SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Black community is a very politically engaged voting block during a typical election, but USC Political Science Professor Jennifer Cryer said an off-cycle election is an entirely different story.
"We often don't see people of color engaged in these off-cycle elections, because they're not getting the media and campaigning attention and resources of these big-ticket elections," Cryer said.
African Americans overwhelmingly vote blue, Cryer said, but the numbers are leading to what she calls "statistical discrimination."
"So people look at those statistics and think those are voters that perhaps I can't reach, even though there's broader research on partisanship within the African American community that suggests this really broad swath of opinion," she said. "Many African American voters might actually consider themselves conservative, just not using the definition that academics might use about what conservatism is."
She believes the community is largely being ignored by both campaigns.
“You have Democrats who aren’t engaging with them, perhaps because they're taking them for granted," she said. "And you have Republicans who aren't engaging with them again, perhaps because they feel like that's an uphill battle, and so there they go, left alone."
Omar Wasow is a political scientist with Pomona College. He agreed with Cryer that African Americans are a critical block in the Democratic coalition and said it's therefore going to be crucial for Gavin Newsom to enthuse the Black community in order to come up on top in this election.
"In an election like this, it's really going to hinge on kind of getting this on people's radar," Wasow said. "Are they even paying attention? Are they motivated and excited about trying to be a part of Newsom's coalition?"
Wasow said there's one big tipping point: Larry Elder.
"My guess is that most of the Republican recall candidates are not going to do much outreach to the Black community," He said. "The one twist in this is that Larry Elder, the leading Republican candidate, is himself African American."
It doesn't take much for Elder to make a huge impact Wasow said.
"[He] may be able to win over more Black moderate voters or particular appeals to African American men," he said. "And that's not likely to be a huge number, you know, maybe 1 in 10, 2 in 10 at max, but in a close election that could matter."
So how do you actively campaign to the Black community? Cryer said it's important to emphasize the political issues the community cares about which include the economy and job growth.
At the time this article was written, there were 731,102 registered African American voters in California. So far, Political Data Incorporated shows 144,089 of them have already cast their ballot. That's about 20% of potential Black voters. There are still two more weeks before the election to get those numbers up.
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