AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The blue tsunami of Democratic victories in the midterms was partly powered by a groundswell of support among Black voters. That's especially true in the South, where many voting rights activists had feared the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act would have weakened Black voting power. To help us make sense of all of this, we have called Andra Gillespie. She's a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. Welcome.
ANDRA GILLESPIE: Thank you.
CHANG: So I know we're just a few days out from the election, and there are still some races that have yet to be called, but overall, how big of an increase in Black voter participation did we see in this election compared to the 2024 election or even previous midterm election cycles, do you think?
GILLESPIE: So I'm going to use my state of Georgia as an example because Georgia does collect data on voter turnout by race. That would be really helpful in this election cycle. So in absolute terms, compared to 2022, we saw higher voter turnout amongst African Americans, Latinos and Asian American voters in the state of Georgia. White voters actually had lower voter turnout compared to 2022. And so that actually helps to contribute to overall Black and Asian American voters in particular making up a larger share of the 2026 electorate than they did amongst registered voters.
CHANG: What about Black male voters? I want to focus on them for a moment because President Trump did make some inroads with Black men back in 2024, even though they still largely voted for Kamala Harris. And now I see that exit polls are showing a swing back to Democrats among Black men. So I'm curious, why do you think this is happening, or what is happening?
GILLESPIE: If I had to proffer a hypothesis...
CHANG: Yeah.
GILLESPIE: ...It's probably because of economic issues. One of the things that's actually really interesting nationally if we look at the voter poll or the exit poll data, the economy ranked as the top issue amongst voters overall, but especially in southern states like South Carolina and Georgia and Mississippi, Black voters were actually more likely to cite the economy as their top issue than we saw in those national averages.
CHANG: I want to talk about the historic nature of this election that maybe transcends party politics. I mean, in the governor races, you see this especially. There were a number of historic firsts. You had David Crowley elected as Wisconsin's first Black governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the country's first Black woman governor, Byron Donalds, who was elected to become Florida's first Black governor. And I know that these are all different races. These are distinct individuals I'm talking about. But do you see any through line in the role that Black voters may have played in these particular historic wins?
GILLESPIE: Well, yes, but I think there's also this larger issue of candidates supply and Black politicians feeling confident enough that they can run for statewide office. You know, a generation ago, two generations ago, this would have been a risky move, so if you had a really safe congressional seat, like Congressman Donalds', had you might not choose to run (ph), especially if you were a Democrat for statewide office, because you're going to give up a guaranteed seat in order to take a risk and run for a seat that you might not eventually win.
CHANG: Yeah.
GILLESPIE: Well, there's been more examples of Blacks being able to run successfully for statewide office in both the Democratic and the Republican Parties. And I think Stacey Abrams' work in 2018, though it was unsuccessful in getting her to the governor's mansion, actually proved that Black candidates could be viable.
CHANG: What about the role of redistricting? Because earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, right? And many Democrats and voting rights activists thought this would weaken Black voting power. Then we saw a number of Southern states move to redraw congressional maps in a way that experts said would further diminish Black representation across all levels of government. But it doesn't look like that happened. Why not, you think?
GILLESPIE: What we saw across the South in North Carolina, in Tennessee, Texas, you see these instances of Republican voting strength being diluted to try to create as many seats as possible. And what it did in a wave or tsunami election year was create these districts that Democrats could actually compete in.
CHANG: Was there anything about this year's elections that gave you any indications about where the Black vote might go going forward after this particular midterm election?
GILLESPIE: Republicans miscalculated in 2024 that those defections towards the Republican Party in that election were evidence of some type of permanent realignment...
CHANG: Right.
GILLESPIE: ...Instead of looking at what factors might have been influencing people to vote. What that means going forward is that neither party should consider this current election as indicative of what's going to happen in future elections.
CHANG: Andra Gillespie, political science professor at Emory University, thank you very much for joining us today.
GILLESPIE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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