Last night, MSNBC ran exit poll data that revealed the following:
Race was an "important" factor for 20% of Ohio Democratic Voters last night.
Of those voters who considered race to be "important", 59% voted for Hillary Clinton.
MSNBC Exit Poll Data
According to CNN, there were a total of 2,186,831 votes cast in the Democratic primary in Ohio.
If you consider that race was "important" for 20% of those voters (and we all know that those are just the folks brave enough to admit it!), then that means race was "important" in making a decision for 437,366 voters.
If you now consider that 59% of those 437,366 voters who considered race important voted for Clinton, that means 258,046 of Clinton's votes came from voters who considered her whiteness important to their decision-making. In other words, 21.4% of Clinton's votes were from individuals who felt her whiteness was important.
That means more than 1/5 of Clinton's support is stemming from racism. I guess portraying Obama with a darker skin tone was "smart" afterall for Clinton...
If you do the same math when considering Obama's votes, only 17% of his votes came based on his race being an important factor. But, if you consider the difference between black candidates supporting someone who is like them and stands for something symbolic personally - versus whites voting against a black man because they want to uphold white supremacy - there's a big difference.
And, that difference made a difference in the Ohio election. Clinton's margin of victory would have at least been much, much smaller if racism hadn't played such a strong role.
[Update]
Some folks have pointed out that gender played a role too. But, I believe this proves my point! 17% of voters said that gender was "important" and of those 60% voted for Hillary. Same numbers, sure. But, look at the message behind it: Where gender is concerned, those 60% of those folks were voting FOR a woman (aka against patriarchy) versus where race was concerned 60% were voting AGAINST race and for the white person. It's a totally different message, even if the percentages happen to be the same.
I am not saying that 100% of those people who voted for Hillary or white. Or that race was 100% of the reason for their vote. I am saying that these numbers indicate that those in Ohio who voted for Hillary were more influenced by her whiteness than they should be. Racism definitely plays a role and I believe it's one that Clinton will take advantage of...and that makes me disappointed, that someone who is a fellow Democrat and had the "first black president" has a husband would take advantage of the racism and add fuel to the fire.