Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton - Photo:
AP
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Clinton has to worry about a steep drop-off of the black vote that could imperil
her chances of winning the White House in November, an analysis has found.
The number of African-Americans who voted in Tuesday’s
primaries plummeted by an estimated 40 percent in Ohio, 38 percent in Florida
and 34 percent in North Carolina compared with the 2008 Democratic primary when
Barack Obama was on the ballot, reported the advocacy group Black Votes Matter.
Record numbers of African-American voters flocked to the
polls to elect and re-elect America’s first black president.
Analysts expected some drop-off, but not the enormous
numbers recorded Tuesday.
“Hillary’s repeated
trouncing of Bernie Sanders with the black vote has masked the
alarming fact that there has been a dramatic drop-off in black turnout in the
Democratic primaries,” said Charlie King, founder of the Black Voters Matter
super PAC.
The decline provides an opening for likely GOP presidential
nominee Donald Trump to win the presidency, King warned.
“It will be very hard for the Hillary campaign alone to
have a message that excites Reagan Democrats and the 4 million new black Barack
Obama voters to come out and vote. That is why Donald Trump poses a real
challenge,” he said.
“And if that is not corrected, a number of states like
Ohio, Florida and Virginia can turn to Republican-leaning states . . . Trump
could become president.
In 2012, the black vote provided Obama with slim margins
of victory over GOP nominee Mitt Romney in Florida (50-49 percent), Ohio
(50-48), Virginia (51-48) and Pennsylvania (52-47). It also put North Carolina
in play for a Democrat for the first time in decades.
Clinton supporters said the thought of a Trump presidency
would change all that.
“There will be a spiritual fervor for Democrats to come
out and vote,” said Clinton fundraiser and Democratic National Committee member
Robert Zimmerman.
