Blacks and The Republican Party The 20 Percent Solution

Blacks and the Republican Party: The 20 Percent Solution
Author(s): Louis Bolce, Gerald De Maio and Douglas Muzzio

Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 107, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 63-79
Published by: The Academy of Political Science
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Blacks and the Republican Party:
The 20 Percent Solution
LOUIS BOLCE
GERALD DE MAIO
DOUGLAS MUZZIO
"Why Blacks Love Bush" headlined the New Republic in May 1990.
A month earlier the New York Times reported that George Bush's approval rating
among blacks -56 percent - was the highest for a Republican president since
Dwight Eisenhower three decades earlier. Tom Wicker wondered "Why is he so
popular?"'
Bush's standing with blacks eighteen months into his administration led Repub-
lican pollster Robert Teeter to suggest that Bush "might double his share of the
black vote in 1992" to about 20 percent.2 Twenty percent appears to be the
threshold that Republican strategists believe will establish GOP dominance in
America politics -not only in presidential elections, which has been the pattern
since 1968, but in congressional contests as well. The inability of Republicans to
achieve this modest target prompted then Republican National Chairman Lee
Atwater to urge a "command focus" by his party to increase its share of the black
electorate to 20 percent, "if we want to become a majority party." Atwater
contended that had Republicans won 20 percent of the black vote in the 1986
midterm elections, they would not have lost control of the Senate.3
' Fred Barnes, "Black Backing," The New Republic, 28 May 1990, 11-13; Tom Wicker, "Bush and
the Blacks," New York Times, 16 April 1990; Jessica Lee, "GOP Under Bush Attracts New Look
from Black Voters," USA Today, 18 June 1990.
2 Barnes, "Black Backing," 11.
3 See Allen D. Hertzke, "Populist Mobilization and Strategic Party Assimilation: The Lessons of
LOUIS BOLCE and GERALD DE MAIO are associate professors of political science at Baruch
College, City University of New York. DOUGLAS MUZZIO is professor of political science at
Baruch.
Political Science Quarterly Volume 107 Number 1 1992 63
64 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
Before the upsurge in Bush's ratings among blacks, leading Republican politi-
cians and strategists were bemoaning the GOP's abysmal record in attracting
black voters-the most loyal component of the Democratic coalition.4 In 1988,
George Bush won 10 percent of the black vote against a Democratic opponent
who had limited personal appeal to blacks.5 But this showing was no less pathetic
than that of other Republican presidential candidates since 1964. Over the past
six presidential elections, the Republican black vote has averaged 10 percent; for
whites it has varied from 47 to 68 percent, averaging 58 percent.
The Democratic stranglehold on the black vote has tightened at a time when
its grip on other key Democratic constituencies has loosened.6 Catholics, blue
collar workers, and white southerners -all core elements of the New Deal coali-
tion -averaged respectively 78, 66, and 54 percent Democratic in the 1960 and
1964 presidential elections. From 1968 onward, however, the Catholic vote has
oscillated between 40 and 59 percent Democratic and has averaged 49 percent
Republican. Blue collar workers evenly split their votes between Democratic and
Republican presidential candidates over these same twenty years (ranging from
58 to 43 percent Democratic). And the southern anchor of the Democratic party,
white southerners, have become the most faithful supporters of Republican presi-
dential candidates. In short, black voters have become more loyal to the Demo-
cratic party during a time when Republicans have made significant inroads into
core Democratic groups.
The almost total absorption of the black vote within the Democratic fold is a
relatively recent phenomenon. The black political realignment which began in
the 1930s with the New Deal policies of FDR, when heavily Republican blacks
in the North switched allegiance to the Democratic party, was not effectively
consolidated until the 1960s. Barry Goldwater's advocacy of the dismantling of
the New Deal state and the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act among other things
knocked loose the Republican moorings from most remaining black Republicans.
Jackson and Robertson" (Unpublished ms., University of Oklahoma, Spring 1989); Fred Barnes,
"Party of Lincoln," The New Republic, 20 March 1989, 10-12.
4 Robert Axelrod, "Where the Votes Come From: An Analysis of Electoral Coalitions, 1952-1968,"
American Political ScienceReview66 (March 1972): 11-20; Alexander P. Lamis, "The Realignment of
Southern Politics, 1964-1988," (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, Atlanta, 31 August-3 September 1989).
s Michael Oreskes, "New Generation of Blacks Drawn Less to Democrats," New York Times, 27
October 1988.
6 Robert Axelrod, "Presidential Election Coalitions in 1984," American Political Science Review
80 (March 1986): 281-284; Harold W. Stanley, William T. Bianco, and Richard G. Niemi, "Partisan-
ship and Group Support Over Time: A Multivariate Analysis," American Political Science Review
80 (September 1986): 969-976; John R. Petrocik, "Issues and Agendas: Electoral Coalitions in the
1988 Election" (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Atlanta, 31 August-3 September 1989).
BLACKS AND REPUBLICAN PARTY | 65
With Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy of winning the white South in 1968, the
defection of blacks to the Democratic party became almost complete.7
The political significance of this transformation of black partisan loyalties
was not lost on Republican strategists. In the late 1970s, Republicans under the
leadership of national party chairman Bill Brock began to make overtures to
black voters. Indeed, some black spokespersons seemed receptive to the GOP's
efforts to refashion blacks' perspective of their place in national electoral politics.
Jesse Jackson, in addressing the Republican National Committee in 1978, urged
blacks to avoid overidentification with one party: "We must pursue a strategy
that prohibits one party from taking us for granted and another party from
writing us off."8
In the late 1970s, academic studies began to explore the extent to which there
existed ideological, policy, or class cleavages among blacks that could form the
bases for increased black bipartisanship. Louis Bolce and Susan Gray found
evidence of considerable diversity in policy preferences of blacks, which they
attributed to the growing social and economic heterogeneity among blacks.9
Richard Seltzer and Robert Smith detected a "substantial conservative constitu-
ency" on issues like "abortion on demand, stricter law enforcement, prayer in
school, and homosexual rights."'" Similarly, Michael Combs and Susan Welch
found blacks to hold more conservative opinions than whites on abortion, but
Bolce showed that the issue had no discernible impact on the voting behavior of
anti-abortion blacks."
Other research has focused on the relationships between class and political
conservatism. The results are inconclusive. Wayne Parent and Paul Stekler found
that middle-class blacks are less supportive than lower-status blacks of govern-
