Residential segregation and the race vote

As we continue to speculate about whether Obama's race will affect this election, it is instructive to examine a powerful consequence of race relations in the United States: residential segregation.  The more segregated a state, the less likely white voters are to vote for Obama – and this is not just in the South.

 

 

The figure here shows the relationship between the average segregation of African-Americans at the state level and the vote for Obama among white voters in the Democratic primaries. This is for non-Southern states.  Obama's vote, on the horizontal axis, is measured by exit polls.  Segregation, on the vertical axis is measured by the Dissimilarity Index, which is a measure commonly used by social scientists. The orange vertical line represents the best approximation of the linear relationship between segregation and Obama's white vote.

 

The relationship is strong and very negative.   After controlling for other factors that might be relevant on the state level (median income, conservatism, and percent African-America) the effect is considerable.  Moving from the least segregated state in the sample (Oregon), to the most (New Jersey) predicts a loss of vote for Obama of over 8 points.  If the South is included, moving from Oregon to Mississippi, the most segregated state, loses Obama 19 points.

 

Why is this?  One hypothesis might be that the more contact that whites have with African-Americans, thus the less segregation in a state, the more likely white voters are to support Obama.  This is plausible and would support some long-standing, but very controversial, social science theories.  Presumably if this were true, we would also see the effect of segregation be less when controlling for the proportion of a state that is African-American.  But controlling for this does not lessen the effect of segregation.

 

It is also the case that the measure of segregation is residential segregation.  Residential segregation does not speak to whether  whites have contract with African-Americans during their daily lives in non-residential settings.  I think most of us would imagine that the typical white resident of New Jersey, a highly segregated state, has much greater contact with African-Americans than a white resident of Oregon, a low segregation state.

 

I think it is more likely that the relationship between segregation and not voting for Obama reflects underlying currents of race relations in American society.  It is no accident which states became highly segregated.  These states, like New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania were states that experienced large migrations of African-Americans to their urban cores during the 1940's, 50's, and 60's.  The housing patterns of these states reflect the distaste that the white residents of those states had for sharing their communities with African-Americans.

 

The racially tinged political issues of busing and crime during the 1960's were a reflection of the tension that voters in these states, and many other places, felt while trying to reconcile their long standing political beliefs (most were Democrats) with their changing demographic reality. In fact, this is rather evident when we look at the relationship between the vote for the openly racist George Wallace in 1968 and racial segregation.  The figure here, similar to the one above shows the relationship between segregation and Wallace's share of the 1968 popular vote by state.  Clearly, as segregation increased, so did the vote for Wallace.  In fact, with relevant controls, the effect of segregation is still very large, about twice the size of the effect on Obama's vote.

 

 

My feeling is that some of the same forces that contributed to Wallace's success in 1968 are those that are hurting Obama now.  In fact the correlation between Obama's vote in the primaries and Wallace's 1968 vote is pretty strong (-.527).

 

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what the exact cause of this relationship may be – Obama and Wallace are separated by 40 years – and there are economic, social, and cultural factors at play.  However, the attitudes that many white Americans have about economic, social, and cultural factors are deeply intertwined with race.   So, while even in 1968, race was not the only reason that some whites voted for the racist Wallace and race will certainly not be the only or primary reason that some whites do not vote for Obama in 2008, we can not ignore the complicated relationship that race has with attitudes about “non-racial” issues.  Moreover, there are individuals in society that are racist enough that racism will affect their vote and some of these people live in these states.

 

It is also likely that the presence of segregation is not only a reflection of racial attitudes, but also reinforces those attitudes.  This probably has political consequences.  White voters may have trouble seeing their future politically tied to groups of people that are literally separated from them.

 

Looking at the plots, you can see that many of the highly segregated states are considered “battleground” states.  It seems likely that segregation, which is partially a reflection of racism and partially a contributor to it, affects the attitudes of some voters in these states.  This may partially be what makes them “battlegrounds."

 

A note on the methodology (some blog readers might not care about this):

 

Obama's primary vote represents the two-candidate vote between Clinton and Obama only.  I did not include the candidates home states of Illinois and New York.  I also excluded Arkansas and Michigan.  There were obviously other factors at play in these states that determined the primary vote outcomes in these states.  Including them weakens the relationship a bit.  The South is considered everything below the Mason-Dixon Line, plus Oklahoma, which is the common practice in political science research.  Controlling for states that held caucuses, rather than actual primaries, does not make a difference in the estimated effect of segregation on Obama support.   For Wallace, the relationship between his support and segregation is more difficult to detect when examining all states at the same time.  It seems that Wallace had a much different appeal to Southerners, Northerners, and Westerners.  The plot included in this post is just the non-South and non-West states.  The effect is weakest in the western states (as defined by the Census) and strongest in the Northern states.    Segregation is measured using the standard units of Census Tracts within Metropolitan Statistical Areas (as defined by the Census).  The numbers here are the simple averages, across individuals, in each state.   The Dissimilarity Index, used to measure segregation, represents the proportion of a group, in this case African-Americans, that would have to move in a given area to achieve an even racial balance.   So, a Dissimilarity Index of .8, for example, means that 80% of African-Americans would have to move to achieve a racial balance.

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