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April 14, 2006
White Flight on Election Day
In my Race and Ethnic relations class I first came into contact with the notion of White Flight. For those of you that don't know, the White Flight is a term to describe the phenomena in which a Whites abandon neighborhoods after they reach a certain percentage of minority population. Depending on the persons background the flipping point is at a different percentages. Translation: the more racist or Republican you are the lower the percentage of minorities you'll be willing to live near. Now that's all standard Sociology kind of stuff. What I had never heard mentioned before was the notion that it applied to candidates for public office. A researcher from Yale University was doing research on minority candidates running for office by political party and discovered that upwards of 25% of Republican voters will vote for a Democrat given a choice between voting for a minority Republican candidate and a White Democratic candidate in Senate and Governor races. This kind of data definitely makes you wonder about the candidacy of Steele. It would explain his below average polling as well against Cardin. Also I have to wonder how it's going to play in the Pennsylvania Governor's race as well. Is that race really as neck and neck as we've been lead to believe? Now I have to wonder after working so long to build a party around racism how the Republicans think that they are going to change the core nature of their base? 25% where have I heard that statistic before?? Isn't that the number of Republicans that identify themselves as "values" voters. Maybe that's what that means, good to know I guess.
[via The News Blog]
Read more over at Washington Post.
Posted by ManDrake at April 14, 2006 6:07 PM
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Comments
I heard about a rich repub who said he would have to vote for Hilary if Condi ran.
Posted by: mums at April 15, 2006 6:15 AM
Given how much that Republicans hate America, I just wouldn't have expected something like this to crop up. They move as one mindless hate machine, the notion that something as simple as race might sway a good portion of them is stunning.
Posted by: ManDrake at April 15, 2006 8:34 AM
How does this look for Ford getting rural white votes in Tennessee? Most of those voters in west TN can not get past his last name which is linked by his uncle to Tennessee Waltz sting operation.
Posted by: Royal at April 15, 2006 8:59 AM
It appears that it wasn't statically significant on races that were spread across the entire state. They only found results in localities could be just as bad with Democrats. It was the first thing that crossed my mind after thinking about my State race. I meant to inform my buddies in the Tennessee Democrats about it.
Posted by: ManDrake at April 15, 2006 9:14 AM