ment programs to raise the living standard of the poor. 12 Similarly, Susan Welch
and Lorn Foster, using Joint Center for Political Studies (JCPS) data, reported
7 Pearl Robinson, "Whither the Future of Blacks in the Republican Party?" Political Science
Quarterly 97 (Summer 1982): 208-214; Hanes Walton, Jr., Invisible Politics: Black Political Behavior
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 141-147; for a discussion of the impact of the
1964 presidential election on racial voting patterns and the evolution of race as the dominant issue
in American politics, see Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race and the
Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), chap. 2.
Quoted in Robinson, "Whither the Future of Blacks," 220.
Louis Bolce and Susan Gray, "Blacks, Whites, and Race Politics," The Public Interest 53 (Winter
1979): 61-75.
0 Richard Seltzer and Robert C. Smith, "Race and Ideology: A Research Note Measuring Liber-
alism and Conservatism in Black America," Phylon 46 (Summer 1985): 105.
" Michael Combs and Susan Welch, "Blacks, Whites and Attitudes Toward Abortion," Public
Opinion Quarterly 46 (Winter 1982): 510-520; Louis Bolce, "Abortion and Presidential Elections:
The Impact of Party and Candidate Positions," Presidential Studies Quarterly 18 (Fall 1988): 815-
829.
12 Wayne Parent and Paul Stekler, "The Political Implications of Economic Stratification in the
Black Community," Western Political Quarterly 38 (December 1985): 531-532.
policies. Welch and Combs's earlier analysis, which relied on General Social
Survey (GSS) data, also found higher-status blacks to be more conservative on
welfare spending but found these blacks more liberal on health and education
spending. II
In contrast, I. A. Lewis and William Schneider unearthed no evidence that
middle-class blacks were inclined toward political conservatism (and Republican
party support).'4 Indeed, Franklin Gilliam argued that middle-class blacks are
more approving than lower-class blacks of social welfare spending and more
liberal on social issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and
school prayer.'5
The dearth of consistent and cumulative findings on the political outlook and
behavior of black Americans and the virtual absence of analysis on higher-status
blacks result from the lack of data. As Welch and Foster explain:
... national survey data contain relatively small numbers of blacks. Even if blacks are
not undersampled, a random sample of 1,500 Americans yields only about 180 blacks.
While such a number is sufficient to say something about black attitudes in general,
it is hardly enough to make detailed analyses of differences based on income, education,
and other indices of class.'6
The JCPS black oversample utilized by Welch and Foster contained "only a
handful of respondents who made more than $50,000" a year (only forty earned
more than $30,000). In light of this, Welch and Foster caution that the "attitudes
of the upper-middle and upper-class black might indeed be more conservative
than what we have found."'7
This study seeks to answer the question that Welch and Foster and previous
studies have not been able to address: To what extent have the political orienta-
tions of higher SES black subgroups diverged from lower-status blacks? Specifi-
cally, are self-employed, high-income, and college-educated blacks more conser-
vative and Republican than blacks who are less economically successful and
schooled? Comparisons are also made with whites sharing similar SES character-
istics. In sum, this study attempts to ascertain whether the Democratic hold on
segments of the black community has begun to loosen and, if so, whether this
will produce political opportunities for Republicans to attain their "20 percent
solution."
'1 Susan Welch and Lorn Foster, "Class and Conservatism in the Black Community," American
Politics Quarterly 15 (October 1987): 445-470; Susan Welch and Michael Combs, "Intra-racial Differ-
ences and Attitudes of Blacks: Class Cleavages or Consensus?" Phylon 46 (Summer 1985): 91-97.
'4 1. A. Lewis and William Schneider, "Black Voting, Bloc Voting, and the Democrats," Public
Opinion 6 (October/November 1983): 15.
'5 Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., "Black America: Divided by Class?" Public Opinion 9 (February/
March 1986): 53-57.
16 Welch and Foster, "Class and Conservatism," 449.
17 Ibid., 452, 466.
THE DATA
The 1984 and 1988 ABC News presidential election and congressional exit polls
offer some answers to these questions. The advantage of exit polls lies in their
large sample sizes and the immediacy of the poll to the event. Eight hundred
forty-five black respondents were included in the 1984 ABC exit poll, and over
eighteen hundred blacks were queried in the 1988 survey. Thus, the number of
respondents in both samples is approximately three to nine times larger than the
black subsamples in the Center for Political Studies (CPS) biennial National
Election Surveys and the annual GSS. The 1988 exit poll had roughly twice the
number of blacks as the typical multiyear pooled GSS and CPS samples.
The ABC exit poll permits extensive subgroup analyses and reliable inferences
about segments of the black community that standard data sets and pooled
samples do not allow. The 1988 ABC exit poll data enables us to assess, for
example, the political orientations and behavior of relatively unexamined groups
such as black Republicans, blacks earning incomes of $50,000 or more annually,
blacks voting for Bush, and college-educated blacks. The number of respondents
of these respective groups in the ABC survey are 112, 233, 174, and 521; the
comparable figures in the 1988 CPS survey were 17, 11, 10, and 26.
PARTY IDENTIFICATION, IDEOLOGY, AND VOTE
The ABC data suggest that doubling the Republican share of the black vote to
20 percent through appeals to targeted subgroups faces formidable obstacles. In
1988, only 6 percent of black voters identified themselves as Republican (the same
as in 1984); 83 percent called themselves Democrats (up six percentage points
over the same period). Nine percent classified themselves as Independents. A
plurality of whites in 1988 (41 percent) identified themselves as Republican, up
5 percent from 1984. (See Table 1.)
Over the last generation, the Republican party has become more conservative.
Blacks have become more liberal. In 1984, self-described black liberals outnum-
bered black conservatives by only seven percentage points (30 to 23 percent); in
1988, blacks were 22 percentage points more likely to subscribe to the liberal label
(40 to 18 percent). A near majority of whites in 1988 (46 percent) identified
themselves as conservative -twice the percentage who called themselves liberal.
(See Table 2.) Only 29 percent of black conservatives voted for Bush, while 85
percent of white conservatives did. (See Table 3.) It is only among older and
higher-income conservative blacks (less than 2 percent of all blacks) that Bush got
a majority of votes. He beat Dukakis 66 to 34 percent among black conservatives
making $50,000 or more a year and 56 to 44 among those over age 60.
Even the voting patterns of black Republicans do not give GOP strategists
much solace: only 74 percent of the 6 percent of blacks who identified themselves
TABLE 1
Partisanship Among Blacks and Whites by Various

