"Black Southern Voters, Poised to Play a Historic Role"

[applegrove]

Black Southern Voters, Poised to Play a Historic Role

by Nate Cohn at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/upshot/black-southern-voters-poised-to-play-a-historic-role.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

"SNIP............................



This November could be different. Nearly five decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, black voters in the South are poised to play a pivotal role in this year’s midterm elections. If Democrats win the South and hold the Senate, they will do so because of Southern black voters.


The timing — 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and 49 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act — is not entirely coincidental. The trends increasing the clout of black voters reflect a complete cycle of generational replacement in the post-Jim Crow era. White voters who came of age as loyal Democrats have largely died off, while the vast majority of black voters have been able to vote for their entire adult lives — and many have developed the habit of doing so.

This year’s closest contests include North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia. Black voters will most likely represent more than half of all Democratic voters in Louisiana and Georgia, and nearly half in North Carolina. Arkansas, another state with a large black population, is also among the competitive states.

Southern black voters have already made their mark on this year’s midterm elections. Last month, Senator Thad Cochran defeated a Tea Party challenger with the help of a surge in black turnout in a Republican run-off in Mississippi.





.............................SNIP"

[randys1]

1. If I had Gates or Soros money, I would go down there and spend two hundred million dollars

providing transportation, education, coordination, to get every single person able to vote, regardless of party and ideology

we always win, ALWAYS , when we show up...

[applegrove]

2. Oh yeah. I just hope the GOP keeps attacking voter accessability laws which

resulted in huge turnout in the last election.

[randys1]

3. Am I wrong, if you had a billion dollars, wouldnt you do it too?

[pleinair]

4. very optimistic

in spite of what the article describes as "The Supreme Court’s decision last year to strike down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act (that) unleashed a wave of new laws with a disparate impact on black voters, including cuts in early voting and photo-identification requirements."