Black Turnout Will Be Crucial for Democrats
By KEVIN SACK
Published: October 16, 2010
LAURINBURG, N.C. —
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A flood of black voters in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District two years ago helped Barack Obama become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry this state since Jimmy Carter and lifted the party’s Congressional challenger, Larry Kissell, to victory.
Representative Larry Kissell has angered black constituents by opposing some of President Obama’s major initiatives.
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Without Mr. Obama atop the ticket this year, Mr. Kissell and a number of other vulnerable Democrats, mostly in the rural South, face the challenge of reviving the spirit of 2008 for black voters without alienating right-leaning white majorities in their districts.
The candidates’ ability to walk that line may decide whether Democrats maintain control of the House of Representatives, and could affect several Senate contests and governor’s races.
The Democrats confront multiple obstacles, but also enjoy several advantages.
Working against them: turnout for midterm elections is often a third lower than in presidential years; some African-Americans are disillusioned with the pace of economic recovery; and several Democratic incumbents, including Mr. Kissell, who is white, have angered black constituents by opposing Mr. Obama on major initiatives like the health care law.
In their favor: the Democratic National Committee plans to spend 10 times more than it did in 2006 to get out the black vote; the Tea Party movement and the questioning of Mr. Obama’s religion and birthplace are motivating many black voters; and the Democrats are summoning them to defend the first black president from Republican assault.
“It very much is about having the president’s back,” said Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.
The campaign will provide a test of the maturation of the African-American electorate, which until 2008 had always voted at lower rates than whites in federal elections. The black turnout percentage that year exceeded white turnout by a fraction of 1 percentage point, according to the Census Bureau.
“It’s really not black turnout that matters; it’s the gap between black and white turnout,” said David A. Bositis, who examines racial voting patterns for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “If there’s not much gap, the Democrats will hang on to the House.”
Although polls show an erosion of white support for Mr. Obama, African-Americans have remained steadfast. Exit polls showed that 95 percent of black voters supported him in 2008, and a September survey by the Pew Research Center found that 88 percent approve of his performance, more than double the figure for whites.
But Democratic officials worry about a potential gap in interest between black and white voters.
“The Republicans have the advantage in enthusiasm, no doubt about that,” said State Representative Garland E. Pierce, an African-American who is pastor of the Bright Hopewell Baptist Church here. “People just feel like there’s nothing they can do about it.”
Among the endangered Democrats counting on a substantial black turnout are Representatives Bobby Bright of Alabama, Allen Boyd of Florida, Sanford D. Bishop Jr. and Jim Marshall of Georgia, Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland, Travis W. Childers of Mississippi, Steve Driehaus and Betty Sutton of Ohio, John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, Chet Edwards of Texas, and Glenn Nye and Tom Perriello of Virginia.
A large black turnout could influence races to fill open House seats in Arkansas, Delaware and Louisiana, as well as the New Orleans seat held by Representative Anh Cao, a Republican. It could also help Democratic prospects in statewide races in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri and Ohio.
But black leaders in those states say the sense of hope and history that drove turnout in 2008 seems in short supply. It has been difficult to sustain when black unemployment, at 16.1 percent, is nearly double that of whites.
“Many people have lost their jobs, they don’t see the economy booming, and they feel there hasn’t been much change,” said State Senator Al Lawson Jr. of Florida, a black Democrat who narrowly lost a primary to Mr. Boyd. “They’ve kind of given up on politics a little bit. They really don’t see that their vote is going to make a difference in their lives.”
In one of this campaign’s resonant moments, a black woman named Velma Hart told Mr. Obama at a town-hall-style meeting last month that she was exhausted from defending him and impatient for the change he had promised. Some African-Americans interviewed last week in the Eighth District, which stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville, shared her view.
But many said that they, of all people, understood that change would not come overnight, given the depth of the problems. That only makes it more essential, they said, to return Democratic majorities to Congress that could buy Mr. Obama more time.
“I think people are beginning to see that all these expectations would not be out of line if the president were a magician,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who as majority whip is the highest ranking African-American in the House. “You lay a foundation and you build upon it.”
Mr. Obama has started to make that case directly to black-oriented media outlets and to party gatherings. At a Democratic rally in Philadelphia last Sunday, he emphasized that his election in 2008 “was just the start of the journey” and encouraged supporters to disprove those who predict a depressed vote.
“They think, oh, well, Obama’s name is not on the ballot, maybe they’re not going to turn out,” he goaded. “Look, everybody, I need you to understand, this election is a choice.”
Blacks cast a record 13 percent of the vote in 2008, up from 12 percent in 2004, according to exit polling. In the Eighth District, where blacks make up 30 percent of registered voters, the black share of the vote increased to 31 percent from 25 percent. The black turnout percentage exceeded white turnout in all 10 counties, and both Mr. Obama and Mr. Kissell won in a district that had twice been carried by President George W. Bush. Mr. Kissell ousted a five-term Republican.
The task of replicating that effort has been complicated by Mr. Kissell’s vote against the health care overhaul, which many black constituents took as a betrayal. It earned him a primary challenge from a retired black educator who took 37 percent of the vote despite spending only $10,000.
Mr. Kissell, a former social studies teacher, explained his vote by saying he could not stomach the bill’s Medicare cuts. But many blacks saw it as a purely political calculation intended to maintain viability with white conservatives.
J. E. Bazemore, the chairman of a black leadership committee in the district, said his members were so agitated last summer that he postponed a vote on endorsing Mr. Kissell. “I knew what the vote would be,” he said, “and it was worse than I thought.”
After hearing from Mr. Kissell personally, the group endorsed him. He is running against Harold Johnson, a former sportscaster from Charlotte known to viewers as “the Big Guy.”
“Really, the question is whether or not the black community feels it would be in their best interest to give Mr. Kissell a second chance,” said Walter L. Rogers, a Laurinburg resident who heads a statewide black caucus.
Mr. Bazemore said his group’s get-out-the-vote strategy would entail “putting the emphasis on the president and not on the congressman.”
Last Monday, a day the Kissell campaign said would be devoted to black voter outreach, the candidate toured two community centers in black neighborhoods but did not invite questions. His campaign declined an interview request, and when he was approached after an appearance, he said he did not have time to talk and ducked into a waiting car.
A number of black leaders said they had made peace with the need to support Mr. Kissell in order to shield Mr. Obama.
“We know that politics has to be played,” said JoAnn Jasper-Thomas, the mayor of Hoffman, a majority black town in the Sandhills region. “In order for him to do 10 good things, he might have had to do that one that didn’t sit well with the people.”
Although he had been in the vicinity, Mr. Kissell did not drop by a well-attended Democratic rally on Monday night in Laurinburg. Instead, he sent a black aide, Travis Manigan, to address the largely black crowd.
“Who says we’re not fired up and ready to go?” Mr. Manigan began. “I’m here on behalf of Congressman Kissell, and I assume you are here because the hope and change that you voted for in 2008 didn’t end in 2008. It’s a work in progress. And you’re here to make sure that you claim that progress, and that you see it to the promised land.”
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Pathetic.
What a sad state of affairs.
