Demographics of the 2008 Election

           For this week’s assignment we studied voter turnout. So what is voter turnout? According to the Mirriam Webster dictionary, turnout is “the number of people who participated or attended in an event.” So voter turnout means the number of eligible adults who voted in an election. I was really interested in seeing the statistics for who voted in the last presidential election and whether or not the turnout has been increasing or decreasing with time. Why is this important? Well I think it is interesting to see how a certain group receives a candidate’s message. Also if a candidate used a particular strategy of campaigning and won the presidency then others can use the same strategy. So first let’s look at the overall voter turnout and then move into the trends within that voter turnout number.
             According to the U.S Census Bureau, in the 2008 Presidential election 64 % or 131 million people actually voted. That number is up by 5 million people from the 2004 elections. In the 2008 presidential election the total percentage of turnout for African American voters was 64.7 %. That is compared to the white voter turnout of 66% in 2008 (U.S Census Bureau). The Hispanic turnout also increased in 2008 to 49.9 %. Asian-Americans had a voting turnout rate of 47. 6% in 2008 (U.S Census Bureau). According to the U.S Census Bureau, the voting turnout among 18-24 year old also increased from 47 % in 2004 to 49 % in 2008 and that was the highest increase among any other group. Adults in the 25-34 year old age group had a turnout rate of 66.4 %. However, adults between the ages 45 to 64 had a decrease in turnout from 70 % in 2004 to 69% in 2008.
               What I also found interesting is the unemployed had a lower turnout rate than those who were employed. The turnout rate for unemployed adults was 64.1 % compared to the employed turnout rate of 72. 8 % (U.S Census Bureau). I found that to be very interesting because I would expect an unemployed person to be more invested in choosing the president. Females had a higher turnout rate than males 65.7 % to 61.5 %. To summarize, the total voting turnout stayed about the same from the previous presidential election. The young adult age group saw the biggest increase in total turnout; however, they still have the lowest turnout rate among any other age group. African-Americans and Hispanics also had a high turnout rate. The African American turnout rate was almost matched to the white turnout rate. I was also interested in seeing how the different groups voted in the last presidential election.
               According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2008 the Hispanic community favored Barack Obama in the polls. The number of Hispanics who voted for Barack Obama was 67% compared to 31% who voted for John McCain (Lopez). Voters under the age of 30 also preferred Barack Obama with 66% voting for him to be President in 2008 (Horowitz Keeter and Tyson). However, the biggest support came from African American voters with nearly 95% of all of those who voted casting their ballot for Barack Obama (Lopez and Taylor). McCain won more support with the white voters, winning 55% to Barack Obama’s 43% (Lopez and Taylor). From the demographics it is clear to see that Barack Obama won his presidency with big support from the young adults and minority communities. In my next blog I will discuss how President Obama has done with those groups while in office.

                                                                 Works Cited

Keeter, Scott, Juliana Horowitz, and Alec Tyson. "Young Voters in the 2008 Election." Pew Research Center. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1031/young-voters-in-the-2008-election.

 

Lopez, Mark, and Paul Taylor. "Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History." Pew Research Center. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethnic-voters-presidential-election.

 

Lopez, Mark. "How Hispanics Voted in the 2008 Election." Pew Research Center. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1024/exit-poll-analysis-hispanics.

 

"Turnout - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turnout.

 

"Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2008." U.S Census Bureau. Web. 2 Oct. 2011.   <http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p20-562.pdf>.