New Mexico Political Journal

TV REPORTERS SAY "Black Voters Elected Doug Jones." NOW IS THAT TRUE? WELL, NO, NOT REALLY. IN FACT, IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING TRUE.

12/18/2017

Last Tuesday evening as Democrat Doug Moore was defeating Republican Roy Moore for the US Senate seat in Alabama's special election, some talking heads began saying that "black voters made the difference for Moore," and that they "turned out in record numbers." Soon The Atlantic, PBS, and other outlets began touting the same idea.

This was a significant subject for discussion precisely because Alabama is a strongly Republican state, and — all things being equal — a Republican candidate in a statewide race should defeat a Democrat very easily.

As is the case with most of what might be called political "analysis" on TV, the talking heads began parroting each other. And this particular assessment was one that definitely had appeal to the Mainstream Media in that the claimed storyline was that of a liberal or "progressive" segment of the population rising up to do justice for its cause. So within a day or two, the claim of black voters making the difference in election became the equivalent of scientific law among the MSM talkers. But was it true? Well, no. It was not.

WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT THE ALABAMA ELECTORATE IN THE SPECIAL ELECTION?

Going back some twenty years up to and including the present, the Alabama electorate has been roughly 70% white and about 25% black. The other 5% has consisted of the combined totals of Hispanic, American Indian, Asiatic, and other minority races or ethnicities. In the Special Election on Tuesday, December 12 two key factors must be looked at:

1) the demographic makeup of the voting universe — in other words the components of turnout; and

2) the way in which each demographic group voted, or the behavior of the subgroups of the electorate

If any particular groups behaved differently, to a statistically significant degree, from its historic voting patterns, we can look to such groups for the likely demographic cause of the Democratic candidate's victory.

[Please note: this is only a discussion of the demographic voting patterns as a cause of the outcome, and does not address the issues involved in the campaign — which in turn could themselves lead to any demographic shifts that might be identified.]

WHAT THE DATA SHOW: BLACK VOTERS DID NOT CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR. BUT WHITE VOTERS DID.

TURNOUT

First, let's consider the first factor: the turnout. Because it was a special election, and not a presidential election, turnout could be expected to be more comparable to a mid-term election, although it could have been expected to be much lower than it was. In the event, it was not that much lower, probably owing to the singular focus of all media and national attention on Alabama.

In any case, the demographic makeup of the electorate in Alabama is reasonably constant from presidential to mid-term elections, holding the 70 to 25 ratio of white voters to black fairly steady.

In 2014, voter turnout was at record lows all across the country, Alabama included. But the 2010 mid-term election was more typical, and the Alabama turnout was 1,486,000 (reasonably similar to last Tuesday) with about 1,040,000 white voters and about 372,000 black voters.

In the special election last Tuesday, the total number of voters was about 1,344,000, about 142,000 fewer than in 2010. Significantly, the falloff among white voters made up almost exactly the entire difference, dropping from 140,000, from 1,040,000 to about 900,000 or a decrease of about 13%. The number of black voters actually stayed about the same: 376,000 compared to 372,000, a difference of about 1%.

If compared to the 2016 election, the differences in behavior were even more stark, with some 615,000 white voters staying home — a dropoff of some 41%, while black turnout was down about 28%, with some 150,000 fewer going to the polls for the Jones-Moore special election.

HOW TO LOOK AT THE DATA: Think of it as an Albuquerque sports bar where every Sunday the same group of 20 friends show up. One of them is a Cardinals fan. 14 of them are Bronco fans, and 5 are Cowboy fans. If on one Sunday, three of the Bronco fans are sick and don't show, their percentage of the group drops from 70 to 65, and the percentage of Cowboy fans goes from 25 to 29. But you wouldn't say that the Cowboy faithful "had a bigger turnout." They merely stayed the same while others stayed home. The same can be said for the Alabama Special Election.

BOTTOM LINE: In terms of turnout, it was white voters who changed their habits, markedly. Black voters turned out in roughly the same numbers as they have for the past 25 years or so. With white voters staying home — mainly Republicans who were turned off by the sexual allegations against Roy Moore — the percentage of the electorate occupied by blacks rose from about 25% to 28%, as that of whites fell from about 70% to about 67%.

