Minority vote set record in California, poll says - But Whites Still Cast Most Ballots in '04

• Originally published in the San Jose Mercury News on January 20, 2005 [here]

By David L. Beck

Despite voting in record numbers in November, non-white Californians were outnumbered 2-to-1 at the polls, according to an analysis of the vote released Wednesday by the Field Poll.

One in three voters in California's heaviest turnout identified themselves as Latino, African-American, Asian or a member of another racial or ethnic minority, the poll found. In the 2000 presidential election the figure was 29 percent; in 1996 it was 23 percent.

But whites, despite making up 46 percent of the state's population, cast 67 percent of its votes.

The Field analysis cited three reasons for the discrepancy: Only 48 percent of the minority population are adults; only 38 percent are adults eligible to vote; and only 32 percent are registered to vote.

By comparison, whites, while less than half the population, are 51 percent of the adults; 61 percent of the eligible voters; and 67 percent of the registered voters. Slightly more than half of them voted for President Bush's re-election.

The analysis, compiled from data collected by the California Secretary of State as well as from Nov. 2 exit polls, also found the following:

• Voters were younger. Fully half of the 12,590,000 who voted in California were under 45. In the Bush-Gore race of 2000, 36 percent were under 45.

• The percentage of voters with at least a bachelor's degree zoomed, from 35 percent in 2000 to 46 percent last year.

• One-third of all voters cast absentee ballots. With California offering permanent absentee-voting status, the number of voters who avoided their neighborhood polling places increased from 25 percent in 2000 to 33 percent last year.

Breaking down the presidential race in California, which Sen. John Kerry won with 54.3 percent of the vote, the Field analysis found that coastal counties went for Kerry 59-40, while Bush carried less-populous inland California by nearly 57-42. The Bay Area went for Kerry 69-29, while Los Angeles County backed Kerry 63-36.

A Bush voter, according to the analysis, was less likely to have a college degree than a Kerry voter and more likely to be Protestant and male. A clear majority of voters earning less than $50,000 a year preferred Kerry; the two candidates split the over-$50,000 vote.

Field also tracked Barbara Boxer's race against Bill Jones for the U.S. Senate; Proposition 71 on stem-cell research, which won; and Proposition 72 on health care coverage, which failed.

Boxer, who received 58 percent of the vote statewide, lost only in the Central Valley, Orange County and the Inland Empire (primarily Riverside and San Bernardino counties). She won almost two-thirds of the female vote, slightly more than half the white vote, and three-fourths of the minority vote.

• Pictured above: Van Parish, State Director of the California Democratic Party. Parish was responsible for the 2004 “Every Vote Counts Campaign” [more] and [more]