Black Voters Election Day , President Barack Obama Charles D . Ellison Orlando , Florida November 2014
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Well ... not anymore . Democrats are likely blasting one another in a rash of circular firing squads , scrambling to explain what happened last night . One bullet point of blame : You should have put President Obama out there where the black vote needed him most . But it didn ' t matter . The only place where the president ' s endorsement probably made a difference was in the Washington , D . C ., mayor ' s race-and he didn ' t need to bust a sweat for that .
Everywhere else , the black vote went flat . The optics of a stubbornly bad black unemployment rate under the black president didn ' t help , and only 68 percent of African Americans approve of the president ' s handling of the economy , according to YouGov ( pdf ). In states like Arkansas , Kentucky and Louisiana ( pdf ) -where Democratic candidates bombed or went into a certain-death runoff-black approval ratings for President Obama , according to Public Policy Polling , were 72 percent , 77 percent and 81 percent , respectively . Even in Virginia ( pdf ), black Obama approval was lower than 80 percent just a month ago .
And it ' s not as if that many African Americans were going to vote anyway , right ? According to an election-eve YouGov poll ( pdf ), they weren ' t : A hair-pulling 33 percent of black respondents claimed they weren ' t even registered to vote . Only 44 percent said they were " definitely " voting , compared with 59 percent of whites . And nearly 50 percent identified themselves as " not a likely voter " when asked about which candidate they ' d be voting for in the midterms .
Quite a few ditched the Democratic Party while at it . Democrats should really watch this closely into 2016 : Ten percent of black voters on Tuesday went Republican . In critical Senate races such as Georgia , Kentucky , Virginia and South Carolina , the black vote went more than 7 percent Republican ; now formally elected Tim Scott ( R-S . C .), the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction , got 10 percent of the black vote . In gubernatorial races such as those in Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Illinois , Ohio and Michigan , African-American votes for Republicans ranged from 6 percent in Illinois ( the president ' s " home state ") to 26 percent for incumbent Gov . John Kasich in Ohio .
That ' s significant , considering that only 6 percent voted for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 , and 5 percent for John McCain in 2008 . Broken down further , it ' s a grim picture for the next cycle if hemorrhaging continues . Exit polls show that about 11 percent of African-American millennials who did vote went Republican , and 12 percent of black Gen Xers voted GOP ( along with 7 percent of those ages 45-64 ). Could that be the makings of the 30 percent presumptive that 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Sen . Rand Paul ( R-Ky .) was talking about ?
Note to Hillary Clinton fans : She ' s not " the one ." The key takeaway for 2016 that resonated the loudest on Tuesday night : Every state through which Bill and Hillary Clinton stumped was lost to Republicans . " Every single person the Clintons worked for is getting beat ," one former elected official asking for anonymity told The Root on Tuesday evening . " Everyone . They didn ' t move the base ." And according to that same YouGov poll , only 53 percent of African Americans have a " very favorable " opinion of Hillary-compared with 11 percent who don ' t know . " A 60-plus-year-old white woman who has not had a job outside of politics in 30 years will not excite the Obama coalition ," said the elected official .