For more than a decade, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office has kept records of how many people voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Buried deep in those records are the number of blacks, whites, hispanics, asians and others who cast ballots in each party’s respective primary. Below is the demographic breakdown for the last eight years worth of Democratic and Republican primaries:
Democrats
Republicans
Most of these numbers tell us some things that we already know. Specifically that black voters make up a significant chunk of the Democratic primary electorate.
Here’s what stood out to me:
For the last eight years, only twice have blacks comprised more than two percent of the Republican primary electorate. Since the Secretary of State’s office started keeping tabs on how many hispanics were voting in the party primaries, Democrats hold a slight lead over Republicans for these voters’ support. And finally, white voters average about 95% of Republican primary voters.
Georgia is a growing state and more importantly, Georgia is becoming a more diverse state.
The U.S Census Bureau estimates that in 2007, 65.6% of Georgians are white; 30% are black; 2.8% are asian; and 7.8% are hispanic.
As Georgia grows and as Georgia becomes more diverse, the question is how much longer can the GOP maintain their majority when most of the people voting for them are white.
Consider this an open thread.
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I hope, for the sake of both parties, that people will vote based on ideas versus skin color. It’s hard to imagine that black entrepreneurs, and minorities who want a piece of the American dream, will continue to vote for a party that encourages so much regulation and taxes on small businesses. Somtimes I wonder how many future Henry Fords and Thomas Edisons have been smothered by not having the correct paperwork or licenses.
Who will pay for everything when all the republicans are gone?
I think EVERY African-American not only in Georgia, but across the nation, needed to hear Michael Steele’s speech at the Georgia GOP Convention with an open mind.
“Who will pay for everything when all the republicans are gone?
”
The people who do the actual work that the Republicans take credit for creating
You got to have some “evil” rich and “evil” business people in there too.
Obviously high Felony conviction rate and under aged Hispanics citizens [future voters] are all that are maintaining the Republican control.
“In one neighborhood south of I-20, in the 30316 ZIP code area, which encompasses Eastland Heights and East Atlanta, more than 27 percent of black males cannot vote because of felony convictions.”
North Buckhead, East Chastain Park, 20.8 percent (ZIP code 30342)
Language Other than Only English Spoken at Home 538,000 (85%)
Births to Hispanic Women (12 month period prior to survey) 17,000
Hispanic Births as a Percent of All Births in Georgia 12%
Births to Native-Born Hispanics 3,000 (19%)
Births to Foreign-Born Hispanics 14,000 (81%)
Native-Born Hispanics average 9 years old
http://pewhispanic.org/states/?stateid=GA
Not the 2010 Election but the 2014 Election will be the turning point
The real problem is with the Democrat party. If Thurbert Baker wants to be governor, he should come on over to the Republican party.
When people like Baker figure out that Democrats just want to use them, they will lead a large number of conservative black voters into the Republican party. Black voters are badly hurt by regressive property taxes, by anti-growth and anti-job economic policies, by failed government schools in urban areas and in the rural black belt, and are offended by the morals of the libertines who lead the Democrat party.
Technocrat, one correction on that point. Less than 20% of 18 – 25 year olds vote and they vote overwhelmingly Democrat anyway. We won’t see the consequences until later when voting attitudes would normally change and voter participation increases once the voters reach the higher age brackets. Assuming that Hispanics continue to vote Democrat in larger and larger numbers, we will see significant shifts in voting trends and statewide election results after they reach age 28. I think the GOP is fine if we simply bury our head in the sand for the next 12 to 18 years. It’s after that we’d be toast.
“Who will pay for everything when all the republicans are gone?”
Do you mean when “Atlas Shrugs?”
yep.
One glimmer of hope, very faint I know, but after Barry O is finished maybe, MAYBE, the African American community will start looking at the candidates not based on the color of their skin but rather the content of their character.
I know that is a hard sell to a group of people who are used to living in slavery and have merely traded a physical plantation for a political one.
Just_A_Grunt
Comments like the one you made will only hurt the GOP and further push minorities away. If you want minority argue the merit of the issues. By using flaming throwing Rush style comments it only pushes away rational people.
