What if Every American Voted and Every Vote Were Counted?
Answer: few Republicans would win the presidency.
Most Americans don't realize it, but we live in a far more Democratic country than the national polling figures (which survey likely voters) would have you believe. Using some recent population and voting data and making a few simplistic assumptions, it's clear that the GOP's efforts to limit franchise (suppress the vote) reflect a reality-based fear of what would happen if all Americans could vote and all votes were counted.
The first question is what proportion of Americans fall into each ethnic group which is a much harder question to answer since so many Americans identify more than one race.
To simplify, I adjusted the number of Latinos downward to make the percentage equal 100%, I came up with the following based on 2010 Census data. This is not entirely unjustified since those identifying as Hispanic or Latino are also far more likely to identify as also belonging to another group. Note that this understates how much Republicans would lose in a demographically balanced contest since I am reducing a group that votes Democratic by 2:1:
*truncated
The second question is that although not all members of each group are of age to vote or legally able to vote (another issue altogether), what would happen if the proportion of voters falling in a certain racial group equals the proportion in the population? This assumption would not be true for those groups with very high proportions of under-18 although with time, ceteris paribus, the young cohorts will eventually be of legal voting age.
A critical assumption is that each group votes roughly in proportion to its most recent race-specific party preference (to keep the number of columns to a minimum, I will report only Democratic affiliation and ignore (sorry) independents or third parties that have fewer than 5% of the vote in recent elections):
** 45% Democratic, 55% Republican is a longer term historical white vote split; the ugly reality is that the recent 39% : 61% split in 2012 exit polls seems a function of racism of white voters against an African American presidential candidate, a bias that Republicans cannot count on in future elections.
- sources: 2008 exit polls, also mypolitikal.com, NPR
Now it should be pretty easy to calculate what proportion of the overall electorate would vote Democratic if all Americans voted in proportion to their numbers and preferences:
In other words, each presidential contest should result in over 54.3% of the electorate voting for the Democratic candidate versus 45.7% voting Republican. By comparison, President Obama won the 2008 election with 52.9% of the popular vote. (See below for some more election outcomes.) Had he won with the actual demographically-predicted vote, he would have won by a margin of 11,034,525 votes instead of the actual 9,522,083 vote victory. The reassuring thing about 2008, however, is that far more African Americans and other traditionally underrepresented voting groups cast ballots, bringing the 52.9% closer to the 54.3% ideal.
But these numbers should worry the GOP since in order to win a national contest, they must continue to have whites vote and have their votes counted more proportionally than any other racial group. If you crunch the numbers, for Republicans to win, white voters must make up 87.4% of the ballots cast and counted (120.7% of their actual 72% demographic makeup), and that would only allow them to squeak by with a 50.1% to 49.9% victory. And if current demographic trends continue, the situation will only become more challenging as white voters drop as a proportion of the population.
So don't be surprised if you see two parallel goals continuing and intensifying in the GOP:
- appeal to more white voters especially with racist overtones ("food stamp president" and all the Birtherism nonsense come to mind); and
- suppress the non-white vote by measures designed to make it more difficult for African Americans in particular to cast their votes and have them counted (voter ID laws, racially charged redistricting, shutting down early voting, and cutting budgets for polling places (which disproportionately affect already under-served African American polling sites).
Other historical election percentage outcomes
Bush won in 2004 with 50.7% of the vote and in 2000 lost the popular vote, 47.9% to 48.4%.
The last time a presidential candidate won with more than 54.3% of the popular vote was in 1984, when Reagan carried 58.8% of the vote (in 1980, however, he won a more modest 50.7% of the vote) or 1972 when Nixon won 60.7% of the vote.
No one in recent memory topped Lyndon B. Johnson's 61.1% victory in 1964, however. Even Eisenhower won only 57.4% in 1956.
Answer: few Republicans would win the presidency.
Most Americans don't realize it, but we live in a far more Democratic country than the national polling figures (which survey likely voters) would have you believe. Using some recent population and voting data and making a few simplistic assumptions, it's clear that the GOP's efforts to limit franchise (suppress the vote) reflect a reality-based fear of what would happen if all Americans could vote and all votes were counted.
