When and Why Do African Americans Not Identify as Democrats?

Abstract

Since 1970 the proportion of African Americans identifying with the Democratic Party has declined to the point where over 40 percent of blacks now identify as Independent or Republican. We find that traditional accounts pointing to class gains or increased conservatism among blacks fare poorly in explaining declining Democratic identification. Rather we show that a racial group calculus better explains the change. Growing skepticism about the Democratic Party's efforts to help the black community and strong support for black autonomy explain much of the change. We conclude by examining the behavioral implications of not identifying as Democratic.

Keywords: african americans, partisanship, democrat, independents, republicans