As I have indicated elsewhere, race was an overriding factor in Trump’s campaigns and his governing if one dares to characterize his day to day activities as such. He is a white supremacist, and so are many of his policies. For now, let us turn attention to how race was ever-present in the recent presidential election.
The majority of white America voted for Trump—the majority of white men and the majority of white women. That is the defining phenomenon.
Remarkably, white women increased their support for Trump. In 2016, 53 percent of white women voted for Trump. This fall, it was 55 percent.
Nonwhite America voted against Donald Trump and for Joe Biden.
The race was much closer than many people thought it would be and closer than many polls estimated. More people voted for Trump than expected. As pollsters try to figure out what went wrong in their predictions, I offer the phenomenon of desirability bias, also known as the Bradley Effect. Desirability bias, which had been around a while, was introduced into election polling discussions to explain why African American Tom Bradley, the popular mayor of Los Angeles, lost his election for governor of California in 1982 when he was leading the polls.
The Bradley Effect proposes that polls are sometimes skewed by social desirability bias. A small percentage of voters may be hesitant to state their real preference because they may perceive that their choice is not publicly acceptable, despite the interviewers’ assurances that their responses will not be related to them individually.
Bradley was an African American running against a white man, and some white voters are thought to have been reluctant to admit that they were voting for the less popular white guy.
The Bradley Effect has been cited as a factor in several elections since Bradley’s, including Andrew Gillum’s race for Florida governor. Gillum was leading in the polls but lost the election.
Despite widespread voter suppression efforts by Republicans, e.g., fewer polling places in minority areas, African Americans turned out in record numbers and essentially delivered the election to Joe Biden.
Black votes were decisive in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Black voters in major cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta carried the day.
The Native American vote was a definite factor in the election. In the country, self-identified Native Americans increased by 39 percent between 2000 and 2018. With these numbers, they, along with Hispanic voters, turned several states to Biden, including Arizona.
But it was African Americans who determined Biden’s victory. Without the massive African American vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary, there would have been not Biden victory in the primaries. African Americans delivered the Democratic vote to Biden in the primaries despite him having done little to warrant this support other than being Barack Obama’s Vice President.
To his credit, Biden acknowledged the importance of black voters in his victory speech:
“The African-American community stood up again for me. You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours.”
Black America needs to hold Biden to that pledge—in concrete, measurable ways.