I do a lot of business all over the country and one the theme I hear from business people is we cannot and will not associate ourselves with people who make comments like yours.
Most the people I know are color, religious…blind to the people we do business with.
There are still a lot of counties where the people vote Democrat for local county level offices and Republican for national offices. The Republican party needs to do more to run local candidates even for offices like school board and county commision.
John,
You need to stop reading just the words someone writes and, instead, understand the meaning of what they are writing. It’s just like you and Chris Farris last year jumping ALL over a cartoon that rightfully depicted the Clintons’ viewpoint on Obama’s rise in the primaries.
Grunt’s statement is accurate when it is looked at in the context: Blacks are held in “political slavery” by liberals who DO NOT CARE about them, but USE THEM ONLY for political purposes. This is what he meant.
John Konop
Not sure how my comments hurt the GOP since I am not a member of the GOP. I do vote for Republicans more times then not, a lot of times not out of any belief that the Republican is that much better, especially on the national level, but I do vote. Often come election day there are only 2 choices and since Republicans claim to be conservative and stronger on national security they get my vote. You see #1 on list of issues is always national security, without that you can kiss the rest of your freedoms, rights, liberties, privileges, whatever you want to call them goodbye. So while a lot of people get bogged down on other issues that is my litmus test.
By the way the plantation comment is borrowed from Thomas Sowell, look him up.
Bill Simon
You think that is a winning message to minorities?
John,
the interesting thing is though it is the message I have heard from a number of black Republicans. However, it still doesn’t really answer your question on whether it is the right message.
John,
Yeah, actually. Truth tends to be an eye-opening concept.
Just a question for discussion… Why do J.C. Watts, Herman Cain, Alan Keyes, Alveida King, Michael Blackwell, Michael Steele, Condi Rice vote Republican & not Democrat? Why do they view people & politics the way that they do?
The truth is the average family no matter what color or religion is worried about jobs, education, healthcare…….. I would focus on solutions not flame throwing.
Better question Bucky,
Where are we as a party on minority outreach when we can name all of our prominent black Republicans off the top of our heads?
I think Public Enemy rapped it best:
“Check the facts, expose those cats
who pose as heroes and take advantage of blacks
Your government’s gangster, so cut the crap
A war goin on so where y’all at?
“Fight the Power” comes great responsibility
‘F the Police’ but who’s stopping YOU from killlin me?
Disaster, fiascos over a loop by P.E.
If it’s an I instead of we believin TV
Spittin riches, —–es, and this new thing about snitches
Watch them asses move as the masses switches
System dissed them but barely missed her
My soul intention to save my brothers and sisters!”
“Harder Than You Think” off of the album “How Do You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??”
I think there’s a genuine problem when liberty and self-determination become a hard sell to a minority group whose roots can be traced back to the slavery period of our history. Then again, you have to look at who is trying to sell that to them, I suppose. The Republican party hasn’t exactly had the best track record when it comes to those issues.
Just_a_grunt’s comments were right on the mark, in my opinon.
This is my point!
CNN Reporter: Blacks Don’t Vote Republican Because of ‘Perception of Racism’
On Wednesday’s “Situation Room,” reporter Bill Schneider, in a piece on minorities in America, very casually alleged that African Americans don’t vote for Republicans because of “the perception of racism.”
He also claimed that blacks have no reason to distrust the federal government because, after all, that institution rescued them from slavery. (Apparently conservatives just don’t appreciate this point.) After noting the losses by several African American GOP candidates in 2006, Schneider made his point about racism:
Bill Schneider: “President Bush appointed two African-American secretaries of state. Republicans nominated three African-Americans for important statewide offices last year. None of them came close to carrying black voters, which suggests it’s not just the perception of racism that drives most black voters away from the Republican Party. There’s something else. Distrust of the federal government is a core issue for Republicans.”
http://newsbusters.org/node/10987
Icky you’ve missed it. These names happen to be prominent..there are many more that no one would know unless you indentified them as being a minority. What makes them different than the “norm”? If everything is viewed & determined only thru your color, environment, perceived status, then what hope does anyone have? You might as well be living in India (caste system etal) if that is your measure.
