Though liberals had a lot to celebrate on Tuesday, not all is suddenly right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) with America. (Nor will it be once Obama takes office, but that's another matter entirely.) Aside from gay-marriage bans passing in three statesincluding, surprisingly, Californiaand a gay-adoption ban passing in Arkansas, the most dispiriting aspect of the rather spiriting 2008 election comes from exit polls from the Deep South.
See, the Deep South is still Deep Red Country, even though its states have the highest proportions of African-Americans in the country. That's because the higher the percentage of black people a state has, the more conservative its white population tends to be. (Kerry drew about 20% of white support from the five states with the most African-Americans, and more than 40% from the rest of the white American population.) While that's fine, what's worryingand frankly smacks of racismis that far fewer white people in these states voted for Obama than they did for Kerry, even though Obama outperformed Kerry among white voters in the rest of the country.Gelf ran some numbers based on exit-poll data. Here's how Obama did in the three Deep South statesAlabama, Mississippi and Louisianathat have the highest proportion of African-Americans in the country, compared to Kerry's performance. (Note that Obama received 43% of the white vote nationally, while Kerry received 41%.)
Mississippi (36% black)
Kerry: 14% of white vote
Obama: 11% of white vote
Obama/Kerry ratio: 0.76
Louisiana (32% black)
Kerry: 24% of white vote
Obama: 14% of white vote
Obama/Kerry ratio: 0.56
Alabama (29% black)
Kerry: 19% of white vote
Obama: 10% of white vote
Obama/Kerry ratio: 0.53
Caveats: Obama outperformed Kerry among white voters in two of the next three most African-American statesMaryland (1.02) and South Carolina (1.11)and tied him in Georgia. Exit polls have pitfalls and margins of error.
Still, it seems likely that many Southern white voters who were comfortable voting for Kerry couldn't bring themselves to vote for Obama. We're guessing that that's not because Kerry was a more appealing candidate.
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