Their staunch support for the Democratic Party is one of the political givens of our time. In election after election, for offices high and low, black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats, by 80 to 90 percent or more. Thus it would be pure electoral gold for the Democrats to increase the turnout rate among blacks. A perennial source of Democratic hope, the black turnout is also perennially misunderstood. But this argument, which derived from exit polls, was contradicted by more-reliable census data.
Black men continue to make up just four percent of the active electorate.
But the overall increase in turnout among blacks was only about three percentage points over the rate in 1994, and the increase in the proportion of all voters who were black was about half that. Thus it is unlikely that average participation rates among blacks can be increased dramatically. They are clearly central to the Democratic base, and it's essential that the Democrats retain them. But they cannot substitute for the forgotten majority in the Democrats' quest for a new coalition. Increasing the Hispanic turnout would be a clear boon to the Democrats.