The White Vote Matters in Georgia: But not the Way You Think
By: Jay Wamsted
Tags: Senate, Race, Elections, Racism, Politics

The White Vote Matters in Georgia: But not the Way You Think Jay Wamsted Follow Dec 22 · 5 min read

At some point in this never-ending election season, you might have read about how the Senate is not a particularly balanced institution. Meaning, by allocating the same number of Senators to each state, it grants undue power to small states. You might also have read about how this lopsided balance of power perpetuates an insidious aspect of white privilege; maybe you even saw this headline from The National Interest: “The Senate Is America’s Most Structurally Racist Institution.”

Behind this argument of racism lie a myriad of facts, figures, charts, and graphs. A compelling, if wonky, presentation of these can be found here in Vox. Before you click away, however, allow me to present the case with both a little more clarity as well as a more convenient takeaway. Here goes.

The over-represented power of the white vote is responsible for a four-vote swing in the Senate from Democrats to Republicans. Give me five minutes to explain.

First, remember that just a touch over 60% of America is classified as “White alone, not Hispanic or Latino” (numbers come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2018–2019). Importantly, white people are over-represented in 36 states — meaning that they are present at rates of higher than 60%. This misallocation of whiteness is key to what we mean when we say that the Senate is “structurally racist” — not that any given Senator is racist, but that the power of white people is unfairly distributed.

Unsurprisingly, this over-representation of whiteness results in the interests of white voters having more influence in the Senate. In other words, white people as a voting block have undue ability both to elect Senators as well as to lobby for their attention. In an ideal system the influence of the white vote would be 60%; this allocation of white power would be entirely appropriate. And yet, because white people are disproportionately represented in almost three-quarters of the states, the influence of the white vote is in fact better than 68%.

(Math note. I have calculated that figure here in a simple spreadsheet by multiplying the white share of the population for each state by two (for the number of Senators per state), then adding up the results for all fifty states and expressing the answer as a percentage of the Senate. This is another way of saying that states are, on average, 68% white, as noted here by Nate Silver.)

For those of us who don’t care for spreadsheets, it is worth stating that this 8% advantage in influence obtains on account of three key facts: (1) all states get two Senators, (2) there are a lot of small states, and (3) small states tend to be whiter than big states. Because these three facts lead to an 8% increase in influence across a 100-member body, we can safely predict that white influence has an average advantage of eight Senators. (See here for a study that uses far more complicated math in order to find a similar number of Senators granted to white people through over-representation.)

Now, if white people voted the same way that BIPOC voted this white advantage might not matter as much, and the eight Senators it affects in an average year might come from the same party whether elected by whites or by BIPOC. However, as you probably already know, white people and BIPOC vote differently.

In a perfectly efficient system these eight Senators would be elected according to the influence BIPOC voters should enjoy in the Senate. In such an ideal system at least five of these eight Senators would be Democrats, according to 2016 exit polls.

But these eight Senators have been misallocated to whites, who voted Republican in 2016 by over 20 percentage points. Which means that instead of five Democratic Senators justly enjoyed by BIPOC influence we have five Republican Senators misallocated to white people’s influence. To be clear: in any given year an average of two extra Senators are granted to Republicans by the fact that whites are over-represented in small states.

It gets worse, of course, because the Senate is a zero-sum game — meaning that the Republican gain of two Senators results in a direct loss to the Democrats of two Senators. This two-Senator switch leads to a four-vote swing. To repeat: Republicans are on average granted a four-vote advantage in the Senate because of the power of the white vote and the inefficiencies of the Senate.

It does not take much imagination to see the damage caused by such a structural problem.

Remember the attempted Obamacare repeal in 2017? The final vote was 51–49, and much national drama and uncertainty would have been avoided entirely if white influence was properly allocated. The Republicans would never have had a chance at the repeal.

Remember the vote on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation? Because one justice from each side did not vote, the final tally was 50–48, and Kavanaugh might have been kept off the court if white influence was properly allocated.

Thirteen times in Trump’s term Mike Pence has come in to break a 50–50 tie. All 13 of those votes, including the confirmation of a completely unqualified Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, could have been avoided if white influence was properly allocated.

And yet all of these scenarios pale in comparison to the events of right now. Even with a landslide election for Joe Biden in the popular vote — 7 million votes with a winning margin of 4.5% — the double runoff in Georgia at best provides Democrats the opportunity for a 50–50 split in the Senate. Realistically, given Georgia’s history, it is entirely likely that Democrats will lose both seats and give Republicans a 52–48 advantage. The pessimistic among the Democrats are daring to hope for 51–49.

However, if the Republicans weren’t already sitting on two extra Senators from misallocated whiteness — four extra votes! — the balance of power would be completely unaffected by the Georgia runoff. The Democrats would already control the chamber 50–48.

It bears repeating: if not for the influence of the white vote in the Senate, the Georgia runoff would be an afterthought, because the Democrats would already be in control of that chamber. But because of whiteness and its over-representation in smaller states, the Senate is only marginally within the Democrats reach.

This is the power of the white vote. More influence for white people; two extra Senators for Republicans; a four-vote swing away from Democrats. This is why we can say with confidence that the Senate is “structurally racist.”