BEHAVIOR — DID BLACKS VOTE DIFFERENTLY?

Okay, let's look at the breathless allegations that "Black voters put Doug Jones over the top." This makes the case that it was black voting behavior that lifted the Democrat Jones to his unexpected victory. But does that statement hold up under examination? Well, no. Not by a long shot.

The exit polls showed that between 94% and 96% of African-Americans supported Jones. That's good for Jones. But is that any change whatsoever in the way that blacks ALWAYS vote? No. President Obama got 95% of the vote in 2012, and a slightly higher percentage in 2008.

On the other hand, only 15% of white voters voted for Obama in 2012, but in last Tuesday's election they voted at twice that rate, moving their behavior from 15% Democrat to 30%. This means that the total number of white voters switching their support to Doug Jones represented approximately 135,000 more votes for the Democrat than he could have expected in a normal, typical Alabama election.

In a race decided by 21,000 votes, that is a major shift in the electorate. Meanwhile, black voters made no shift at all.

BOTTOM LINE: In terms of voting behavior in the privacy of the voting booth, black voters voted exactly the same as they have always done. They made no more of a move toward Doug Jones than they did toward Trump, Mitt Romney, or John McCain.

SUMMARY

As much as it makes for a good story line, especially since few voters either understand the data behind the assertions or won't question the talking heads' claims, it simply is not true that 1) a surge in black voting, or 2) a movement by blacks in the direction of the Democrat candidate was responsible for the result in the Alabama Senate Election.

When electoral events occur which result in outcomes that don't match prior results, we can look to changes made by components of the electorate. In this instance the overwhelming changes included two things:

1) the dramatic disillusionment among white voters that caused them to stay away from the polls in droves; and

2) the even more dramatic shift in preference among those same white voters in the direction of the Democrat candidate, by a factor of an astounding 100%, from 15% to 30%.

Black voters made no such changes. This is not to say that the Democratic candidate did not "need" the black vote. Of course he did. But the fact that it was there in exactly the same proportion it always is does not constitute grounds for suddenly proclaiming it "the vote that put [anyone] over the top."

Email us (at nmpj@dfn.com) with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas.

Intelligent Political Discourse—for the Thoughtful New Mexican

back to list

Jeb Bush gets religion.

"They said he got religion at the end, and I'm glad that he did." — Tom T. Hall. The Year Clayton Delaney died.

Well, it's official. Jeb Bush has changed quite of few of his positions on illegal immigration. The single most significant is that he no longer endorses the "path to citizenship" for those who came here illegally.

This is, after all, the key portion of any proposal aimed at "reforming" our existing illegal immigration situation.

No sensible citizen can see any point in trying to deport between 12 and 16 million people currently living in America illegally. And no candidate for any office that we know of supports that. What the average American wants is for the country to "get a handle on it." They want it stopped, our borders secured and future illegal immigration prevented. It is a national security issue.

The Path to Legal Status

The only way to accomplish the above goals, is to identify current illegal immigrants, get them accounted for, have them documented, and placed on a path to legal status. Neither they nor their children or spouses should live in a state of fear or anxiety.

But a path to "citizenship" is not the right course. It is not morally or legally correct. A merciful and compassionate nation can provide the safeguards of legal status without sending the message to the rest of the world that all you have to do is cross our border and you will eventually get to become a citizen, thus circumventing the legal framework scores of millions of Americans have followed, honored and respected.

If someone who is granted legal status eventually wants to become a citizen, that person should have to return to his or her country of origin and wait in line like 20 million people around the world are doing at any given time. Failing that, America will forever send the signal that anyone in the world can "jump the line," and that there is no reason at all to obey our immigration and naturalization laws.

We Like Jeb Bush

We are glad Jeb Bush has learned this lesson. He is a fine speaker, and can eloquently explain his positions on complex issue. If he were not named "Bush" he would be an actual top tier candidate—in all that that title would entail, including likelihood of acceptance and support of and from the American people in the primaries, and in any theoretical general election.

