The 2004 North Carolina exit poll said that John Kerry got just 27% of the white vote. But as we've written before that survey also supposed African Americans were 26% of the electorate in the state when they were actually 19%. That means Kerry actually did much better with white voters than the exit poll indicated.
The non-white vote was about 21%. Assuming Kerry got about 85% of that, it accounts for 18% out of the total 44% he received in the state.
That means he derived his other 26% from the 79% of white voters in the state. That would put his share of the white vote somewhere in the 32-33% range.
How do we know blacks were actually 19% of the vote?
ReplyDeleteThe State Board of Elections tracks both who votes, and what voters' race is. They have the statistics.
ReplyDeleteSo that means that African Americans slightly underperformed from their share of the registered electorate (which was 20.1% in Nov. 2004). Right now African Americans share of the registered electorate is 20.8% and I would not be surprised to see their share rise north of 21% and close to 22%. For Obama to win he needs African-Americans this cycle to slightly overperform from their share of the registered electorate. A little over 1% overperformance.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful and useful post.
ReplyDelete