The data about young African American turnout in '16 is worrying. Very worrying.

The dominant narrative since the election has been about the rural (read white) vote.  I think that is right and it is important to understand why we lost voters who voted for Obama previously.

Less discussed, though equally important is what happened with African American turnout.  I first noticed something was amiss when I looked at the African American vote in Philadelphia. 

Initially most of the discussion about Pennsylvania assumed African American turnout had held up since Clinton’s margin out of Philadelphia was equal to Obama’s.  But the precinct numbers told a different story.

Exit polls are not granular enough to really fully understand what is happening with the African American vote.  Even there, though, you see disturbing trends.  Clinton’s margin in Florida among African Americans in the exit poll was +75, a 15 point decline from Obama who won the African American vote by 90. If the exit polls are right — and they are notoriously unreliable in certain subgroups — the shift from ‘12 was enough to cost Clinton Florida.

The best analysis of minority voting comes from the data files.  State data files contain the race of the voter and whether they voted.  

This chart is a comparison of the turnout by race in the battleground states versus what we would have based on prior elections and population vote. This comes from Patrick Ruffiani — a Republican to be sure — though his work here is respected by liberals as well.  Having said that it would be REALLY GOOD to have a group here analyze these files (I only have access to Florida — they aren’t cheap — but I do see the same problem).

I want to draw your attention to the turnout among young African Americans, which was substantially below expectations.  The problem was most acute among young black men.

One can say with confidence lower African American turnout cost Clinton Michigan (her margin in Detroit was more than 40K lower than Obama’s), Wisconsin (turnout in Milwaukee was down), Pennsylvania (see above) and Florida.  

There is good news with respect to the Hispanic vote and the young — which was over expectations. 

But we need to really understand the reasons for the decline in this turnout.  With Senate races looming in most of the battleground states, reversing this turnout decline is vital.