Election Demographics: 2016

THC came across this interesting 2016 Election scenario calculator published at Real Clear Politics by Sean Trende and David Byler. You can look at the 2012 results and then, for four groups, Non-Hispanic Whites, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian & Other, see how potential changes in the % vote for each party and turnout assumptions could drive the popular vote and electoral college results in 2016. You can find it here and have some fun playing around with it.

	Rep. % Of Vote	Voter Turnout	R Vote (millions)	D Vote (millions)
Non-Hispanic White	60.2	64.1	55.5	36.7
African-American	6.1	66.2	1.1	16.4
Hispanic	27.6	48.0	4.2	11.0
Asian & Other	31.6	49.3	2.4	5.1
Popular Vote			63.1	69.1
%			47.7	52.3
Electoral College			206	332

One thing that jumps out from the 2012 data is the African American vote of which Barack Obama won 94%.  Romney won the remaining electorate (White, Hispanic, Asian) by 9 million votes. The other thing is the extraordinary AA turnout. In most elections, other than 2008 and 2012, AA turnout is usually 6-8 points less than White turnout.

When you play with the calculator tool you find that if AA turnout reverts to its historic norms and a GOP candidate can get 10% of the AA vote, they win the election if they also get 62% (instead of 60.2%) of the White vote and turnout edges up from 64.1% to 65% even if the Hispanic and Asian vote does not change.

If a GOP candidate could ever get 30% of the AA vote (similar to that of Hispanics and Asians) they would win the election even if White, Hispanic and Asian percentages remain the same. That’s why it’s predictable that the more the GOP attempts to court AA voters the more accusations of racism they will face from the D’s and their media allies.

The calculator also reveals some other surprising things. Because of the concentration of Hispanics in a small group of states it takes a lot of positive or negative changes for the GOP to make electoral college inroads based on that vote. In 2012, Romney received 27.6% of that vote. In 2016 a Republican candidate would have to drop down to 8% before another state switches to the D column and would have to capture 48% of that vote to swing one additional state to the GOP.

Though we think of ourselves as a 50/50 nation politically a look at the state specific data reveals a different picture.  More and more of the states are falling firmly into the camp of one of the two parties.  In 2012 only three states had a margin of less than 5% in the Presidential voting - Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.