Seenbetrdayz…funny… I’m beginning to think Public Enemy about the current administration.
The Georgia GOP has not done as much as we needed for minority outreach. One reason is the old Southern Strategy that said if we get an overwhelming percentage of the White vote we do not need the Black vote. That worked well from the 70’s to now, but it will soon fail us. The second was something loosely called the Coverdale Doctrine that said we needed to put all our resources behind the top of the ticket and ignore the down ticket races and the local races. This strategy was in place from when I became aware of politics in Georgia when Mac Mattingly ran for Senate until just after Sonny won in 2002.
For a long time the Country Club Republicans have viewed the grassroots as unclean especially grassroots efforts in non-wealthy areas. The current leadership is much better than what we have had previously, but more needs to be done.
I tend to be color blind when possible. I am definitely color (and religion) blind when it comes to business.
Forget about race for a second. Which party do you trust with national security more? Which party is more likely to raise my taxes? Which party is more likely to raise someone else’s taxes and give me something that I have not earned? Which party has better policies for the economy to help provide and help me keep my job? Which party will provide a better education for my child? Which party will support my union to ensure that I get the best possible employment terms with my employer? Which party will be more concerned about they prevention of crime and keeping my neighborhood safe? Which party will not waste my tax dollars on frivolous projects?
Bear in mind that the GOP had not been doing what it was supposed to do nationally and the average voter and may not be able to tell the difference between the two parties.
The answer to the question will depend on the individuals outlook on individual responsibility and the role of government. That outlook is shaped by environment, upbringing, and economic status. Race is not a large a factor as these three are. Someone who earns money wants to keep it and doesn’t want to give it away unfairly. Someone who doesn’t have money, and is used to getting it without earning it, will continue to want it. It’s simple behavior and what shapes it..
This is sick.
Another attack post against the Ox.
The GOP’s biggest problem is the damage that it has inflicted at all levels while in power.
The corruption went completely off the scale while Bush was President and the GOP GA legislature is cut from the same disastrous cloth.
I have spent many $thousands supporting GOP candidates over the last 8 years, but I won’t give that miserable party a dime. Now the GOP label is definitely a DO NOT SUPPORT identifier in the absense of some pretty compelling evidence that the candidate really knows and means conservatism.
I now support some GOP candidates, like Handel, vocally and with my vote, but give them money? HAHAHAHAHA……go get it from Georgia Power.
John,
Bill Schnieder? Situation Room? Just because a liberal SAYS something, that doesn’t mean it is correct. His interpretion could be flat wrong….and, is, in my opinion, in this case.
But, CNN, like that idiotic CNN female reporter from the Tea Party Day, have their OWN agenda, John: It is one of appealing to the masses, rather than the intelligent members of society. AND…lest you accuse me of something, I’m talking about the business owners who seek to produce a product or service, whether they are black or white or Hispanic or whatever race or nationality.
People like Bill Schnieder don’t LIKE these business owners because they make money for themselves.
People like Schnieder (and Blitzer,and Donnen, and Rudolph, etc.) have zero concept of what it takes to produce a product or service that someone else will buy. They are ninny reporters who revel in talking about others because they have no responsibility to anyone else.
The fact that you think they know what they are talking about troubles me greatly, John. It really does. When you listen to CNN, why don’t you get a sense of “These people are full of feces…and they like to spread around their feces…”
Bucky: You know Dr. Rice likely voted for Obama.
I am one moderate Democrat who thinks the better position for Michael Steele would have been in the U.S. Senate and no one talks about all the crossover support he received from the Black community. (My heart goes out to Steele’s former brother in law Mike Tyson for his sad loss.)
If we take a quick glance at congressional history, the exodus of White males from the U.S. House Democrat side by elections or retirements in the early 90s left the Dem Team more to the left and away from the American center. Is a similar situation the case with the GOP today? Is that the reason they seems more “right” these days. One thing is true to me: if is all about the Golden Rule, he who has the gold rules. So, the raw demographics may say one thing but we will be dead and buried before Georgia is not controlled by the same people controlling it now.
