2014: The Importance of the African-American Vote

One of the most perplexing questions for me headed into the Midterms, but just in general in politics, is why exactly it is that certain sections of the Democratic Party's base don't seem to want to vote in Midterms in the ways that they do in presidential elections.  It's a question that doesn't seem to have a proper answer.

There is likely the fact that in a run for the White House, there is a person that the nation rallies around or against.  Barack Obama was able to lead people to the polls in a way that a Senate or House candidate simply cannot.  Everyone in America talks about him every night on the news, he's on Letterman and The View and on the cover of every magazine.  We learn about his family and we see his personal struggles; we get to know him as a person in a way that no other elected official really lets you do.  This is true of all presidential candidates, but it seems to particularly resonate harder with Democrats, who crave a narrative.

The problem is, though, that 2014 is just as important as 2008 or 2012, and if you want evidence of that, reference 2010.  If the Democrats had been able to get the turnout they got in 2008 in 2010, John Boehner would be a backbencher from Ohio, Nancy Pelosi would still be Speaker, and we'd have already had comprehensive immigration reform and a minimum wage increase.  The reality is that Democrats not voting costs them big when it comes to their actual agenda, and yet no matter how many times you tell Democrats that, certain demographics (primarily younger voters, minority voters, and single women) don't seem to turnout to the polls like they do when the White House is at stake.  This is perhaps the key reason why we haven't remotely discussed the House being in play this year-we all know the Democrats can't take back the House in a Midterm with Obama in the White House-why even bother?

And yet, one key group in the Democratic Party's coalition, African-Americans, are holding what may be the future of the country in a way that they haven't done so electorally in years.  The reason for this is that the Electoral College frequently discriminates against African-Americans, as the states with the highest black populations tend not to be competitive during a presidential election.  If you look at Latino-voters, you have three critical battleground states that have over 20% of their population being Latino (Colorado, Nevada, and Florida), but by comparison, African-Americans only have one swing state where African-Americans make up more than 20% of the vote (North Carolina).  As a result of this, and with the continued focus on the Electoral College rather than the popular vote, black voters rarely decide the outcomes of an election in the same way that Latino voters have done so in the past few cycles (to be fair, of course, much of President Obama's larger popular vote victory was driven by a strong African-American turnout, but as Al Gore can attest, the popular vote is only worth the paper it's written on).

However, it's worth noting that this year, in a way that neither of the recent White House runs by the President managed to be, the African-American vote holds the key to the Democrats' success in November.  Much of what President Obama is able to accomplish in office will turn on whether or not the black vote in Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina comes out in large support for the women running under the Democratic banner.  If Mary Landrieu, Michelle Nunn, and Kay Hagan were able to get the sort of support that President Obama received from the African-American communities two years ago this year, the Democrats would win the Senate.  It's that simple-higher African-American turnout in a few weeks would give the Democrats the Senate.

It's worth noting that, based on demographics, an opportunity like this won't come along for African-American Democrats specifically for a while.  Of the eight states with 20% or more of the population being African-American, most of them are either solid red (Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama) or solidly blue (Delaware, Maryland).  As a result, unless North Carolina or (increasingly) Georgia becomes the pivotal swing state in a Senate or presidential election, African-Americans won't have as much power due to geography across the country.  This year, however, it's a guarantee.  These three Senate seats (combined with a very competitive gubernatorial election in Georgia) are crucial to the Democratic math.  I know that as a whole Democrats tend to sit out off-year elections, but this is the wrong year to do it.