5 Voting Demographics Where Barack Obama Made Headlines
According to exit polls, Obama dominated the youth and minority vote
By U.S. News Staff
Posted: November 6, 2008
1. Minorities: Ninety-six percent of black voters supported Obama. He also drew the votes of two thirds of Hispanics.
2. Young people: Obama won the under-30 crowd by 34 percentage points. This bested Bill Clinton's 19-point advantage over Bob Dole among young voters in 1996.
3. Women: Obama attracted 56 percent of female voters. Unmarried women also voted for Obama over McCain by 70 to 29 percent.
4. White men: He had the support of 41 percent of white men. Before Obama, no Democrat since Jimmy Carter had earned more than 38 percent of the white male vote.
5. Hillary Clinton fans: Obama won over 84 percent of Democrats who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
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Election-driven news and views . . . by Jim Geraghty.
Sources: Associated Press, Politico , Women's Voices Women Vote
Tags: 2012, Barack Obama, Demographics, PollingThe general gist of the article is that the rapid growth in America’s minority populations — most notably Hispanics and Asian-Americans — is bad news for the GOP. By their calculations, Obama can do much worse among white Americans in certain key states and still win, because the growth in the share of the electorate by these other groups would counteract that.
I might argue the reverse, that some polling evidence suggests Obama’s support among whites is eroding, and he’ll need greater turnout among minority voters to offset those lost votes.
Obama won 43 percent of the white vote in 2008, and in a lot of the key swing states, Obama was winning percentages ranging from the mid-40s to more than 50 percent.
Obviously, Obama’s current approval rating doesn’t correlate perfectly with his likely share of the vote, but let’s presume that his share of the vote is within a few points of his approval rating. A recent National Journal poll finds, “Obama’s approval rating among whites remained at just 39 percent; it hasn’t cracked 40 percent since September 2009.” Even worse for the president, Quinnipiac’s latest puts Obama’s job approval among whites at 29 percent.
Obama won 43 percent of the white vote in 2008. When National Journal was trying to calculate how little of the white vote Obama could get and still win these states, the lowest swing states were North Carolina and Virginia at 38 percent. But if the publication’s own poll is accurate, Obama is really on the precipice of how little of the white voter support he can enjoy while remaining competitive, and if the Quinnipiac poll is accurate, he’s up a certain creek. (PPP puts his approval rating among whites at 35 percent in North Carolina and 37 percent in Virginia; recall National Journal calculates Obama needs 38 percent with higher minority turnout.)
Among Hispanics, Obama is doing much better, with a 64 percent approval rating according to Pew. In Gallup’s poll, it’s been as low as 54 percent. The organization Latino Decisions did a poll in February that put Obama’s approval rating pretty high — 70 percent — but only 43 percent were certain to vote for him.
Obama won 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008. If Obama wins a percentage close to those 70 percent who currently approve, he’s home free. If Obama’s level of support is closer to that 43 percent of current certain supporters, he’s in deep trouble.
Of course, one problem with this type of analysis is that we’re looking the numbers in a vacuum, presuming that past voting habits continue. For example, the unemployment rate for blacks is currently 13.7 percent and the unemployment rate among Hispanics is 11.3 percent.
For almost all of Obama’s presidency, these troubling numbers have been even higher. Will Obama run as well among those groups if unemployment among them is significantly higher than it was in 2008?
Finally, I would note that in every election, and certainly since 2008, Democrats have counted on minority voters to turn out and support them in large numbers. By and large they have been disappointed, even in states with high Hispanic populations like New Jersey, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Will turnout be up in a presidential year? Sure.
But it’s worth noting that in the past two years, some very well-funded campaigns brought President Obama to rallies in places like Cleveland and Norfolk and Newark and Camden, and minority voters haven’t shown up for the Democrats in the numbers they were looking for. Sometimes, the voters just don’t show up.
60.
Obama accuses Republicans of using debt ceiling as ‘gun against the heads’ of Americans to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners
“The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners,
For oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.”
61.Obama Jobs Plan Meets Early Resistance From Republicans
Mark Zandy said on Sunday that the only way to avoid a double-dip recession right now was for Congress to follow through on the debt ceiling deal in a "reasonable, graceful way" and to extend the payroll tax cuts in 2012. But many of the same Republicans who are fiercely protective of tax cuts for the wealthy have already said they oppose Obama's plan to extend the payroll tax cut for the low-income.
