Pew Study: Black Women Led the Nation in Voting in 2008 (207 hits)
(Taylor Media Services) One of the primary reasons Barack Obama won last November’s presidential election was because of a massive turnout by the nation’s minorities, especially African American women. According to a just-released study by the Pew Research Center, voter participation rates among Blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans all rose between 2004 and 2008.
As a result, the share of the electorate accounted for by white voters stands at an all-time low of 76.3 percent. Twenty years ago whites accounted for 84.9 percent of the electorate. The study also found that African American women voted at higher participation rates than any other racial, ethnic or gender group in the country. A record 68.8 percent of eligible Black women voted in the last election - an increase of 5.1 percentage points.
White women had the second highest voter participation rate followed by white men, Black men, Latino women and Latino men. Overall African Americans accounted for 12.1 percent of the electorate - up from 11 percent in 2004. This means Black voter turnout increased by roughly two million voters between 2004 and 2008. At the same time, Hispanics increased their share from 6 percent in 2004 to 7.4 percent last year.
