Mitt Romney addresses NAACP. How many black votes might he win? (+video)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gets a cool reception at the NAACP convention but he may have gone for reasons other than winning votes this November.
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gestures during a speech to the NAACP annual convention in Houston, Wednesday, July 11.
Evan Vucci/AP
Mitt Romney addressed on Wednesday the annual convention of the nation’s leading civil rights group, the NAACP. His pitch: my economic policies will help millions of middle class Americans of all races.
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Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.
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“I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president,” said Mr. Romney to the NAACP.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee received a cool reception, despite his support for a number of policies the group opposes, including state voter ID laws. In contrast, Attorney General Eric Holder received a rousing reception on Monday by attacking voter ID, likening it to poll taxes designed to prevent minorities from voting.
This disparity pointed out the risks inherent in Romney’s appearance in Houston. Given that he’s running to unseat the nation’s first African-American president, was this speech a waste of time for the former Massachusetts governor? What’s the upside here – how many black votes might he win?
The answer is “not many.” But it was probably still worth it for the presumptive GOP nominee to make this speech.
First, the numbers. President Obama leads Romney among African-Americans by a whopping 92 percent to 6 percent, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. That’s the greatest disparity between the candidates for pretty much any demographic grouping.
For decades now the black vote has been a rock of support for Democratic presidents. Obama won 96 percent of African-Americans in 2008, for instance.
Reaching further back in time, George W. Bush won about 11 percent of African-Americans. Ronald Reagan took about 12 percent.
You have to go all the way back to the campaign of Richard Nixon in 1960 to find a Republican candidate who received substantially more minority votes. Nixon took 32 percent of black’s ballots in his (losing) effort that year. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights Act. That’s what solidified the long drift of African-Americans towards the Democratic Party.
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