Did Only 4.7% Of Blacks Vote Yesterday?
A depressing statistic about black voter participation in yesterday’s elections spread like wildfire through Twitter earlier today. Only 4.7% of blacks, the story went, had bothered to show up.
It’s not true. It’s not even close to true.
About 38% of the voting age population of the United States turned out to vote in yesterday’s election. There are about 26.5 million African Americans of voting age in the United States, which makes blacks 11.7% of the voting age population. According to exit poll data, blacks made up about 10% of the total electorate this year.
About 90 million people voted in this election. If 10% of them were black, that makes 9 million. Nine million is
