(ThyBlackMan.com) Nearly every Democratic freshman and many seasoned Democratic congressional representatives have one recurring nightmare about November. And it’s not that blacks won’t vote for them, but that they’ll be MIA at the polls. In interview after interview with legions of Democrats that are feeling the heat from Republican challengers and there are lots of them, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, Democratic incumbents and candidates say that they are doing everything possible to fire up African-American voters. They desperately need them.
Yet, it’s a hard sell on several counts. The more than 15 million black voters make up more than 20 percent of the overall Democratic vote. In 2008, black voters turned out in record numbers and gave Obama 96 percent of 
their vote. This was an all-time high for a Democratic presidential candidate. They stampeded the polls for one reason, and one reason only, and that was to make history by electing Obama. The massive turnout for him decisively tilted the political balance of power to the Democrats in Congress. The Democratic surge in Congress was in every sense a triumph of numbers for Obama, and Democrats got the benefit of that.
But that was a political aberration. In normal presidential election years, Democratic presidential and congressional candidates and incumbents routinely get 80 to 85 percent of the black vote, no matter who is running. In swing districts where blacks make up at least 20 percent of the vote, party loyalty and size of turnout are the two aces that Democrats count on to put them over the top. But the size of the turnout always trumps loyalty. Put simply if the numbers are down, party loyalty to the Democrats mean little.
This year is no different. President Obama is not running. In fact, many Democrats including some who rode his coattails to victory in 2008 are running away from him. But even if they didn’t the hard sell to ramp up black voter numbers would still be an uphill climb. The black voter turnout for midterm elections tells the dismal tale. In every midterm election going back nearly three decades to 1982 range of black voter turn in 29 states tracked by the Pew Center on the States ranged from a low of 8 percent in 1982 to 34 percent in 2002. Taking all the years together, the standard range has been from 20 percent to 50 percent. The only midterm election year that the black voter turnout topped 60 percent was 1982 (65 percent in some states).
The 1998 midterm election year gives a good window on what the 2010 election could look like. Then President Clinton was under withering attack from the GOP just as Obama is today. The GOP controlled the House and the Senate. Yet black voter turnout still did not rise above the average high range of 56 percent. In some states the vote total actually dipped below the 20 percent standard to 13 percent.
The GOP controlled House in 1998 and effectively handcuffed Clinton’s agenda, stymied most of his judicial appointments, hit him with endless probes, hearings, and special prosecutors, and ultimately impeached him. The high stakes in that off year election weren’t enough to send black voters scurrying to the polls in greater numbers to put more Democrats in Congress.
An August Gallup poll widespread apathy among black voters and a fired up resurgence among GOP leaning voters. By a nearly 2 to 1 gap, whites are more likely to say that they are thinking about the November elections than blacks. This divide is far greater than the typical white-versus-minority voter participation gap found in recent midterm elections. It set off loud bells and whistles at the White House and among Democratic strategists.
President Obama kicked off the effort to rev up the troops with a stirring speech to the Congressional Black Caucus calling for blacks to hit the polls. He’s pretty much repeated that theme on the trail in recent campaign swings. The Democratic National Committee quickly took the cue and will spend more than $2 million in outreach ads and mailings to black voters. That’s a 10 percent jump from 2006.
They’ll need to spend every penny on it to get more blacks marching to the polls. The Republican National Committee, and endless GOP leaning soft money contributors, and the conservative US Chamber of Commerce have loudly announced that they will spend tens of millions to elect business friendly GOP conservatives to Congress. The sole goal of the colossal spending by both parties is Congressional dominance.
It’s still too soon to tell whether the dollars the Democrat’s will shell out and the president’s stump appeals will do much to shake the midterm malaise of black voters. But if enough black voters stay home from the polls the Democrat’s November nightmare will be a waking reality.
Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
