Black Voter Turnout Fell In 2016

SUITLAND, MD — While the contentious and closely fought presidential election of 2016 drew a record number of voters to the polls, that did trend did not hold true for one key voting bloc — black voters — the Pew Research Center reported Friday, citing new U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

In fact, Pew reported, the decline of 7 percentage points from the 2012 presidential election marked the largest drop on record for black voter turnout from one election to the next.

Pew did not offer a reason for the plummeting turnout, but it pointed out that Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, ran for reelection in 2012, which coincided with black voter turnout (65.3 percent) surpassing that of whites (64.1 percent) for the first time ever. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Other items of note Pew gleaned from the census data:

'The Latino voter turnout rate held steady at 47.6% in 2016, compared with 48.0% in 2012.'

This was the case despite a predicted surge in Latino voting, due in part to a spike in Latino population and hot-button immigration issues, including deportation and then-candidate Donald Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.

'The number of naturalized-citizen voters reached 10.8 million in 2016, up from 9.3 million in 2012.'

"In a year when immigration played a central role in the presidential campaign, turnout among naturalized-citizen voters (those who were immigrants born in another country who have naturalized to become U.S. citizens) was 54.3%, up from 53.6% in 2012," Pew reports.

'Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other racial or ethnic minorities accounted for 26.7% of voters in 2016, a share unchanged from 2012'

Similarly, the percentage of whites who made up the vote — 73.3 percent — was largely unchanged from 2012 (73.7 percent).

'The voter turnout rate increased among Millennials and those in Generation X.'

49.4 percent of Millennials (18- to 35-year-olds) voted in 2016, up more than 4 percentage points since 45 percent in 2012 (when the same cohort was 18 to 31). The uptick in Millennials' turnout rate was seen across racial and ethnic lines — besides black Millennials, Pew notes. They voted at a 49.4 percent clip in 2016, down from 55 percent in 2012.

'The voter turnout rate among women was 63.3% in 2016, mostly unchanged from 63.7% in 2012.'

The rate went up among white women (66.8 percent from 65.6 percent in 2012), went down among black women (64.1 percent from 70.7 percent) and stayed the same for Hispanic women (50 percent from 49.8 percent). Consequently, the turnout for men remained essentially the same (59.3 percent from 59.7 percent) as well.

Click here to read the full Pew report, and click here to see the new Census Bureau data.

Like the White House Patch Facebook Page.

Follow us on Twitter.

Sign up to comment on the site.

Photo Credit: Mario Tama/ Getty Images News/ Getty Images