Hae-Yu
04-14-2006, 06:43 PM
From the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/13/AR2006041301776.html?referrer=email) (subscription required)
Whites Take Flight on Election Day
By Richard Morin
Friday, April 14, 2006; Page A02
Bad news for Michael S. Steele, the leading Maryland Republican candidate for Senate in November: The scuttling noise he hears on Election Day could be the sound of tens of thousands of white Republicans crossing over to vote for the Democrat.
In fact, white Republicans nationally are 25 percentage points more likely on average to vote for the Democratic senatorial candidate when the GOP hopeful is black, says economist Ebonya Washington of Yale University in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. White independents are similarly inclined to vote for the white Democrat when there's a black Republican running, according to her study of congressional and gubernatorial voting patterns between 1982 and 2000, including five Senate races in which the Republican nominee was black.
Her analysis suggests that GOP "white flight" in the Maryland Senate race could mean at least an additional 1 or 2 percent of the vote goes to the Democrat, and perhaps more -- but only if the candidate is white. Together, independents who would otherwise vote for a white Republican plus GOP deserters may easily swamp any increase in black Democratic crossover to Steele.
But racially motivated crossover voting is not just a Republican phenomenon. Democrats also desert their party when its candidate is black, Washington found. In House races, white Democrats are 38 percentage points less likely to vote Democratic if their candidate is black.
And don't expect turnout to surge among either blacks or whites in Maryland this November. Washington found that white and black turnout swells when the Democratic candidate for Senate is African American but is not significantly affected when the office-seeker is a black Republican.
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bolds are mine. I wasn't so surprised at the Republican crossover, but I was very surprised at that Democratics were even less likely to vote for their own party when their candidate is black.
I do like the very biased wordings in the article. The article mostly focuses on Republican biases and leaves the greater Democratic bias as a small paragraph down bottom. It also says "25% more likely" to switch vs "38% less likely" to vote for their own. How does that correlate? It seems like more Dems switch than Repubs, but those wordings can be misleading.
Also the last 2 paragraphs don't seem to jive. It says white Democrats are 38% less likely to vote their own if the candidate is black but that white and black turnout swells when the candidate is a black Democrat running for the Senate. Does that mean more show up to vote TOTAL as in white Democrats are more likely to vote when they have a black Democrat candidate, just not for their own guy? Hmmm.
Whites Take Flight on Election Day
By Richard Morin
Friday, April 14, 2006; Page A02
Bad news for Michael S. Steele, the leading Maryland Republican candidate for Senate in November: The scuttling noise he hears on Election Day could be the sound of tens of thousands of white Republicans crossing over to vote for the Democrat.
In fact, white Republicans nationally are 25 percentage points more likely on average to vote for the Democratic senatorial candidate when the GOP hopeful is black, says economist Ebonya Washington of Yale University in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. White independents are similarly inclined to vote for the white Democrat when there's a black Republican running, according to her study of congressional and gubernatorial voting patterns between 1982 and 2000, including five Senate races in which the Republican nominee was black.
Her analysis suggests that GOP "white flight" in the Maryland Senate race could mean at least an additional 1 or 2 percent of the vote goes to the Democrat, and perhaps more -- but only if the candidate is white. Together, independents who would otherwise vote for a white Republican plus GOP deserters may easily swamp any increase in black Democratic crossover to Steele.
But racially motivated crossover voting is not just a Republican phenomenon. Democrats also desert their party when its candidate is black, Washington found. In House races, white Democrats are 38 percentage points less likely to vote Democratic if their candidate is black.
And don't expect turnout to surge among either blacks or whites in Maryland this November. Washington found that white and black turnout swells when the Democratic candidate for Senate is African American but is not significantly affected when the office-seeker is a black Republican.
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bolds are mine. I wasn't so surprised at the Republican crossover, but I was very surprised at that Democratics were even less likely to vote for their own party when their candidate is black.
I do like the very biased wordings in the article. The article mostly focuses on Republican biases and leaves the greater Democratic bias as a small paragraph down bottom. It also says "25% more likely" to switch vs "38% less likely" to vote for their own. How does that correlate? It seems like more Dems switch than Repubs, but those wordings can be misleading.
Also the last 2 paragraphs don't seem to jive. It says white Democrats are 38% less likely to vote their own if the candidate is black but that white and black turnout swells when the candidate is a black Democrat running for the Senate. Does that mean more show up to vote TOTAL as in white Democrats are more likely to vote when they have a black Democrat candidate, just not for their own guy? Hmmm.