Sexism and Racism

Starting with the South Carolina primary, the Clinton campaign was making the argument that a Black candidate can't win in a general election. On the flip side, I'm still seeing interviews on CNN et al with Clinton surrogates that Hillary lost primarily because of rampant sexism directed against her. Do either of these views of American voters hold water? The videos posted earlier by Bell Curve show that the press coverage was full of misogyny especially but not exclusively on Fox News. But did sexism, as defined as voters who make their decision to support or oppose Hillary Clinton based on her gender, hurt her more than it helped her?

Looking at the CNN exit poll for Wisconsin, a state in which Hillary got clobbered even in the working class voters she later did well among we see some clues. First, 58% of the Democratic primary voters were women. Obama won 67% of the men and split among the women 50-50. About 28% of the voters were men who voted for Obama. This might suggest, an AHA! moment. But what if it is the even vote among women rather than the lopsided vote among men that was the anomaly? 12% of Wisconsin Democrats said that the gender of the candidate was one of several important factors in their decision. Among that group, 62% of them voted for Hillary. So 7.4% of Wisconsin Democrats were people who voted for Hillary because she is a woman. Conversely, about 4.6% of the voters voted against Hillary in large part because she is woman. Unfortunately, the poll is not reported in sufficient detail to determine the gender of these voters. If we can trust the self reporting about who votes based on gender at all, it would suggest that Hillary got more votes than she otherwise would have (about 2.8% of the vote) because she is a woman. I suspect that these polls probably over represent pro-Hillary sexism as women might be less embarrassed about saying that they'd vote for Hillary because of her gender than men would be about saying they'd vote against her for the same reason. But we have to wonder about how far off that bias drives the numbers. It could be quite significant and the gender issue would still be more or less a wash for Hillary.

What about racism? Racist remarks were far less common on TV news but there were a series of thinly veiled comments about race from the Clinton campaign - from Bill Clinton, from Geraldine Ferraro, not to mention the Clinton volunteer (later repudiated by Clinton) who sent mass emails to people saying that Barack Obama was a Muslim. But did it work any better than the misogynist attacks in the news media? 8% of Wisconsin voters were African American. 91% of them voted for Obama. So about 7.2% of Wisconsin voters were African Americans who voted for Obama. 10% of the voters said that the race of the candidate was one of several factors in the voting decision. Of those 53% voted for Obama. So 5.3% of Wisconsin voters voted for Obama because of his race. 4.7% voted against him because of his race. Obama was ahead on this issue by about .6% or less than 7000 voters. In Wisconsin, a largely white state, the race issue seems to have been a wash for Obama. It worked similarly to the gender issue for Hillary - albeit a little bit more negatively for Obama than gender was for Hillary.

So in Wisconsin the cynical view that American voters are bunch of sexists and racists doesn't seem to hold much water. But what about West Virginia?

Women: 53%
Black: 3%
Clinton: 67%
Obama: 26%
Saying gender an important factor: 11%
Gender voters voting for Clinton: 77%
Gender voters voting for Obama: 18%
Saying race most important factor: 8%
Race most important voters voting for Clinton: 86%
Race most important voters voting for Obama: 10%
Saying race one of several factors: 14%
Race voters voting for Clinton: 80%
Race voters voting for Obama: 13%

Interestingly, the West Virginia poll reports gender in more detail. 8% of voters in WVA were men who said gender was important. Among them, 64% voted FOR Hillary. 21% of WVA voters were Whites who said race was important to them. 84% of them voted AGAINST Obama. 17.6% of the vote went against Obama because of his race.

I take two things from this. Sexism and racism vary greatly by region in this country. Second, with an "n" of two (so huge caveats here) and using CNN's polls (more caveats), it appears as if sexist voting was far more likely to help Clinton than hurt her even in states where she lost. Racist voting was more complicated. In Wisconsin (a Midwestern swing state with very left wing pockets), it helped Obama. In West Virginia is was devastating.

So the claims by die hard Clinton supporters that she lost because of misogyny are probably invalid. At the same time, the claims that Obama can't win White voters are also not necessarily valid. That said, it probably is the case that Obama's race forces him to work from a different electoral map. He won't do well in places like West Virginia where the Clintons have a successful history. But he can compensate by doing better in the Midwest or in states with large numbers of heretofore untapped Black voters.