In a front-page article today, the Tribune's Mike Dorning tells readers today what we at Progress Illinois pointed out over a month ago: by activating under-represented communities, Barack Obama can dramatically alter the electoral map.
From the article, headlined "Obama's 10 Percent Solution":
If Obama could inspire just 10 percent more Democratic voters under 30 to go to the polls than did four years ago, that alone could be enough to switch Iowa and New Mexico from red to blue, the analysis suggests.
Just a 10 percent increase in turnout among blacks would make up more than 40 percent of Bush's 2004 victory margin in Ohio and more than 20 percent of the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Florida.
Turnout increases of 10 percent of both young voters and African Americans could virtually eliminate the Republicans' 2004 victory margin in Ohio and go a long way to closing the gap in Colorado, Nevada, Missouri, Virginia and--a bit more of a stretch--possibly North Carolina.
Think these goals are unattainable? The Tribune highlights Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential run, which also focused on registering African-Americans and young voters of all races. The Rainbow Coalition couldn't secure the nomination, but black voter registration and turnout both went up 11 percent from four years prior.
This year, Obama has hordes of resources, the Democratic Party infrastructure behind him, and over four months to organize. The results could be striking:
"Based upon the enthusiasm and the greater historical significance this time around, I certainly think a 20 percent increase in black turnout would be entirely within the range of possibility," said David Bositis, a research associate who studies African-American voting trends at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
To play around with the numbers yourself, you can download Nate Silver's youth and minority turnout model here (last updated on June 11). To experiment with different scenarios, just change the turnout numbers in the yellow section at the top of the page. To recalculate the state-by-state projections, hit F9 on a PC, or Command + = on a Mac.
Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user Tom of Lebanon.
Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 11:48
Here's what Gary Langer, ABC's polling guru said about turnout, "Under-30s made up 14 percent of 08 Dem primary voters per our exit polls. That's exactly the average in data from 1976-2004. That said, there has been election-to-election variability, and 04 and 00 were low points, so 08 was up from the most recent past."
Langer has also written that Black turnout is proportional with all other voters. So why all the bluster about gains from Black and youth voters? Is anything really changing that much?
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