The Race Gap

The single largest divide—by a good margin—within the contemporary American electorate is the race gap. The political behavior of whites is substantially different from the behavior of minority racial and ethnic groups. African Americans' distinctive voting behavior is a consequence of their shared political culture within the United States (US). African American support for Democrats, however, is more than merely symbolic; it also is unquestionably issue based. The election of Barack Obama, the nation's first African American president, unquestionably reinforced the loyalty of blacks to the Democratic Party. The political importance of the Hispanic vote has become much more significant with the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the US. Americans' ideological leanings are heavily influenced by race. On government services, health care, aid to the poor, and Social Security privatization, African Americans are significantly more liberal than whites, which is a consequence of the fact that as a group they are poorer than whites and Hispanics.