Gadsden County, FL

[I'm Not a Witch]

So, anyone want to offer some opinions/insight into the anomaly of this county? It's the only black-majority county in Florida (57.14% African American). It went for Barack Obama strongly in both the primary and general election, but it actually swung exactly one point away from Obama. Racism among the whites in the county who may have voted for John Kerry in 2004 but not Obama in 2008? Explain.

[DariusNJ]

Yes. This county is very much a Deep South county where you have large black population, and then racist "blackbelt" whites.

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Nixon actually won the county in 1972.  Of course, I think it give him his smallest margin out of any county in the state.

[Progressive Realist]

Yes. This county is very much a Deep South county where you have large black population, and then racist "blackbelt" whites.

This.

[Bo]

Yes. This county is very much a Deep South county where you have large black population, and then racist "blackbelt" whites.

This.

[Ebowed]

More puzzling than the minor swing to McCain in 2008 is the swing to Bush in 1988.  Gadsden was the only county in Florida to vote for either Mondale or Dukakis, but the state as a whole swung to Dukakis in 1988.  His margin of victory in Gadsden county was a bit under 300 votes - while Mondale's was about 1,600.  Looking at the numbers, one can only assume a colossal decrease in black turnout for some unexplained reason (though Bush did still improve on Reagan's raw vote total).

[jocallag]

Dukakis failed to excite Black voter turnout in 1988.  Another example of this is that Bush in 1988 won Maryland in an upset largely due to a lower than expected Black voter turnout.
While Reagan did better with white ethnic voters than Bush, he also drew a higher anti-Reagan Black voter turnout than did George H.W. Bush.

Jay O'Callaghan

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electionwatcher/

[ajc0918]

This is the most constantly democratic county in the state.

[mileslunn]

Northern Florida has always been more like the Deep South than Southern or Central Florida.  Even though McCain only got in the high 50s amongst whites in Florida, I suspect it was closer to 80% in the North while Obama probably won the white vote in Southern Florida as you have a large transplanted Northeastern population as well as a large Jewish community.  In fact historically, it use to be Northern Florida that went heavily Democrat and Southern Florida went Republican, but this was back when the Democrats dominated the South and the Southern wing was largely made up of segregationist (i.e. Dixiecrats).  I think post civil rights act, I believe Jimmy Carter was the only Democrat to do well in Northern Florida and he was a southerner himself, while Gerald Ford was from Michigan.