The Center for American Progress updated its numbers from an October 2012 report, showing how women of color increased their voting rate and influenced election outcomes despite a higher risk of disenfranchisement from attacks on voting rights.
The new May 22 report, which updated the numbers from the “A Dual Disenfranchisement: How Voter Suppression Denies Reproductive Justice to Women of Color,” indicates that women of color “stand at the intersection of the rising electorate and the gender gap,” a gap found to be sharpest among women of color. According to the report, women of color currently make up 18 percent of the United States population, but by 2050, the Census Bureau estimates they will comprise 27 percent of the population.
The new report uses the latest data available from the Census Bureau on the voting turnout rates of people of color, focusing specifically on the voting rates of women of color. The Center found the voting rates for women of color have increased since 2000. Women voters of each race and ethnicity turned out “both at greater rates and also in higher numbers than men in their respective race and ethnic groups” for the first time.
During the 2012 presidential election, women were the majority of voters overall, as well as the majority of voters who supported President Obama’s re-election, with 55 percent voting for him compared to 44 percent supporting his Republican rival, Mitt Romney. “The gap between the women who voted for President Obama and the men who voted for Gov. Romney was among the largest ever recorded,” according to the report.
In fact, not only were women more likely to vote for the president, they were also more likely to vote overall, which further increased their influence in the outcome of the election, and it was women of color who supported Obama the most.
While 42 percent of white women voted for President Obama, 96 percent of black women and 76 percent of Latinas, led to his cumulative 55 percent vote from all women. “In 2008, the turnout of black women outpaced white women for the first time, which grew in 2012, breaking 70 percent — a new record,” and the report notes that without the support of women of color, President Obama would have lost.
According to the report, the steady growth of voter turnout rates among Asian and Pacific Islander women nearly doubled from 24.5 percent to 48.5 percent since 2000, when the Census Bureau first started recording Asian and Pacific Islander voter turnout rates.
The new report concludes that, “Women of color stand at the center of the rising electorate and were the driving force behind the gender gap. These women are more likely to vote than the men in their communities, and they vote at dramatically increasing rates. This doesn’t come as a great surprise, considering that women of color are disproportionately affected by a variety of critical issues.”