Social Indicators, 1988 (in Percent)*
Party Identification
Republican Independent Democratic
Black White Black White Black White
Total 6% 410% 9% 20% 83% 37%
Income
<$5,000 4 32 5 13 91 51
$5-9,999 6 33 8 15 86 49
$10-19,999 5 38 8 18 84 41
$20-29,999 6 39 12 20 80 39
$30-39,999 6 41 12 21 81 36
$40-49,999 9 45 10 20 80 33
>$50,000 11 47 8 22 80 29
Education
<High School 4 31 6 12 89 55
High School 5 38 6 17 87 43
Some College 6 43 11 21 80 34
College 7 48 10 21 82 29
Post Grads 8 39 12 23 79 37
Employment Status
Hourly 5 34 8 21 85 42
Salaried 8 45 11 21 80 32
Self-employed 15 45 9 22 75 31
Unemployed 2 31 9 15 85 51
Ideology
Liberal 2 11 7 19 89 68
Moderate 5 30 11 25 83 42
Conservative 20 64 12 17 67 17
Source: 1988 ABC News exit polls. The group Ns for blacks range from 1,503 to 1,729; for whites the range
is 17,950 to 19,435.
* Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding and deletion of minor party preferences and those who
refused to respond.
as Republicans voted for Bush (Reagan got 70 percent in 1984). Black Republicans
were three times more likely than white Republicans to support Michael Dukakis.
White defections in contrast came disproportionately from the Democratic side.
White Democrats were thrice as likely to vote against their party's candidate as
were Republicans. (See Table 3.)
Black Independents (9 percent of black voters), like their Democratic counter-
parts, overwhelmingly supported Dukakis in 1988 (72 to 23 percent) and Mondale
in 1984 (83 to 16 percent), while white Independents supported the Republican
presidential candidates by landslide margins. Any hope of reaching a 20 percent
TABLE 2
Political Ideology of Blacks and Whites by Various

