After reading the exit polls for the MS Governors race, I became intrigued by a remarkable possibility: winning states in the Deep South almost purely upon the strength of African-American turnout. This year in MS, the African-American vote was 33% of the total vote, and 94% of African-Americans voted for Musgrove. 33% is tantalizing close the percentage of African-Americans in the general population of MS (36.3%).
These numbers would appear to demonstrate that Democrats, even national ticket, non-southern democrats, have a significant base in several Deep South states against Bush. Considering this, I wanted to know how close a Democrat could come to winning in MS if:
a) African-American support for that Democrat remained at 94%
b) African-American turnout in MS was equal to the percentage of African-Americans in the general population of MS.
c) The non-white, non-black vote in MS voted 65-35 in favor the Femocrat, as per the national average
So, I went to the census site and calculated what percentage of the white vote a Democrat would need to win under the conditions described above. Thrilled by what I found, I did the same calculations for three other states:
GA: 29.1 (15 electoral votes)
LA; 26.7 (9 electoral votes)
MS: 24.0 (6 electoral votes--Musgrove received 23 percent of the white vote)
SC: 29.9 (9 electoral votes)
If a Democrat can increase African-American turnout from 33 to 37 percent of the total vote, MS would be a toss up. If the African-American vote in LA was equal to the African-American population of LA, it would be a lean-Dem state. A very serious challenge could be mounted in GA, the second biggest solid republican state. SC could be brought into play. Pulling this off would be disasterous for the electoral mathematicians in the Bush camp. Of course, this begs the question: who could pull it off?
I don't know for certain, but I think JJ2 would have a good chance. The work done by his father and the Rainbow Coalition in the 1980's played a big role in African-Americans making up 33% of the MS vote now. A massive southern, African-American voter registration drive as one pillar of a general election strategy might just work. At the very least it would probably force Bush to defend some pretty solid states.
This is why I still believe JJ2 is an excellent VP choice not only for Dean, but for any potential Democratic nominee. Hell, Edwards / Jackson would have a good chance to win VA, NC, GA, MS, AR, SC and LA, thus ending the election before it began.
So what do other people think? Would a strategy like this have any chance of working?