The first question is what proportion of Americans fall into each ethnic group which is a much harder question to answer since so many Americans identify more than one race.
| Race / Ethnicity | Number | Percentage of |
| U.S. population | ||
| Americans | 308,745,538 | 100.0 % |
| White or European American | 223,553,265 | 72.4 % |
| Black or African American | 38,929,319 | 12.6 % |
| Asian | 14,674,252 | 4.8 % |
| Hispanic or Latino | 50,477,594 | 16.4 % |
To simplify, I adjusted the number of Latinos downward to make the percentage equal 100%, I came up with the following based on 2010 Census data. This is not entirely unjustified since those identifying as Hispanic or Latino are also far more likely to identify as also belonging to another group. Note that this understates how much Republicans would lose in a demographically balanced contest since I am reducing a group that votes Democratic by 2:1:
| Race / Ethnicity | Number | Percentage of |
| U.S. population | ||
| Americans | 308,745,538 | 100.0 % |
| White or European American | 223,553,265 | 72.4 % |
| Black or African American | 38,929,319 | 12.6 % |
| Asian | 14,674,252 | 4.8 % |
| Hispanic or Latino | 31,588,702* | 10.2%* |
*truncated
The second question is that although not all members of each group are of age to vote or legally able to vote (another issue altogether), what would happen if the proportion of voters falling in a certain racial group equals the proportion in the population? This assumption would not be true for those groups with very high proportions of under-18 although with time, ceteris paribus, the young cohorts will eventually be of legal voting age.
A critical assumption is that each group votes roughly in proportion to its most recent race-specific party preference (to keep the number of columns to a minimum, I will report only Democratic affiliation and ignore (sorry) independents or third parties that have fewer than 5% of the vote in recent elections):
| Race / Ethnicity | % of votes cast for Democratic candidates by group |
| White or European American | 45% ** |
| Black or African American | 95% |
| Asian | 60% * |
| Hispanic or Latino | 67% |
** 45% Democratic, 55% Republican is a longer term historical white vote split; the ugly reality is that the recent 39% : 61% split in 2012 exit polls seems a function of racism of white voters against an African American presidential candidate, a bias that Republicans cannot count on in future elections.
- sources: 2008 exit polls, also mypolitikal.com, NPR
Now it should be pretty easy to calculate what proportion of the overall electorate would vote Democratic if all Americans voted in proportion to their numbers and preferences:
| % of each group voting Democrat (as a % of all votes cast): | |
| All Americans: | 54.26% |
| White or European American | 32.58% |
| Black or African American | 11.97 |
| Asian | 2.88 |
| Hispanic or Latino | 6.83 |
In other words, each presidential contest should result in over 54.3% of the electorate voting for the Democratic candidate versus 45.7% voting Republican. By comparison, President Obama won the 2008 election with 52.9% of the popular vote. (See below for some more election outcomes.) Had he won with the actual demographically-predicted vote, he would have won by a margin of 11,034,525 votes instead of the actual 9,522,083 vote victory. The reassuring thing about 2008, however, is that far more African Americans and other traditionally underrepresented voting groups cast ballots, bringing the 52.9% closer to the 54.3% ideal.
But these numbers should worry the GOP since in order to win a national contest, they must continue to have whites vote and have their votes counted more proportionally than any other racial group. If you crunch the numbers, for Republicans to win, white voters must make up 87.4% of the ballots cast and counted (120.7% of their actual 72% demographic makeup), and that would only allow them to squeak by with a 50.1% to 49.9% victory. And if current demographic trends continue, the situation will only become more challenging as white voters drop as a proportion of the population.
So don't be surprised if you see two parallel goals continuing and intensifying in the GOP:
- appeal to more white voters especially with racist overtones ("food stamp president" and all the Birtherism nonsense come to mind); and
- suppress the non-white vote by measures designed to make it more difficult for African Americans in particular to cast their votes and have them counted (voter ID laws, racially charged redistricting, shutting down early voting, and cutting budgets for polling places (which disproportionately affect already under-served African American polling sites).
Other historical election percentage outcomes
Bush won in 2004 with 50.7% of the vote and in 2000 lost the popular vote, 47.9% to 48.4%.
The last time a presidential candidate won with more than 54.3% of the popular vote was in 1984, when Reagan carried 58.8% of the vote (in 1980, however, he won a more modest 50.7% of the vote) or 1972 when Nixon won 60.7% of the vote.
No one in recent memory topped Lyndon B. Johnson's 61.1% victory in 1964, however. Even Eisenhower won only 57.4% in 1956.
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