Social Indicators, 1988 (in Percent)*
Liberal Moderate Conservative
Blacks Whites Blacks Whites Blacks Whites
Total 40% 24% 410% 30% 18% 46%
Income
<$5,000 37 29 45 38 15 32
$5-9,999 36 29 44 38 19 33
$10-19,999 39 25 44 33 17 42
$20-29,999 42 24 41 32 17 44
$30-39,999 39 23 40 31 21 46
$40-49,999 41 21 39 28 21 51
>$50,000 48 23 36 25 16 52
Education
<High School 42 22 44 42 14 36
High School 35 20 46 38 18 42
Some College 37 22 40 31 24 47
College 41 23 39 24 19 52
Post Grad 58 34 32 21 10 45
Employment Status
Hourly 36 25 45 37 19 38
Salaried 46 25 38 26 16 50
Self-employed 40 22 40 28 21 50
Unemployed 39 28 41 39 20 32
Source: 1988 ABC News exit polls. The group Ns for blacks range from 1,474 to 1,492; for whites the range
is 17,646 to 17,880.
* Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding and deletion of those who refused to respond.
solution must elicit substantially greater support from black Independents, black
conservatives, and black Republicans-three presumably receptive (though nu-
merically small) subgroups within the black electorate.
If there is any segment of the black electorate with whom a Republican strategy
has a chance of success, conventional wisdom suggests that it is with higher
socioeconomic status blacks. High-status blacks, the argument goes, should be
substantially more likely than low-status blacks to identify themselves as conser-
vative and Republican and to support Republican candidates, because the GOP
tends to favor economic policies consistent with the class interests of more af-
fluent and conservative voters.
The reality appears to be otherwise. Higher-income blacks, unlike similar
whites, are more likely to call themselves liberals than those at lower-income
levels. Of those earning between $10,000 and $20,000 in 1988, 39 percent chose
the liberal designation, while 48 percent of blacks earning $50,000 or more called
TABLE 3
1988 Presidential Vote among Blacks and Whites by Various

Social Indicators (in Percent)*
Bush Dukakis Other
Black White Black White Black White
Total 10% 58% 88% 41% 2% 1%
Income
<$5,000 4 42 93 56 2 2
$5-9,999 8 46 91 53 1 1
$10-19,999 8 55 91 44 1 1
$20-29,999 8 56 89 43 3 1
$30-39,999 9 60 90 39 1 1
$40-49,999 14 63 84 33 2 1
>$50,000 15 64 84 35 1 1
Education
<High School 6 48 93 52 2 1
High School 7 56 93 43 - 1
Some College 10 62 87 37 2 1
College 12 63 87 36 1 1
Post Grad 11 52 86 47 3 1
Employment Status
Hourly 6 53 92 46 2 1
Salaried 12 62 87 37 1 1
Self-employed 15 64 83 34 1 1
Unemployed 3 42 93 56 4 2
Ideology
Liberal 3 18 95 81 2 1
Moderate 8 50 90 49 2 1
Conservative 29 85 69 14 1 1
Party ID
Republican 74 92 25 7 1 1
Independent 23 57 72 40 6 2
Democratic 4 21 95 78 1 1
Source: 1988 ABC News exit polls. The group N for blacks is 1,829; the group Ns for blacks ranged from
1,511 to 1,778. The total N for whites was 19,725; the group Ns ranged from 18,012 to 19,509.
* Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding and deletion of refusals.
themselves liberal -more than twice the level of whites at comparable incomes.
There was virtually no difference among higher-income blacks in Democratic
party identification from blacks in general (80 versus 83 percent). Among whites
there was an inverse relationship between income and identification with the
Democratic party. A plurality (47 percent) of higher-income whites identified
with the Republican party, whereas 51 percent of whites with the lowest incomes
(under $5,000) viewed themselves as Democrats.
In 1988, Bush won a mere 15 percent of the votes from blacks earning $50,000
or more. In 1984, 16 percent of blacks making more than $50,000 voted for
Reagan, who was supported by 7 percent of the black poor. In contrast, among
white voters there was a strong positive relationship between financial status and
support for Bush. Roughly six of ten poor whites supported Dukakis; more than
six of ten in the highest income group voted for Bush. (See Table 3.) Thus, while
income is clearly a factor in the voting behavior of whites, it appears to have
virtually no influence in the vote choices of blacks.
A similar narrow opening for Republicans can be seen among well educated
blacks. In 1988, Bush got one of nine votes from black college graduates and
postgraduates, six percentage points more than blacks who had not graduated
from high school. The 1988 levels and proportions of blacks voting for Bush,
regardless of their educational attainment, were virtually the same as for Reagan
in 1984. Among whites the relationship between education and vote in 1988 was
curvilinear, with Bush getting fewer votes from whites with the least and most
education; still, Bush carried majorities from whites in every education category
except among those not finishing high school.
The dilemma confronting Republican strategists can be graphically, if some-
what hyperbolically, stated: if all blacks who voted in the 1988 presidential elec-
tions earned $50,000 or more and cast their votes like those blacks who actually
earned these incomes, Bush would have increased his share of the black vote from
10 to 15 percent. Similarly, if the entire black electorate in 1988 had graduated
from college, Bush's portion of the black vote would have increased only two
percentage points. These increases are so small that they could simply reflect
statistical margins of error.
Another favorite target of the Atwater strategy is entrepreneurial (self-
employed) blacks - a group who could be expected to be amenable to the Repub-
lican "opportunity society" message. However, self-employed blacks are twice as
likely to call themselves liberals as conservatives (40 to 21 percent), and they are
also decidedly Democratic (75 percent) with only 15 percent identifying with the
Republican party, the same percentage that supported Bush in 1988. Neither the
-age nor the income of self-employed blacks predisposed them to vote for Bush;
for example, self-employed blacks earning over $50,000 a year voted nearly three
to one for Dukakis (71 to 25 percent). In general, there is very little to distinguish
politically self-employed blacks from blacks in other occupational categories. In
contrast, a plurality (45 percent) of self-employed whites identified with the
Republican party as compared to the 31 percent and 22 percent who respectively
viewed themselves as Democrats and Independents. They were twice as likely (50
versus 22 percent) to call themselves conservatives rather than liberals. These
whites also gave over six of ten of their votes to Bush. Hence, an entrepreneurial
orientation does not seem to bridge the political and ideological chasms between
blacks and whites. Self-employed blacks, in fact, were considerably less likely to
support Bush than unemployed whites (15 versus 42 percent).
While Bush garnered majorities among some black groups -the tiny fractions
who were either self-identified Republicans or those who were both politically
conservative and wealthy or elderly-and received 29 percent support among
black conservatives, no other meaningful social category of blacks gave Bush 20
percent of its vote. Other black voters supportive of Bush were Catholics (17
percent); blacks residing in the West and veterans (16 percent); the self-employed
and those earning $50,000 or more a year (15 percent); older voters (13 percent);
and college graduates, black suburbanites, and those living in rural areas (12
percent). The voting behavior of young upwardly mobile black professionals and
born-again Christians was virtually indistinguishable from black voters in general
(11 and 13 percent respectively vs. 10 percent). In contrast, over three-fifths of
white yuppies and eight of ten white born-again Christians supported Bush.
PERCEPTIONS OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS, PARTY IDENTIFICATION, AND VOTE
Political scientists have devoted considerable attention to retrospective voting,

