The Great White Sort

During the course of this year's Presidential Election Campaign there was an often seen trope amongst Rethuglicans Republicans. That is the claim that black voters were only voting for Obama because he's black, and that this makes them racist. 

Well let's take a look at that claim. In this election Obama received a whopping 95% share of the vote. Pretty racist huh. After all black people wouldn't support a white candidate to that high a degree; white candidates like Bill Clinton (83% of the black vote in '92, 84% in '96), Al Gore (90% in 2000) or John Kerry (88% in 2004). Isn't it lucky that we have those lovely tolerant Republicans to point out racism for us. And isn't it terrible that Obama won just because of the black (/Youth/Middle Aged/Catholic/Jewish/High School Graduate/University Educated/Female/City Dweller/Suburban Dweller) vote. [/sarcasm]

And so to the title of the post. The main demographic that Obama didn't win was white (f*cking crackers) people (especially men). This isn't neccessarily totally damning since this is a group that trends towards Republicans anyway, so it's better to look at it more closely. To see where white voters switched to Obama, and where they switched away.

The graphs show a greater than 15% increase in the Democrat's share of the white vote between 2004 and 2008 in 15 states. Most significantly in Colorado, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina; four states which went from Republican in 2004 to Democrat this year. This I think further illustrates Obama's widespread support and refutes the notion that he only won because of black voters voting along racial lines.

On a side note it's interesting to note that the four states in which the Democrat's share of the white vote fell by more than 15% [Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama] are all in the Deep South.

Not that I'm trying to imply anything about these states. I'm sure they're perfectly nice Kind people there and it would be unKind of me to say other wise. K.

On yet another sidenote here's a wonderful picture of newspaper front covers.