"It's always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told the AP, "but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again."
Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he also opposed the 12-month tax cut because it would cost the government about $120 billion next year if it were renewed.
Axelrod suggested on Sunday that the Republicans' position was hypocritical."It is unthinkable to me that the Republican Party would say we can't touch tax cuts for the wealthy, we can't touch special interest corporate tax loopholes because that will the economy,
but we'll allow a $1,000 tax increase on the average American come January," he said on ABC News' "This Week." "How could that be? The only explanation for it is politics."
Republicans are also pushing back on Obama's plan to extend emergency unemployment benefits. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) said on Sunday that, while he would "consider" supporting the payroll tax cuts, he is less enthusiastic about unemployment insurance.
62.
U.S. Politics
Obama’s Black Backlash
Aug 19, 2011 9:07 PM EDT
Exasperated with the first African-American president, the Congressional Black Caucus says it’s time to emulate the Tea Party. Patricia Murphy on its vow to adopt get-tough tactics.
With a stinging budget defeat behind them and unemployment in the black community soaring to 16 percent, members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re done waiting for Barack Obama to fight their battles for them.
Instead, the 43 African-American lawmakers say they’re taking matters into their own hands and will carry the fight to Tea Party Republicans, whom they blame for Obama’s latest lurch to the right.
“The Tea Party discovered something. That is if they organize, if they talk loud enough, if they threaten, if they register to vote and elect a few people, they can take over the Congress of the United States,” said Rep. Maxine Waters. “They called our bluff and we blinked. We should have made them walk the plank.”
Waters was speaking in Atlanta, a stop on the CBC’s five-city job fair and town-hall tour now making its way across the country. On the same day Obama left Washington for a 10-day Martha’s Vineyard vacation, eight caucus members hosted a crowd of nearly 5,000 out-of-work Georgians who had flocked to event for the rare chance to meet recruiters from companies that can actually hire them.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters considers the summer of 2011 "a defining moment" and says the Tea Party "called our bluff and we blinked.", Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo
The scene outside the event told the story of the black community, whose jobless rate is more than 50 percent above the national average and spikes as high as 39.2 percent for young African-Americans.
Dressed in dark suits, knotted ties, and shined leather shoes, men and women stood for up to five hours in a line that stretched four and five people deep as it snaked and switched back across the Atlanta Technical College campus.
Some held umbrellas against the Georgia sun, while most fanned themselves with a few fresh resumes. Once inside, they could visit booths set up by prospective employers, smile, shake hands, and hope to make an impression. At least, many said, it was something to do.
At the town-hall meeting that followed the fair, Waters and other CBC members told 200 or so attendees that everyone, from members of Congress to folks in the seats, needed to start doing more or suffer the consequences at the hands of Tea Party–aligned Republicans back in Washington.
Waters called the summer of 2011 a “defining moment” for her and the African-American community, especially as Capitol Hill’s new super committee gears up to slash federal spending further this fall.
“The people want us to fight. They want us to stand up,” Waters said. “We are going to be insistent that what comes out in September is going to reflect the experiences that we have had.”
Looking back on the summer, several CBC members acknowledged that the freshman class of Tea Party Republicans had out-hustled, out-shouted, and out-organized them as the Aug. 2 default deadline neared.
In the end, President Obama chose between allowing the country to go into default and signing onto a deal with deep cuts to domestic spending but no tax increases, despite liberal insistence that more revenues were needed.
“It was the Tea Party and the radical right, the right of the right, that hijacked the Republican Party,” said Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of the civil-rights movement.
“They wanted to destroy this president.
They made a decision to make him a one-termer, and that’s what it was all about.”
Lewis joined two thirds of the black caucus in voting against the budget deal, warning that the trigger mechanism in the bill will gut Medicare and Medicaid if the evenly divided super committee deadlocks and automatic spending cuts kick in.
Rep. Cedric Richmond, one of a handful of freshman Democrats elected in 2010, said he voted for the deal to avoid a national default. “I didn’t want to vote for it, but I didn’t want to take castor oil when I was sick either,” he said.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Richmond called the House GOP and Tea Party members in particular “sinful” for holding the American economy over a barrel to get the spending cuts they wanted.