which assesses the presidential vote choice in terms of the voters' evaluation of
the past performance of the party controlling the White House. In 1988, ABC
asked respondents whether they thought that they were "better or worse off
financially than eight years ago." Retrospective vote analysis would hold that
those who claimed to have benefited from Reagan economic policies would be
more prone to support Bush and the GOP than those who thought that they were
worse off after Reaganomics.'8
This expectation is borne out for white voters, but only marginally supported
by the voting patterns of blacks. A near-majority of whites (46 percent) felt
that their financial status had improved during the previous eight years, and
four-fifths of them supported Bush. Seventeen percent of whites thought their
financial situation had deteriorated under Reagan, and they gave over 80 percent
of their votes to Dukakis. The 37 percent of whites who saw no change in the
family's income during the Reagan administration split their votes evenly between
Bush and Dukakis. Fifty-nine percent of whites who felt that their financial status
had improved identified with the Republican party, while those who felt that
their family income had declined over the previous eight years felt closer to
the Democrats. Among white voters, then, there was a direct linkage between
perceived financial trend, vote choice, and partisanship.
The relationships between perceived financial status and partisanship and vote
choice among blacks were much weaker. Even the 17 percent who thought their
financial situation had improved during the Reagan years overwhelmingly identi-
fied with the Democratic party (63 percent) and supported Dukakis (81 percent).
18 Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1981).
ISSUE SALIENCE
The gulf that separates white and black voters is manifested not only in their
partisanship and voting behavior but in the types of issues that concern them.
This is especially notable among higher SES blacks. The most salient issues to
black voters according to ABC's three category "most important issues" summary
measure were those related to domestic social and welfare concerns such as health
care and the "problems of the poor." Forty-nine percent of blacks chose this issue
domain. In contrast, whites were most concerned with the national economy (41
percent) and defense and foreign policy (24 percent). Only 6 percent of blacks
cited defense and foreign policy as their chief concern.
The single most important voting issue for blacks was problems of the poor,
the modal response of blacks at all income and education levels. Forty percent
of blacks with family incomes below $5,000 and 26 percent of blacks with family
incomes above $50,000 chose this item as "the most liked stand of the presidential
candidate [they] voted for." Health care ranked second for low- and high-income
blacks (14 and 16 percent, respectively) as it did for black voters at all education
levels. (The figures for blacks and whites in the highest and lowest income and
education categories are displayed in Table 4.)
Problems of the poor (21 percent) and health care (14 percent) were the most
cited issues for whites with family incomes below $5,000. The most favored
candidate stands for whites with incomes above $50,000 dealt with the national
economy (20 percent) and national defense (18 percent). Health care and prob-
lems of the poor were the foremost concerns of only a handful of the high income
whites (6 and 7 percent respectively).
Thus, while distinct class differences are found in the policy preferences and
the voting behavior of low- and high-income whites, similar class differences
were not found among blacks. The differences in issue orientations, party identifi-
cation, and political ideology among higher SES whites and blacks and similarity
in the political outlooks of low- and high-status blacks would seem to foreshadow
dim prospects for inclusion of large numbers of upwardly mobile blacks in future
Republican presidential coalitions. Whatever economic cleavages may exist be-
tween the black poor and the black upper-middle class, these class differences
were not reflected in their issue concerns, political ideology, and voting behavior.
Paradoxically, the political differences (that is, partisanship, voting, ideology,
and policy concerns) between blacks and whites widen as their income and em-
ployment status increase. The result is that the political orientations of high-status
blacks are much more akin to those of lower-class whites than they are to upper-
status whites.
THE 20 PERCENT SOLUTION IN CONGRESSIONAL CONTESTS
While the possibility that President Bush's popularity with black voters will trans-
late into votes in 1992 might dismay partisan Democrats, the fact remains that
TABLE 4
Most Liked Candidate Stand of Black and White Voters within Highest
and Lowest Income and Education Categories (in Percent)
Income
Less than $5,000 More than $50,000
Blacks Whites Blacks Whites
Taxes 13% 111% 7% 13%

