Last night, the entire nation discovered that President Barack Obama has been elected to another four-year term in the White House as President of the United States. Although this election was very close, the President made strides in his demographic. Creating a record for any presidential candidate, Obama received 45% of his votes from minority voters. Once the statistics were collected from this election, it is not difficult to see how President Obama made such an impact with the minority populations.
Of all minority groups in the United States, 93% of African Americans, 71% of Hispanics, and a little over 66% of women voted for President Obama.
Despite the fact that Romney won the white vote by 58%, which is higher than any Republican candidate since 1988, he did not have a chance when it came down to it at the end of the day. Why is this?
The Republican party has failed to see that the identification of today’s voter is much different than it was years ago. As our country is becoming more and more diversified, and young minority voters are growing to the legal age to vote, the gap between liberal-minded voters and conservatives continues to widen.
President Obama’s campaign focused their immigration platform on the fact that they had granted a way for young immigrants brought to America by their parents to become a US citizen. Apparently this issue was extremely impactful because it led a record number of Hispanics to the polls on Tuesday – 10% of voters were Hispanic.
I think this topic is very important to touch upon because the age of the white voting demographic is over. Our country is becoming more and more diversified with each coming day. Although the average white man may not agree with the decisions that President Obama made while in office, they no longer have the power as a single unit to alter the vote. I am interested to see how elections in the future will turn out. When our country becomes progressive enough to elect two African American candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties, I wonder how the voting public will react. Because 93% of African Americans cast their vote for the President, I believe it is safe to say that many of these votes were cast blindly without education on the topic. I do not want to sound bold by stating this, but I wonder, if the African American people had a choice between two African American candidates, if we would see more intelligible debate over the ideals of each candidate.
Whatever the outcome of the election is, I believe it is our responsibility as United States citizens to remain secure in the decision of our country as a whole and to show a whole-hearted confidence in the elected President. It is our country who nominated the candidate in the first place and it is our hands that placed him in the office. I believe that Barack Obama will continue his efforts grow our economy and make our country stand for equality during his remaining four years in office. I am excited to see where these next four years will take me and my country and I anxiously await the events of tomorrow and the days to come.
You raise very interesting and important questions. Given what the conservative commentators have been saying since the election, it is quite apparent that many on the right off center are very aware of the demographic shift. The question is whether those conservatives in the center will be able to prevail against those on the extreme right who tend to be much more xenophobic. And, of course, women are not a minority; they just have been treated as such. Nice job!
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