“They won because they are organized, they are monolithic, and they are willing, I think, to obstruct the success of the country to win the next election,” he said. “That is what I find to be sinful, with so many people unemployed.”
63.
5 Republicans Help Senate Jobs Bill Over Hurdle
by David Welna
February 23, 2010
Five Republican Senators joined Democrats to push a bipartisan jobs bill past a GOP filibuster, and on to a final vote Wednesday. It's a much-needed victory for President Obama — even though the measure is seen as giving only a modest boost on hiring. The Senate's newest Republican, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, was among those breaking ranks.
Now, a vote in the Senate last night did not break down entirely on partisan lines. Five Republicans in the Senate sided with nearly all of the Democrats to vote for a job's creation bill. One of those who broke ranks with the Republican Party was the man who last month ended the Democrat's 60 vote majority - Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown. Here's NPR's David Welna.
DAVID WELNA: The job's bill Republicans were trying to hold up is modest by congressional standards. Its $15 billion price tag is only about one-tenth what a separate jobs bill cost that the House past late last year. But to hear California Democrat Barbara Boxer tell it before yesterday's vote, the fate of the nation was in the hands of a chamber whose majority party now has only 59 members, one short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
Senator BARBARA BOXER (Democrat, California): This vote will send a shiver through the spine of our entire business community and our working people if we dont get 60 votes today.
WELNA: Failing to get to 60 might have also sent a shiver through Senate Democrats. This was, after all, the very first filibuster they were trying to break on a bill since Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown became his partys 41st senator. As such, it was a crucial test of Majority Leader Harry Reids skill at winning over at least a few Republicans. Reid told them they now share some of the responsibility for what happens in the Senate.
Senator HARRY REID (Democrat, Nevada; Majority Leader): If Republicans support this bill, as they have all the elements of it in the past, and they join us to pass it, were going to do many more bills just like this to create jobs. However, if my friends on the other side of the aisle want to put bipartisanship ahead of people - people who are out of work, - they once again try to distract from the issue at hand, they only confirm their reputation of as the party of no. They only confirm the American peoples fears that Republicans refuse to do things to help them.
WELNA: Republicans had wanted a bigger jobs bill with more tax breaks. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to address the politically charged measure on the Senate floor. But rather than criticize it, he spoke of the deficit.
Senator MITCH MCCONNELL (Republican, Kentucky; Minority Leader): Americans are worried about the growing national debt. That’s why Republicans hope to offer amendments to the jobs bill that well be voting on today that would lower it.
WELNA: For newly sworn in Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, it was his first chance to uphold the GOP filibuster on a piece of legislation. Instead, Brown voted to end the filibuster. He later told reporters he hoped his vote could be what he called a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington.
Senator SCOTT BROWN (Republican, Massachusetts): I felt it was appropriate. I guess Like I said that, it’s not a perfect bill. I would have liked broader and deeper tax cuts, but I was comfortable with that first vote.
WELNA: Maines Olympia Snowe was one of four other Republicans who also voted to end the filibuster. She said she welcomed Brown as one more Republican willing to consider legislation on its merits.
Senator OLYMPIA SNOWE (Republican, Maine): Frankly, I think were so -we've been so driven here between red and blue states rather than, you know, really focusing on what matters for America.
WELNA: Nebraskas Ben Nelson was the only Democrat who voted against ending the filibuster. That states Republican Senator, Mike Johanns, voted likewise.
Senator MIKE JOHANNS (Republican, Nebraska): I just don’t see anything there that causes me to get excited about what Senator Reid is trying to accomplish here.
WELNA: Reid, for his part, exulted in the 62 to 30 outcome of the vote and the willingness of five Republicans to break with their party.
Sen. REID: It’s really a new day, and I look forward to this work period being one where we can all go home and say, you know, ladies and gentlemen from Nevada, New Hampshire, and Illinois and New Jersey and New York and Arkansas, were working together. Were really getting things done together. And that’s what legislation should be about.
WELNA: Having found an issue that can divide Republicans, Reid then promised two more jobs -related bills for later this week.
David Welna, NPR News, The Capitol.
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“All (Negro) Plaintiff Black African American herein and (all) Plaintiff(s) Black African Americans refugee descendants herein simply sadden state before the “Honorable Justice”
The GOP refuses to pass a Jobs Bill.
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