Health Care 14 14 16 6
Defense 3 1 1 4 18
Budget Deficit 2 6 9 9
Problems of Poor 40 21 26 7
Foreign Affairs 0 5 2 7
National Economy 5 12 12 20
Crime 4 4 5 3
None of Above 19 16 19 17
N = 701 231 231 4,029
Education
Less than HS College Grads and Above
Blacks Whites Blacks Whites
Taxes 13% 13% 8% 10%

Health Care 20 17 13 8
Defense 4 12 4 17
Budget Deficit 3 7 8 9
Problems of Poor 37 15 29 9
Foreign Affairs 1 3 1 7
National Economy 6 13 13 19
Crime 4 5 3 3
None of the Above 12 15 21 18
N = 198 1,067 527 6,937
Source: 1988 ABC News presidential exit poll.
Republicans have been able to win five of the last six presidential contests with
only 10 percent of the black vote. The 20 percent solution hoped for by Repub-
lican strategists has to work itself out in House and Senate contests.
Yet, as a generation of voting studies attest, the forces of incumbency and
party salience, which are more enduring in congressional contests than in presi-
dential races, have resulted in a split-level realignment, that is, a Republican
controlled presidency and a Democratic Congress. 19 However, even if the incum-
'9 Michael Nelson, "Constitutional Aspects of Elections" in Michael Nelson, ed., The Elections
of 1988 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1989); and Everett C. Ladd, "Like Waiting
for Godot: The Uselessness of Realignment for Understanding Change in Contemporary American
Politics," Polity 22 (Spring 1990): 511-525.
BLACKS AND REPUBLICAN PARTY j 75
bency effects were significantly diminished, the substantial increase in black