Andre, I remember your classic post about the Democrat party of Georgia having great Black numbers but the old guard running things at the top—that’s Georgia’s future. The same can be said about Israel with it’s growing Arab numbers. Again, modern Israel was created post World War II by the same people who will run it until the second coming.
Finally, Steele and party leaders may have lofty goals but the grassroots of the GOP likes the current makeup; everything would be cool if I was for those misguided voters supporting those other guys.
I disagree that we like the current make up. We acknowledge that the people we put in power did not adhere to Republican principals and deserved to be voted out. Now that most, but not all, of the people who were more concerned about getting re elected over voting a conservative philosophy are gone, we have a chance to re introduce ourselves.
The average voter couldn’t tell the difference between the two parties. I went to Maryland to campaign for M. Steele to get into the US Senate. He was called an Uncle Tom and some members of another party who happened to be black threw Oreos at him. Some people will do anything to win.
I fear for the direction our county is headed in. People may not have loved President Bush, but I think President Obama is going to drive us into the wrong direction and bring the country to it’s knees. I try to be optimistic, but the more I see from this administration…
Georgia is doing well considering the condition the rest of the country is in. We have areas we need to improve in, such as education. However, think of our state like a large ocean going vessel. It’s been traveling on one course for over 135 years. It will take a while to make all the changes that need to be made a get on a better course. We can’t stop or turn on a dime. That’s not how government works.
Bill Simon
You can pretend the Rush in you face insensitive strategy is working with minorities or look at the results.
John,
What do you mean “work with minorities?” What do you THINK we conservatives should be DOING, John? Hmm?
Perhaps you think we whites should start burning every vestige of a “White America.” I tell you what, I’ll burn my video of In The Heat of The Night…clearly, it was racists who made that movie as can be seen by the liberal use of N-word in the non-TV version of that movie.
And, I guess I’m going to have to burn my Redd Foxx tapes and CDs too. White folks clearly do not understand the “black condition” and, therefore, we should not laugh at jokes made by black folks making jokes about other black folks.
Let’s see…what else can I do to rid my life of whiteness to satisfy YOU and all those other minorities who are just all kept down by the White Conservative Republican Man, John…?
Bill, not withstanding folks like Bill Cosby who shame those in the black community who use the N-word, I think it’s like the old saying about family…I can say whatever I want about a member of my own family, but I’ll beat the crap out of anyone outside my family who says the same thing.
Chuck,
I am a highly successful white male and vote for the people that understand that allowing the private sector to “run a muck” and allowing the People decide their tax rates are policies that spell doom for a country.
Taxes and regulation are necessary. By all means, allow the US to become a third world economy where my company policies dictate your life opportunities. This is not Saudi Arabia…this is America.
GC,
This is not Saudi Arabia…this is America.
You’re full of feces. As far as you are concerned, you would turn this country over to any other country in the world. You are like Obama, except less clever. What’s ours is the rest of the world as long as we treat each other weally, weally nice. *
Jason,
The entire dialogue between Konop and I had to do with Konop thinking that if we use language like “political plantation” to describe the way the LEFT promises the world to the black population in order to gain their votes, and then doesn’t quite deliver on those promises, that use of the words “political plantation” is, itself, a racist act, and motivated by racist motives.
I vehemently disagreed with Mr. Konop. Caught up now?
In order to insure that we lose our Republican stronghold, let’s continue to elect career politicians, who increase taxes and government regulation in the private sector, accept and appropriate bailouts, and bring our Georgia code into further compliance with un-Constitutional federal regulations.
In Saudi Arabia, big corrupt companies exist because they have the favor of the big corrupt government.
We don’t have any such problem in Ameri—
hey, wait a second . . . .
Lehman Brothers failed. It was a massive business (corrupt, I don’t know). But, the government never came to support it. It collapsed.
AIG didn’t fail. It was a massive business. But, the government came to support it. It continues to operate despite being 80% owned by the government.
I’ve been going about it all wrong.
I’ve been thinking that if you want a free market, you have to vote republican. If you want justice, you have to vote democrat. From where I’m sitting, I haven’t seen either.
