Thursday, May 11, 2017

Voting Rate of Non-Hispanic Whites Climbed in 2016

The long-awaited and much anticipated report on voting in the 2016 presidential election was released by the Census Bureau yesterday. What does it reveal? Most notably, an increase in the voting rate of non-Hispanic Whites and a decline in the voting rate of Blacks. The percentage of non-Hispanic Whites who voted in 2016 was 1.2 percentage points higher than in 2012. The percentage of Blacks who voted in 2016 was 7.0 percentage points lower.

Voting rate of citizens in 2016 (and 2012)
Total: 61.4% (61.8%)
Asians: 49.9% (47.9%)
Blacks: 58.9% (65.9%)
Hispanics: 47.6% (48.0%)
Non-Hispanic Whites: 65.3% (64.1%)

Another interesting finding: Non-Hispanic Whites aged 65 or older accounted for a larger share of voters in 2016 (20 percent) than in 2012 (18 percent). The number of non-Hispanic White voters aged 65 or older climbed by 2.8 million between 2012 and 2016, thanks in large part to the aging of the baby-boom generation. The number of Black voters fell by 683,000. Those shifts may have determined the election outcome.

Source: Census Bureau, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2016

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