Alabama 2012 oddity
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jman123
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« on: August 16, 2013, 03:28:43 PM »

Did the White vote in Alabama actually swing a tiny bit to Obama? I noticed in their exit polling that Romney lost a few points compared to Mccain in 2008.  If so, what was this all about?
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2013, 04:15:26 PM »

Oh yes, this is a good topic

2008:

White (65%): 88% McCain, 10% Obama
Black (29%): 98% Obama, 2% McCain

2012:

White (68%): 84% Romney, 15% Obama
Black (28%): 95% Obama, 4% Romney

White vote went down (Romney) for whatever reason that I can't explain, while the (%) went up 3. Meanwhile Black vote also went down (Obama) and (%) went down 1. This is one of the few states that Black (%) went down and White (%) went up. I have no idea why that happened. McCain's and Romney's results in Alabama were almost the same, with Romney doing slightly better. I'll tell you this though, turnout is more powerful than % Obama or % Romney, so it is likely that the increase in white % of the electorate probably boosted Romney a tiny bit (overall compared to McCain) even when it clashed with the loss he got among white voters, not to mention he also got a slight gain with Black Voters and slightly lower turnout which could've also offset his losses among whites.

But again, Romney did better than McCain in many 80+% white counties so it could just be bad exit polling after all.
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barfbag
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« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2013, 10:19:54 PM »

Alabama was strange in the last election. I suppose 61-39 is still pretty conservative even for Alabama, but I expected it to trend and swing like I expected out of AR, LA, TN, KY, and WV.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2013, 03:59:02 AM »

Looks like exit poll trusting sillyness to me. This is not a map of a decline in Black turnout and dem resurgence (or even dead cat bounce) in the state's whiter parts.



They probably just polled too few Blacks.
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Fuzzy Stands With His Friend, Chairman Sanchez
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« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2013, 05:01:46 PM »

The only reason I can think of is some conservative Christian white voters staying home and not voting, as it was a choice between a black liberal and a Mormon.  I tend not to think that was the case; I don't know any white Christian conservative who wasn't able to overcome theology and vote for Romney.  I'm the only person in my church I know of that voted for Obama (other than my wife).
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Alcon
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« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2013, 01:33:15 AM »

As with most of the 2012 exit polls, they initially got results that were off, and re-weighted them based on guesswork as opposed to any empirical evidence whatsoever -- going from an unrepresentative sample to an even more unrepresentative sample that just happened to average out right.
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old timey villain
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« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2014, 10:10:01 PM »

Alabama has been maxed out for Republicans. Whites are almost completely GOP so you probably won't see a lot of big swings in the near future.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2014, 10:27:14 PM »

Alabama has been maxed out for Republicans. Whites are almost completely GOP so you probably won't see a lot of big swings in the near future.

This is why I wonder if the Deep South will eventually flip back as it becomes more and more diverse.  Georgia is a good test case going forward. 
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Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon
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« Reply #8 on: August 02, 2014, 08:49:07 PM »

Alabama has been maxed out for Republicans. Whites are almost completely GOP so you probably won't see a lot of big swings in the near future.

This is why I wonder if the Deep South will eventually flip back as it becomes more and more diverse.  Georgia is a good test case going forward. 
Georgia may very well flip back, and SC/MS/AR are very long term possibilities. NC and FL are obviously already competitive. AL, LA, TN, KY, and WV are permanent lost causes at the presidential level.
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I Will Not Be Wrong
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« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2014, 08:57:56 PM »

Because Mitt was a moderate Mormon from Massachusetts.
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TJ in Oregon
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« Reply #10 on: August 02, 2014, 11:06:45 PM »

It's probably just polling error. The finding that the white % of he electorate went up leads one to the conclusion that the white Obama vote also went up (or vice versa) for the polling numbers to add up.
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Sbane
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« Reply #11 on: August 10, 2014, 10:11:14 PM »

It's probably just polling error. The finding that the white % of he electorate went up leads one to the conclusion that the white Obama vote also went up (or vice versa) for the polling numbers to add up.