We also recognize that he already is a de facto top-tier candidate because of his fame and his fundraising.

If he were to be the nominee of the Republican Party we would heartily support him and endorse him. We hope, however, that he is not, as he does not give the center-right coalition the best chance of winning.

The Major League Baseball Playoffs are not realistic, and destroy the actual meaning of the sport.

Major League Baseball is unique in this respect—its postseason is markedly different from the way the game is played normally. No other major league sport suffers from this flaw.

Not that much is wrong with baseball. In some respects it's the most well thought-out sport there is. The "perfect game" many aficionados say.

But the Major League Baseball postseason experience is unique in the world of professional sports, and not in a good way.

In fact the playoffs are flawed in such a way as to detract from the sport itself and diminish the game and what it means to be the world champion of the sport.

Among the Big Four team sports of North America: football, hockey, basketball and baseball—and all the 122 professional major league teams competing in the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB respectively—it is in baseball alone that the postseason turns the sport itself on its head and makes it reflect something that it is not. This article will explain why that happens and why it is wrong-headed.

Background on the The Frequency of Play

The 30 teams in both the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association teams play a very similar schedule. On average, each team has a day off between games, sometimes two days off. Though there are back-to-back games, they are relatively infrequent. NBA teams play between 14 and 22 back-to-back games a season, and for the NHL it usually ranges between 9 and 19. The NFL has a full week between games, the exception being the new Thursday games that each team plays once, leaving them only four days' rest once a year.

But baseball players play every single day. Ten days straight, then a day off, then seven more games, then a day off, then ten more games. Typically a baseball team plays 27 games every 30 days. For the NHL and NBA it would be 14 per month, and for the NFL the number would be 4.

Getting to the Playoffs: It's a grind

In all four sports, getting to the postseason requires a total team effort—in fact an all-out total organizational effort. Teams must be deep, have bench strength and the capability of moving players in and out of the lineup, and on and off the roster, who can take the place of key players who go down for an injury, or who have to miss games for whatever reason. While this is true of the other three major sports as well, it is most certainly even more of a concern for baseball teams because of the sheer volume of games in which a team must field a competitive lineup.

Each league's regular season* is a marathon, not a sprint. NFL teams play for 17 weeks, 16 games. The NHL has an 82-game season over six months, paralleled by an NBA season of 84 games over the same timeframe. Baseball is the biggest marathon of all—a true test of resilience and endurance—162 games usually starting around the beginning of April and finishing about the end of September.

NHL teams carry 23-man rosters, of which 20 can be active for any particular game. The NBA is similar, with 15-man rosters of which 13 can be on the bench for a given game. In the NFL, the teams have 53 players on a roster, but only 46 can suit up on game day. In Major League Baseball, teams have a 25-man active roster, and all 25 are at the park every day.

The Postseason Playoffs: Sport by Sport

The National Football League:

Of the 32 teams, 12 qualify for the playoffs. The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season. Each team plays once a week, the exception being that the four top teams get the first week off. For a typical qualifier to reach the Super Bowl, the team must play three consecutive weeks. At that point both remaining teams have two weeks off before the Super Bowl.

In short, the playoffs, with a game each week, reflects the same means of advancement as is present in regular season grind.

The National Hockey League:

16 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason. The playoffs are conducted in the exact same manner as the regular season: a game, a day off, a game, a day off, a game, a day off, and so on. Just as in the regular season, there are occasionally two days off. But the playoffs require the same stamina, the same approach as that required to make the playoffs.

The National Basketball Association

Major League Baseball

10 of the 30 teams qualify for the postseason. (Although four of those teams qualify only for a one-game do-or-die play-in game.)

Here is where all similarity to baseball ends.

Unlike the other three sports whose playoffs mirror the test of the regular season, and whose conditions are the same as the regular season, Major League Baseball playoffs in no way resemble the sport itself. In hockey, basketball and football, the teams win playoff games and reach the pinacle of the sport in exactly the same way that they qualify to try to do so.

