CQ Politics
- From Barack Obama ’s election as president to a white Congressman fending off African-American challengers in a majority-black district, have Americans moved beyond race as a determining factor in their vote choice?
A couple of weeks ago, Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen , the white, Jewish incumbent, won re-nomination over former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who is African American. The district has a black voting age population of 59 percent and the percentage of black voters was even higher in the Democratic primary, but Cohen still prevailed with 79 percent.
At the end of June, African-American former state legislator Tim Scott won the GOP nomination in South Carolina’s 1st district, which has a black VAP of 21 percent, but considerably less than that in the Republican primary. Scott finished first in the initial round of balloting with 31 percent and won the runoff with 68 percent.
