Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Prop 8 Breakdown


Finally we have a deeper look at the numbers by a writer from FiveThirtyEight blog, Nate Silver.

He says that the Obama turnout did not send Prop 8 to soaring heights. However more experienced or older voters came out to support Prop 8.

Silver also said Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

This is very interesting and probably something to focus on the next time around.

No comments:

The Stuff

My photo
Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.