It's probably not even an error. Subsample margin of error should explain it.
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #12 on: May 02, 2015, 06:58:46 PM »

It's probably just polling error. The finding that the white % of he electorate went up leads one to the conclusion that the white Obama vote also went up (or vice versa) for the polling numbers to add up.

It's probably not even an error. Subsample margin of error should explain it.
As an AP high school statistics teacher I agree. Margin of error is at stake. Polls showed Romney getting 6% of the Black vote nationwide, up from 4% in 2008. But in Detroit Romney's share of the total vote was just 2.1%, down from 2.6%. Local issues and get out the vote efforts affect things too.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #13 on: July 26, 2015, 01:32:24 AM »

Turnout combines with margin of error to form a weird number.
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StatesPoll
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« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2015, 12:51:10 PM »

I think it is obvious red state
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2016, 04:17:07 PM »

Birmingham is getting kinda uppity.

Kinda.   
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #16 on: January 30, 2016, 08:20:29 PM »

For what it's worth, when I did my independent assessment of white vote performance by county and state, I came up with around 16% of whites in Alabama voting for Obama in 2012. I think it is actually more likely that the 2008 exit polls were much further off than the 2012 exit polls, the latter of which were pretty close to being accurate.

I made a post awhile back where I highlighted that there was no mathematically possible scenario in which only 10% of AL whites voted for Obama in 2008. It was likely closer to 20% than 10% based on actual voter rolls and population at the time, as crazy as that may seem.

Yeah, you know...the more I look at the 2008 numbers and the likely racial composition of AL in both 2008 and 2012 (based on Census figures and the average discrepancy between Census and turnout in Southern states that do keep racial turnout data), I really think there was some sort of reverse Bradley effect at play in 2008 exit polling. It just doesn't add up, the whole "Obama got 10% of the white vote in 2008".

Even the active voter rolls in 2012 in AL were >70% white; it's virtually guaranteed that the AL electorate would have been even whiter than the active rolls. Black turnout was likely 90% of the roll number, which would put it somewhere between 23-24%; non-white, non-black turnout was likely around 3%.

73.5% white
23.5% black @ 95% D = 22.3
3.0% other @ 60% D = 1.8
Total = 24.1

Obama's 2012 share = 38.4
38.4 - 24.1 = 14.3
14.3/73.5 = 19.4%

You can tweak this all around the margins, but it's certainly not going to cut Obama's share of the white vote nearly in half. In some cases, it'd actually increase it. I think I'll stick with the original version of my above map. Interesting.

I feel like Blacks in Alabama would be more than 95 percent D, more like 98-99. Would that make a difference?

It would make some difference, and like I outlined above, if black turnout as a share of the electorate were as high in Alabama in 2008 as it was in Georgia, then that would explain it. My own calculations in Georgia suggested that black Obama support dropped from 98% in 2008 to 95% in 2012. There wouldn't be a lot of wiggle room for that dynamic in Alabama if blacks voted 98-99% D in 2012 (exit polls claim that AL blacks, too, voted 98% D in 2008). I just don't buy the premise that AL blacks are somehow more organized or likely to comprise as large of a share of the electorate as they are in Georgia, which has a black population five points larger than AL's. I have the 2012/2013 stats on-hand for each state, so let's take a look:

Georgia 2013 Census Black Pop: 31.4%
Georgia 2012 Registered Black Voters: 29.9%

Alabama 2010 Census Black Pop: 26.6%
Alabama 2012 Registered Black Voters: 26.7%

Alabama's voter rolls are in better shape with respect to black representation, for sure, but I fail to see how this could translate into the kind of surge we would have needed to see in 2008 and 2012 to explain "10% white Dem". For what it's worth, 2008 AL exit polls claim that 29% of the voting block was black. That'd put it within striking distance of the "10% white Dem" territory, but it's a hard pill for me to swallow to believe that whites were actually under-represented (the same exit poll claims only 65% of voters were white, despite more than 70% of the registered voters being white then) and blacks over-represented at the polls in either election by such a large amount.

So basically, yeah, even though I'm in no formal or scientific position to do so, I guess I'm questioning the accuracy/margin-of-error of the AL 2008 exit polls with respect to race. 
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