turnout and the heavily Democratic black population in one-third of the states in
which blacks comprise 10 percent or more of the electorate have erected electoral
stumbling blocks that few Republican congressional candidates have successfully
hurdled.
Republican Trent Lott's successful 1988 bid for the U.S. Senate seat in Missis-
sippi exemplifies this point in the extreme. To win just a bare majority of the
votes in the Senate race, Lott had to convince at least 70 percent of white Mississip-
pians to vote against Democrat Wayne Dowdy, the popular representative from
the fourth congressional district, merely to negate the votes of the 31 percent of
the electorate who were black and who were certain to vote ten-to-one against
him. In Alabama and Georgia in 1986, small shifts in the black vote could
have reversed the electoral fortunes of both GOP candidates. If Republican
incumbents Jeremiah Denton of Alabama and Mack Mattingly of Georgia won
merely 20 percent of newly black registered since 1980 and all other votes re-
mained cast as they were, Denton would have been reelected by 24,800 votes
instead of losing by 7,000, and Mattingly's loss by 22,000 votes to Wyche Fowler
would have resulted in a victory of 3,200 votes.20
The impact of the black vote was no less striking in the House races in 1988.
Democrats won 54 precent of the national congressional vote and captured 59
percent of the House seats but carried over 70 percent of congressional districts
where blacks comprise 10 percent or more of the population. Forty-two percent
of the total House seats held by Democrats were from districts that had a black
population of 10 percent or more; in contrast, 82 percent of Republican-held
seats came from districts in which blacks constituted less than 10 percent of the
population.21
While whites evenly split their votes between Republican and Democratic con-
gressional candidates, blacks favored the Democrats by nine-to-one. Blacks voted
overwhelmingly Democratic irrespective of their demographic, social, or eco-
nomic backgrounds. Not one of the groups presumably most susceptible to
Republican party overtures - high income, born again Christians, the self-
employed, young professionals, conservatives, and those whose financial situa-
tion improved under the Reagan presidency -gave even a quarter of their votes
to Republican congressional candidates. Only black conservatives and those fi-
nancially better off gave more than 20 percent of their votes to Republicans.
2" Computations are based on figures contained in Allen D. Hertzke, "Jackson, Robertson and
the Politics of Community: Religious Mobilization and the 1988 Campaign" (Paper presented at the
XIV Congress of the International Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 1 September
1988); and Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, eds., TheAlmanac of American Politics 1988 (Wash-
ington, DC: National Journal, 1987).
21 Computed from Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, eds., The Almanac of American Politics
1990 (Washington, DC: National Journal, 1989).
RACIAL CONCENTRATION, POLARIZATION, AND BLOC VOTING
While SES, political ideology, and domestic and foreign policy concerns appear
to be unrelated to black partisanship and voting behavior, are there any factors
associated with political differences among blacks? One factor that seems to
matter is the proportion of blacks in a state's electorate. According to 1988 ABC
statewide exit poll data, Republican candidates were much more likely to garner
black votes in states where there are low concentrations of blacks. Conversely,
in states with the highest concentration of blacks, Republicans receive the smallest
share of the black vote.
Bush obtained 20 percent or more of the black vote in seventeen of the twenty-
three states where blacks comprised less than 5 percent of the electorate; he won
30 percent or more in eleven of these states. Bush did not reach the 20 percent
threshold in any of the twelve states where blacks comprised 10 percent or more
of the electorate. Indeed, in ten of these states, blacks gave Bush less than 10
percent of their votes. These concentration and diffusion effects held in Senate
races between 1984 and 1988. In two-thirds (twenty-one) of the Senate races in
states where blacks constituted 5 percent or less of the population, Republican
candidates won 20 percent or more of the black vote. However, in 60 percent of
the races in states where blacks comprised 10 percent or more of the electorate,
Republicans won less than 10 percent of the black vote; in only one race did a
Republican win 20 percent or more.
Another way of looking at the political effect of black voters in a state is
whether racially polarized voting patterns are greatest where the proportion of
blacks is highest. The ABC exit poll data show that this is indeed the case. For
example, in the states where blacks comprised 10 percent or more of the elec-
torate, the mean difference in the percentage of whites and blacks who supported
Bush was 56 percent. It was 45 precent where blacks constituted 6 to 9 percent
of the electorate, but only 27 percent where they made up 5 percent or less of the
voting public. The mean differences for the Senate races that ABC polled between
1984 and 1988 were 42, 39, and 25 percent, respectively.
Thus, ironically, in states where the black vote counts less toward the election
outcome (that is, in states where there are the fewest blacks) Republican candi-
dates have the best chance of picking up black support. The black vote tends to
be monolithically Democratic in states where they are concentrated the most.
Republican candidates fare worse in precisely those states where blacks could
potentially help them the most.
This contextual impact may be explained by the presence or absence of induce-
ments to bloc voting. In states where the proportion of blacks is large, factors like
residential concentration and the existence of black political, civic, and cultural
structures including elected officials, activist churches, civic associations, news-
papers, and radio stations enhance the racial salience of issues and provide racial
cues and incentives for bloc voting. In states where blacks make up a tiny fraction
of the population, these factors are limited, and black voters are more likely to
be influenced by nonracial considerations, such as the local and state partisan

