most Competitive).
2 The values in Figures 1 and 2 are predicted probabilities derived from binary logistic models with controls for a variety of individual and state level variables.
References
Bobo, Lawrence and Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. 1990. “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment,” American Political Science Review. 84: 377-93.
Conway, Margaret. 2000. Political Participation in the United States. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.
McKee, Seth and David Hill. 2009. “The New Democratic Majority: Who Voted in the 2008 Presidential Election.” Paper presented at 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, September 3-6.
2 Comments
I thought it was interesting that you proposed more minorities running for office as the key to increasing minority voting turnout. Along the same line of thought, do you think that a failure by the Obama administration to implement meaningful policies would result in an inevitable decrease in minority turnout in future elections? You made mention that several forces allowed the democratic candidate to prevail in the last election including a very unpopular incumbent president, an equally unpopular war, and a historic economic crisis just before the election. Although the unpopular president is gone, do you think that if the war in Iraq is still going on and if the economy hasn’t turned around, that it would result in an equal decline in voter turnout in the next election because minorities would be frustrated? The Healthcare bill currently trying to make its way through Congress would definitely serve as reason enough for minorities to return for the election in 2012. However, if the bill dies, as predicted by some political commentators, wouldn’t this result in a disappointment by the minorities that would inevitably decrease the projected turnout regardless of whether or not a minority was running for office? Additionally, the lack of jobs would seemingly prove to yield a similar result. I was just wondering if you thought these factors could play a role in altering the projected turnout. Thank you.
The actual information is really startling and the Obama campaign’s approach to increased mobility is something useful that I think would be useful not just in future campaigns but in civic education and that sort of thing in general; it’s interesting to think about how increased diversity in the government itself overall would further increase turnout among differing minorities (kind of going with the thing in paragraph 6 about increased turnout depending on minorities in positions of power.)
Something else I’m interested in is the role of class – that is, specifically, economic class and income levels – in an election like this; did the Obama campaign’s techniques for mobilization influence the participation of the economically disadvantaged, and if it did which of these tactics can we use to increase participation and engagement by the politically inactive, economically disadvantaged individuals in the system who, largely, are some of the least active? According to Schlozman, Verba and Brady, political engagement in America is very clearly stratified by class levels, something indicative of how much of a ‘money’ game politics can be here. The data seems to show the poor give less time and money (which is understandable), but also participate less overall in other political activity; in addition, those in lower social strata also show low levels of susceptibility to recruitment devices; recruitment is self-serving in that it intentionally targets those who are more likely to be active or return to being active, and there is little interest in bringing any ‘new blood’ into the political game. All these factors together have created a severe gap in participation that we should naturally try to bridge if we are to ensure equal representation for different social groups in our political system; can the tools that brought out so many voters in this election for president Obama be used effectively here, applied to a new demographic?
Or have they already? The correlation between racial dynamics and social class seem strongly interrelated; nonwhite families in America on average have significant less net worth than white families, particularly among the black community. With the Obama campaign’s success in bringing out these minorities, has this changed the social class aspect of political participation at all? It’d be interesting to look and see if there are relationships or anything to be explored here, I think.
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