Ethnic Minority Voting and the non-White Candidacy of Obama
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2009
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The question of who votes and why is central to an understanding of democracy. It is a simple question that, through scholarly examination, unfolds into a vast and multifarious web of hazy concepts and variables difficult to define and operationalize. The question becomes increasingly complex when expanded to consider ethnic minority voting in the context of United States history and modern American politics; in this extension of scope we must attempt an understanding of how a frustratingly generalized conception of ethnic minority psychology interacts with the socio-political dynamics of a country that remains characterized by racial divide. Regardless of difficulty, the task of exploring the reasoning and psychology behind ethnic minority voting is of utmost significance for contemporary American politics. In 1988, when the United States Census began differentiating between Asians and other non-Whites, the ethnic minorities considered in this paper (Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) made up only 12% of the American electorate. Twenty years later, in 2008, the same groups made up 22% of the nation's voters (Lopez & Taylor, 2009). While registered White voters are still by far the largest electorate group (of 146 million registered voters overall in 2008, Whites constituted 122 million), the ever-rising Black (25 million total, 17 million registered), Hispanic (20 million total, 12 million registered), and Asian (7 million total, 4 million registered) voter populations represent increasingly formidable political clout, especially when considering that many recent presidential elections have been decided by a relatively close margin.