Obama effect?

Politics in the US continus to be dominated by health care and the Sotomayor nomination. But I came across this little cut and keep nugget on voter turnout.

I’m sure I will make good use of this when covering elections in years to come, since voter turnout, especially variance across the demographic groups is an important subject of study in US politics.

According to an article in the New York Times, there was a marked, and perhaps significant, change in turnout amongst black voters in the 2008 election.

‘Total turnout in 2008 was about the same as it was in 2004, about 64 percent of voting age citizens.

But with Barack Obama on the ballot, the makeup of the 131 million who voted last year was markedly different. While the number of non-Hispanic white voters remained roughly the same, 2 million more blacks, 2 million more Latinos and 600,000 more Asians turned out. Compared with 2004, the voting rate for black, Asian and Hispanic voters increased by about four percentage points. The rate for whites declined by one percentage point.

In a number of states, including Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and South Carolina, turnout among blacks surpassed 70 percent.

In 2004, according to the census, barely 60 percent of eligible blacks voted. In 2008, nearly 65 percent did (as did 66 percent of white voting-age citizens).

But one of the biggest changes was the gap between black and white participation. In 2004, the rate of black voter registration was 10 percentage points below that of whites. Last year, it narrowed to four percentage points.

Of the 206 million citizens 18 and older, 71 percent were registered to vote. Among those who were registered, 90 percent voted in 2008.

Thom File, a voting analyst with the Census Bureau, said the turnout among blacks ages 18 to 24 increased 8 percent from 2004, to 55 percent. That helped drive the overall turnout in that group to 49 percent, still lower than among older eligible voters.

Among voters 18 to 24 and 25 to 44, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites in 2008.

Like an analysis earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, the latest findings were drawn from census surveys and interviews.

“In 2008 we obviously had a historic candidacy,” said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew center. “That’s certainly a plausible explanation for the spike in African-American turnout. The question was, Would other minorities vote for this minority? Not only did he get a big vote, but he got a big turnout.”’