climate, economic circumstances, and so on.
CONCLUSION
The stated desire of Lee Atwater and other Republicans to make the GOP more
inclusionary is salutary to the extent that it reduces divisive race politics. Yet
there is nothing in the ABC exit poll data that points to any segment of the black
community that can be successfully mined for Republican votes.
The academic literature and conventional wisdom point to three segments of
the black community as potentially fertile ground for Republican inroads: higher
income blacks, those who are politically and culturally conservative, and the
self-employed. But the ideological and partisan affinities of these blacks for
liberalism and the Democratic party intensified.
Why the rejection of the Republican option among middle-class black voters?
One answer lies in the 1988 ABC exit poll data. The policy concerns of high-status
blacks are virtually indistinguishable from blacks at the lowest income levels.
Social welfare issues such as health care and problems of the poor were cited by
blacks at every income level as the most important issues affecting their vote
choice. In contrast, higher-status whites were most concerned about the economy
and defense, issues which hardly registered among black voters. The traditional
Republican antagonism to an expanding public sector coupled with the New
Deal-Great Society liberalism of the Democratic party tends to reinforce the
existing political loyalties of high- and low-status blacks.
The heightened racial consciousness of black voters as well as changes in the
structure of the Democratic party apparatus also present formidable obstacles
to Republican strategists. Since the New Deal, the Democratic party has been
especially solicitous in providing representation to identifiable constituent
groups. This orientation toward group representation is best exemplified by the
McGovern-Fraser commission's (1969-1972) guidelines "to encourage represen-
tation on the national convention delegation of minority groups, women, and
young people in reasonable relationship to their presence in the population of the
states."22 While subsequent Democratic party commissions have modified the
McGovern-Fraser standards, the Democratic party remains far more committed
than the Republican party to the proportional representation of groups. In the
absence of politically meaningful class or ideological differences within the black
electorate, it is rational for blacks to support a party that is inclined toward group
representation.
22 Quoted in Austin Ranney, "Changing the Rules of the Presidential Nominating Game: Party
Reform in America" in Jeff Fishel, ed., Parties and Elections in an Anti-Party Age (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1978), 222.
Thus, any Republican strategy to garner more black votes in the hope of
establishing GOP dominance in electoral politics runs up against the fact that
"the Democratic party has become [now both in its policy objectives and the
public mind] the home of racial liberalism."23 Race defines the major parties.
George Bush has enjoyed unparalleled popularity among blacks as a Repub-
lican president. Will this translate into unprecedented support in the 1992 presi-
dential election? The most recent national poll available, a 24-29 October 1991
ABC News/ Washington Post survey found 43 percent of blacks sampled nation-
ally approved Bush's job performance. While this level of support represented
a 34 point decline from the heights of Bush's support reported by Gallup in March
in the aftermath of the Gulf war, it still is more than double the highest levels
achieved by Ronald Reagan.24
However, Bush's current relatively high black approval ratings will likely have
little effect on the 1992 election. Approval ratings registered a year before a
presidential election have been unreliable predictors of voting behavior in the
past, and there is no reason to believe that Bush represents a departure. Repub-
lican presidential candidates have won five of six elections with negligible support
from blacks. It is unlikely that the outcome of the 1992 election will turn on the
number of black votes George Bush receives. Should Bush win one in five black
voters, there is no reason to believe that such support will be extended to Repub-
lican Senate and House candidates and into state executive and legislative races.
After all, Republican strategists see a 20 percent share of the black votes as the
solution to the problem of GOP's minority party status. Except for Ronald
Reagan in 1980, recent presidents have had extremely short coattails.
Another reason for questioning the electoral impact of recent approval ratings
for George Bush is that only 10 percent of blacks identified with the Republican
party in July 1991 (about the same as in 1981), while his approval level was 49
percent.25 Party identification was the best predictor of black votes for Reagan
in 1984 and Bush in 1988 (when 74 precent of black Republicans voted for Bush)
and the most important predictor of vote choice in congressional elections except
for incumbency. Given the low and invariant levels of Republican party identifi-
cation among blacks, it is highly improbable that George Bush, let alone Repub-
lican candidates for lower offices, will attain the 20 percent solution.
It is almost inconceivable that the Republicans would attempt to outbid the
Democrats for the support of blacks, since the GOP's electoral strategy since
23 Carmines and Stimson, Issues Evolution, 184, 185; see also Lewis and Schneider, "Black Vo
ing," 14-15.
24 ABC News/ Washington Post poll of 24-29 October 1991, Jeffrey Alderman, director of pollin
personal communication. The Gallup data appears in Everett Carll Ladd, The Ladd Report, 4th ed.,
vol. 1 (New York: Norton, 1991), 13.
25 "Changes in Party Allegiance," New York Times, 14 July 1991; and Ladd, The Ladd
Report, 13.
BLACKS AND REPUBLICAN PARTY j 79
1964 has been to win over racially conservative Independents and Democrats. It
would seem that only social and political forces as cataclysmic as that which took
place in the 1960s can dislodge the attachment of blacks to the Democratic party.
The 20 percent solution may have to await another transformation of American
politics and the two-party system.*
* The data used in this analysis are from the ABC News Exit Polls. The authors wish to thank
Jeffrey Alderman, director of polling for ABC News, for access to ABC polling materials. They also
gratefully acknowledge the released time support of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Baruch
College.

Blacks and The Republican Party The 20 Percent Solution

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Blacks and the Republican Party: The 20 Percent Solution

Author(s): Louis Bolce, Gerald De Maio and Douglas Muzzio

Political Science Quarterly Volume 107 Number 1 1992 63

PARTY IDENTIFICATION, IDEOLOGY, AND VOTE

Partisanship Among Blacks and Whites by Various

Republican Independent Democratic

Black White Black White Black White

Total 6% 410% 9% 20% 83% 37%

Political Ideology of Blacks and Whites by Various

Liberal Moderate Conservative

Blacks Whites Blacks Whites Blacks Whites

Total 40% 24% 410% 30% 18% 46%

1988 Presidential Vote among Blacks and Whites by Various

Bush Dukakis Other

Black White Black White Black White

Total 10% 58% 88% 41% 2% 1%

PERCEPTIONS OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS, PARTY IDENTIFICATION, AND VOTE

Political scientists have devoted considerable attention to retrospective voting,

THE 20 PERCENT SOLUTION IN CONGRESSIONAL CONTESTS

Less than $5,000 More than $50,000

Blacks Whites Blacks Whites

Taxes 13% 111% 7% 13%

N = 701 231 231 4,029

Less than HS College Grads and Above

Blacks Whites Blacks Whites

Taxes 13% 13% 8% 10%

N = 198 1,067 527 6,937

Source: 1988 ABC News presidential exit poll.

bency effects were significantly diminished, the substantial increase in black

RACIAL CONCENTRATION, POLARIZATION, AND BLOC VOTING

be influenced by nonracial considerations, such as the local and state partisan

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