Not so in baseball. They are two entirely different concepts. Teams make the playoffs only because they have depth, five-man pitching rotations and can play day-in and day-out at a high level. But the baseball playoffs suddenly become a kind of "all-star" game within each team's roster. MLB playoffs are conducted in a way that more closely follows the NBA and the NHL. Teams have enormous numbers of days off.

Here's the key point: No Major League Baseball team could even qualify for the postseason if they played the same way during the regular season that they do in the playoffs. None.

In the regular season Major League Baseball teams have to use a 5-man starting rotation, with pitchers pitching every 5th day. There are not enough days off to have even a four-man rotation, let alone a team with three pitchers. Even the best team in baseball using only a 4-man rotation, would wear them out, and most likely end up with a record of something like 66-96, or 70-92—and that would be if they were otherwise teh best team in the sport.

The 2014 Baseball Postseason is Typical

As examples, last year's World Series teams the Kansas City Royals played only 15 games in 30 days, and the San Francisco Giants played only 17 games in 30 days. The 12 to 15 days off in the non-baseball fantasy world of the MLB postseason, means that teams can turn to three pitchers and give all of them plenty of rest. But it isn't the way baseball really works.

At one point, the Royals had 5 consecutive days off, and the Giants had 4. This never happens in the regular season. Even the All-Star break is only three days. Very rarely is there anything beyond a one-day break, and even that happens only a couple of times a month.

What this means is that neither team used the team that got them to the playoffs. (The NFL, NBA and NHL teams ALL used the very same teams that got them to the playoffs.)

Baseball teams use a three-man pitching rotation in the playoffs. Sometimes, they essentially opt for two pitchers only—conceding the likelihood that some of their games are going to be lost—when their third-, or rarely fourth-best pitcher has to face one of their opponents' two-man or three-man rotation members.

Imagine an NFL team using only one running back and three wide receivers, instead of rotating through their roster in the course of a playoff game—or using only 4 defensive backs and 4 linebackers, instead of rotating 8 or 9 DBs and 6 or 7 linebackers? In hockey, would a team use only two or three of their forward lines? Would an NBA team use only the starting five? They would never make the post season if they tried to present that product to their fans during the regular season.

Those are the equivalents of what Major League Baseball sets up every fall. No other sport drags its playoffs out in such a way as to completely change the playing field—completely change the dynamics of its game.

Why Does Baseball Do This?

MLB does this because the TV networks want to drag out the games so that they can try to have one game each day This requires an unnecessary staggering of games, and creates the phenomenon of 15 off-days in a month.

What about travel days?

What about them? Baseball has travel days constantly. A team may play in Chicago one day and in Miami the next, or in New York one day and Phoenix the very next day. Travel days as a routine part of the game are again, a phenomenon of television, and stretching out the playoffs.

In years past, travel days were employed only when necessary. The famous "subway series" games were played on seven consecutive days. Why? Because there was no "travel day" required to go from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Today, they would put in artificial travel days.

Even fairly long train trips didn't necessarily matter. The 1948 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Braves was played in six consecutive days, October 6 & 7 in Boston, October 8, 9 & 10 in Cleveland, and October 11 back in Boston.

This reflects actual baseball, the way the teams play day-in and day-out, and the kind of unique test that baseball presents to its athletes, its managers and management, and to its fans.

In the modern world of charter planes, teams fly from coast to coast to play games on consecutive days. The artificial "travel day" should be eliminated so that teams can play in the playoffs in the same way that got them there in the first place.

*All these leagues also have pre-seasons and training camps, which add an additional 6-8 weeks to each player's year.

Email us with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas.

TV REPORTERS SAY "Black Voters Elected Doug Jones." NOW IS THAT TRUE? WELL, NO, NOT REALLY. IN FACT, IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING TRUE.

National Issues

2016 Presidential Campaign - Democrats

2016 Presidential Campaign - Republicans

Media Watch

County Government News

Cities, Towns and Villages

Judicial Watch

Movies, Television, Pop Culture

Sports

Religious Issues

Copyright New Mexico Political Journal 2015

EMAIL US WITH YOUR FEEDBACK, COMMENTS, QUESTIONS AND IDEAS