Besides, I can stop shopping at big evil wal-mart.
I can’t stop contributing to the government, unless I want to go to jail.
You might say that makes me biased in support of a free-market over government regulation.
Jason Shepherd
That is the point. As an example is Judge Sonia Sotomayor. I was very outspoken against her affirmative action ruling before her nomination. But when you start calling her a racist for the ruling the issue is drowned out and all you do is fire up part of the base and made it difficult for many like myself to want any association with the GOP.
This is the same thing that happens with the immigration debate. The moment the debate became about race the real issue never gets solved and it tarnished the GOP with many voters.
Bill Simon
It business you learn perception is reality. And what you think is irrelevant for minority outreach it is more important what they think. And the lack of sensitivity on many in the GOP is why minorities in general do not feel welcomed.
When I ran for office I spoke at an event on the boarder of my district which was mainly out of district and almost all African American. I was approach by many Democrats in shocked how I was so warmly received with issues like spending, immigration, education….. as a white Republican taking on the establishment.
At the end most people agree more than they disagree. The problem is both sides want to use issues to divide people for political and or financial reasons.
John Konop
……….the immigration debate….
The “debate” was and is about ILLEGAL immigration and are we to understand that pointing out that the majority of illegal immigrants are Hispanic is racist?
Aquaman
I spoke out about the issues of illegal immigration before it was popular. The point I am making is when I spoke about immigration I quoted people like Caesar Chavez who was very clear that immigration cannot be a tool used to drive wages down. I also pointed out how Ralph Abernathy and Walter Mondale marched at the boarders to stop illegal immigration.
The point of the color, race, and religion was never an issue for me and people who used it had an agenda outside the issue of illegal immigration. The issue to me was strictly an economic and moral one in which I did not support exploiting people who are subsidized by tax payers via social service cost. Also the problem was not fair to American workers competing with people without any real legal protection. The father of free market economics Adam Smith was clear that workers need the same legal protection as the owner in a free market system. And it is clear an illegal worker does not have the same rights.
Immigration should be based on the best and brightest color blind to race and religion.
At least Republicans haven’t said that Sotomayor isn’t Hispanic enough like the Dem’s did to Miguel Estrada in 2003 when Bush tried to get him nominated to US Court of Appeals…..
In Teddy “I didn’t know Kopechne was in the car” Kennedy”s words, “This should serve as a wakeup call to the White House that it cannot simply expect the Senate to rubber-stamp judicial nominees.” I wonder if he has the same sentiment now?
And when Estrada withdrew, Kennedy was giddy as a schoolgirl:
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, said the withdrawal was a “a victory for the Constitution.”
“It reflects a clear recognition by Miguel Estrada, and, hopefully this White House, that under the Constitution the Senate has shared power over judicial appointments,” Kennedy said.
I bet if any member of the GOP says the same thing, he’ll be branded a heretic racist who hates Hispanics and women.
Sotomayor = Victor Hill in a Pants suit
John Konop
I don’t fully understand what your reply had to do with my comment but this line speaks volumes.
“Immigration should be based on the best and brightest color blind to race and religion.”
I don’t believe there is any problem with legal immigration into the United States by any person based on race, religion, sexual orientation or any other parameter. If a person follows the legal procedures in place to immigrate to our country I believe they are generally received with open arms. But if they come here illegally they should not be accepted and those that oppose them should not be labeled racist.
Another ethnic group that was 90% in the GOP camp and will defect are elderly white voters living on fixed incomes when they learn that the FAIRtax that all of the GA GOP lovingly embraces will put a 30% tax on nursing home and medical services while giving Exxon-Mobil a $30 billion gift.
Someone needs to ask that fool Oxendine how on earth this scheme will help the sales-tax dependent budget of Georgia by putting the Feds at the front of the sales-tax gravy train and how Georgia government will pay a 30% Federal tax on its purchases, something that the FT clearly requires.
Of course voters are financially illiterate, so maybe the GOP will be OK promoting idiocy.
I would like to hear someone in OX camp defend the Fair Tax.
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