Black Voter Turnout Is Imperative To Keeping Donald Trump From Being Elected President RawStory taken the liberty of breaking down exactly why it is SO important that each and everyone of us do our civic duty and cast our votes. All of us, but especially black women… As the Democratic nominating contest speeds up, African-American voters – especially women – have some tough, and influential, choices to make. South Carolina is the first primary where African Americans are the majority of Democratic voters, controlling 55 percent of the vote. That makes South Carolina a battleground for black votes, especially those of African-American women. We know that victories in early primaries are important. Later voters often pick their candidate based on early primary outcomes. The South Carolina primary is perhaps as important as the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries because it could create momentum in subsequent contests where black votes will help candidates win. The following statistics explains exactly how influential the black vote can be and how detrimental it can be for us if we don’t… African-American voters are the most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party. Their support for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore was 90 percent in 2000. In 2004, they voted for John Kerry by 88 percent. Barack Obama won an all-time high of 95 percent in 2008. According to exit polls, black voters were 13 percent of the national electorate in 2008. They represented approximately one in every 4.25 Obama voters that same year. Sixty-five percent, or 15.9 million, of voting-age African Americans cast a ballot in the general election, compared to 66.1 percent of white citizens. But, the voter turnout rate among eligible black female voters was 68.8 percent – the highest of all racial, ethnic and gender groups in the 2008 American presidential election. Especially in southern states with large black voting-eligible populations – including South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana – the black female voter outperformed in terms of registration and turnout. Since 1996, this gender gap has been consistently present. African-American women voted at higher rates than African-American men by a range of 7 or 8 percentage points in 2008. That rate was even higher – about 9 percentage points – in 2012, which is 6 percentage points higher than other racial groups. All this is to say that we, as people of color, HAVE to have the same level of enthsiasm about voting in November as we did in 2008 when Obama was running for his first term. Anything less than that will lead to all of us watching “President Trump” take the oath in 2017… Image via Shutterstock
Continued here:
Get Involved: Voter Turnout For Black Women Is A Major Key To Keeping Donald Trump Out Of The White House
