Race and the 2008 Democratic Primaries

As an avid supporter of Barack Obama, I have been offended by suggestions that Obama would not have had this much success had he not been black. Even though I can't deny my bias and affinity towards him because of his race (and mine), many people as well as myself have a conviction that he is a man of great vision and intelligence who can usher this nation to greatness and credibility.

The main subject of this blog is to provide some statistical basis to debunk (or support) the notion that being black is the main reason Barack Obama is the frontrunner in the 2008 democratic primaries. So, how much has race helped Obama? For that, I went looking for data about the racial constitution of the democratic electorate. I find just what I wanted here.

RACE: In 2004, 70 percent of Democratic voters in these states were white, 17 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic. This year 63 percent have been white, 19 percent black and 13 percent Hispanic. Clinton has led in contests so far among whites, chiefly white women, but has faded in recent primaries. She has won strong support from Hispanics, while Obama has had huge margins among blacks.

Further down, you see that the "data is from exit polls in the same 15 states in 2004 and 2008: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin." For my purposes, I believe this data to be sufficiently illustrative of the racial make up of the democratic electorate of the whole nation..

Some other stats to factor in:

White vote split roughly 57/43 favoring Clinton
African-American vote roughly split 85/15 favoring Obama
Hispanic vote roughly split 65/35 favoring Clinton
Other 5% split 50/50 amongst the candidates.

This would mean Clinton's 50% share of the voters from the democratic electorate come from 36% Whites, 3% African-Americans, 8.5% Hispanics, and 2.5% from other races. For Obama, these numbers would be 27% Whites, 16% African-Americans, 4.5% Hispanics, and 2.5% from other groups. Whites and Hispanics give Clinton a +9% and +4% advantage, respectively, while African-Americans give Obama a +13% edge. All other factors being equal, this effectively means whatever advantage Clinton is getting from the White and Hispanic voters is being cancelled by Obama's overwhelming edge amongst African-Americans.

	White	African-American	Hispanic	Other	Total
Clinton	36%	3%	8.5%	2.5%	50%
Obama	27%	16%	4.5%	2.5%	50%
Differential	+9% Clinton	+13% Obama	+4% Clinton	2.5%	50%

The actual popular vote to date (March 14, 2008) shows Obama with 49.5% to Clinton's 46.9%, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

Popular Vote Total

Obama (13,280,770, 49.5%)
Clinton (12,577,044, 46.9%)
Advantage (Obama +703,726, +2.6%)

If we exclude other candidates and focus on the two only, those numbers would be 51.3% for Obama and 48.7% for Clinton, which are close enough to our numbers. All in all, my back-of-the-envelope calculation demonstrates my point which is, other things being equal, Obama benefits as much from being black as Clinton does from being white. So, to say that Obama is where he is because of his race is senseless. Two other points I would like to make:

1. Obama should be commended for being able to get a respectable portion of the white votes -- that is a testament to his appeal and message, not his race.
2. If any other minority had a clean, credible, and capable candidate, it would support one of its own with the kind of numbers that African-Americans have supported Obama.