Once I had cast my ballot on election day, I gave the entire matter over to the Lord and did not even think about it for almost twenty-four hours. I would not even let my wife, who had been glued to the television during the evening of election day, brief me on the situation as it stood around midnight. This was not due, however, to disinterest or fear that my man, George Bush, would lose. On the contrary, it was due to a complete faith in God that He was in control of the outcome. I had prayed about the election earnestly and continuously for over a year, and once election day came, it was all in His hands. The outcome would not be affected by my watching and worrying about it through the day, and I was confident that the Lord's will would be done—even if the other guy had won.
I am no Calvinist, however. I do believe that the choices of man can thwart details of God's plan. For example, I was convinced that it was God's will for George Bush to be reelected, but that this did not mean that his election was certain. Jesus would not have commanded us to pray "Thy will be done" if it was certain that it would always be done. (If God's will was always to be done regardless, then why command us to pray at all?) In any event, I had earnestly prayed that Christians would turn out in large numbers and that substantially more blacks would vote for the President. Both of these did, in fact, occur.
It appears that about four million Evangelical Christians turned out in 2004 that had not voted in 2000, and these would have almost entirely voted for President Bush. This represents about 40% of the voter turnout that had not voted in 2000, and assuming that the remaining 60% were split fairly evenly between Bush and Kerry, the President received 70% of the vote of those who had not voted in 2000. Of course, the reality is more complicated than this because there would have been some number who had voted in 2000 but not in 2004. The fact is, however, that well more than two-thirds of the new vote went to George Bush, and it appears to have been the deciding factor. That fully 40% of this group were Evangelicals Christians, who make up the single largest voter demographic outside of gender breakdown, demonstrates that they played a crucial role in this election.
Black Democrat Charles Rangel was almost gleeful on Bill O'Rielly's Fox News program The Factor when he made two post-election demographic observations pertaining to the black vote. He reported that the black vote had increased by 25% and that the President received "only" 11% of that vote. Rangel, who is a congressman representing New York City's upper west side, was positively giddy that he had delivered the black vote for John Kerry, but either he is unimaginably stupid or extremely calculating. (I hope the former but suspect the latter.) Before his interview, I had not yet heard the demographic breakdown of the election, but as soon as he gave those statistics, I knew what it meant—that President Bush had doubled the number of black votes he received in the 2000 election. This is how it works. In 2000, there were just under ten million black votes of which then Governor Bush received an abysmal 8% or about 750,000 votes. In 2004, there were 25% more black votes over 2000 or about 13.2 million of which President Bush received 11% or about 1.5 million. These numbers reveal that President Bush doubled his black vote count from 2000 and that he received about 23% of the new black vote. What is more important than the national numbers is that President Bush made huge inroads in battleground states doubling or almost doubling his percentages of black votes in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The President also picked up major gains in black votes in southern states such as Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina. From this we can conclude that Democrat gains in black votes were concentrated in areas that were already certain to be carried by John Kerry and that Republican gains came in battleground areas that would prove crucial in determining the final distribution of electoral votes.
Note: Had President bush received 1.5 million votes without the 25% increase in black vote, his percentage of this voting block would have been 15% which is just where the Republicans were expecting to land. In his interview with Bill O'Rielly, Congressman Rangel proclaimed that Republicans had failed to realize their goal of making inroads into the black vote. By allowing the congressman to focus on percentages, O'Rielly once again demonstrated why his is the most overrated news commentary show in America. Republican gains were not about percentages at the national level but about gaining more support in the one key subgroup of black voters—Evangelical Christians. This means that his "inroads" had nothing to do with race but with religion.
George Bush won the election by turning out more Christians than in 2000 and by doubling the number of black votes than he had received with even these gains being among Christians. The Republicans did realize their goals, and it is clear to me that this was due to the prayers of millions of Christians just like me who were heard by God on election day.
Comments