Black Women Play Decisive Role

With a presidential election that is shaping up to be close, black women are poised to play a decisive role. The Democratic Party is home base for many, but the Republicans are trying to lure them over. At the same time, many younger African American women prefer to register as independents.

"This is a very polarized country we live in at this time," says Daniella Gibbs, deputy communications director for the Democratic National Committee. "So every vote is going to count."

And, it appears the one vote the Democrats can count on is from black women. Studies of the last three presidential elections show that black women are the most loyal Democrats of any demographic group.

"African American women are the base of the base of the Democratic Party," Gibbs says.

In the 2000 presidential race, 94 percent of black women voted for Al Gore, while only 6 percent supported George W. Bush, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an African American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Close to 9 million black women were registered to vote in the election, and of that number 7.6 million said they actually voted, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There were over 13 million black women in the U.S. in 2000.

Although Gore lost in 2000, black women helped him win key states, such as Pennsylvania, California and New York. Political consultant and commentator Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich points to Illinois, where white voters were split evenly between Bush and Gore. She says that the 10 percent of voters who were black women pushed Gore over the top to win the state with 54 percent.

Yet, too often, according to Scruggs-Leftwich, a professor at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, M.D., black women get lumped with white women when political pundits talk about the "women's vote." In the 1992 and 1996 elections, exit polls showed that white women's votes were relatively close to white men's votes for President Bill Clinton: 34 percent of white men and 44 percent of white women in 1992 and 31 percent of white men and 42 percent of white women in 1996.

Black women, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. In 1992, he received 86 percent of their vote, and in 1996, 89 percent of them voted for him, according to the Joint Center.

When black women's votes were averaged with white women's, the "women's vote" gave Clinton a winning majority of 54 percent in 1992 and 51 percent in 1996.

Health Care, Education, Jobs

Black women tend to favor the Democratic Party because of the issues that appeal to them. "We vote our interests," says Gibbs from the Democratic National Committee.

Black women have shown an interest in health care, education, jobs and child care -- issues emphasized by the Democrats, says David Bositis, a senior researcher for the Joint Center.

Melanie Campbell, executive director of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Inc., a Washington-based nonpartisan group that strives to increase black participation in the political process, believes these issues are important to black women because they are more likely to head up their households and be the primary breadwinners for their homes.

Black women also make up a large proportion of the senior population, adds Bositis, which means they are interested in Social Security and Medicare, issues the Democrats have tended to capitalize on.

More Black Women Vote than Men

Because they are more attached to a political party, black women are also more likely to vote and participate in the political process than black men and white women, according to Bositis. The Joint Center found that they are voting in larger numbers than even black men. In the last presidential election, 6 out of 10 black voters were women.