Between 1964 and 2020, turnout among black voters in U.S. presidential elections fluctuated between 48 and 62 percent, with the highest turnouts coming in 2008 and 2012, when Barack Obama (the first African American candidate from a major party) was the Democratic candidate. Voter turnout has always been lowest among those under 25 years of age, although younger black voters did participate in high numbers in the 1960s, during the civil rights movement, and again in 2008, during Obama's first election campaign; young black voters also participated in higher numbers than white voters of the same age between 2000 and 2012.

In 1964, black voters over the age of 65 voted at a similar rate to those in the 18 to 24 bracket, however they have consistently had the highest turnout rates among black voters in recent years, overtaking voters in the 45 to 64 years bracket (whose voting rate has consistently been between 60 and 70 percent) in the 1996 election.

According to exit polling in the 2020 Presidential Election in the United States, ** percent of surveyed Black voters reported voting for former Vice President Joe Biden. In the race to become the next president of the United States, ** percent of white voters reported voting for incumbent President Donald Trump.

United States presidential elections are quadrennial elections that decide who will be the President and Vice President of the United States for the next four years. Voter turnout has ranged between 54 and 70 percent since 1964, with white voters having the highest voter turnout rate (particularly when those of Hispanic descent are excluded). In recent decades, turnout among black voters has got much closer to the national average, and in 2008 and 2012, the turnout among black voters was higher than the national average, exceeded only by non-Hispanic white voters; this has been attributed to Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic nominee in these years, where he was the first African American candidate to run as a major party's nominee. Turnout among Asian and Hispanic voters is much lower than the national average, and turnout has even been below half of the national average in some elections. This has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as the absence of voting tradition in some communities or families, the concentration of Asian and Hispanic communities in urban (non-swing) areas, and a disproportionate number of young people (who are less likely to vote).

According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, ** percent of surveyed white voters reported voting for Donald Trump. In contrast, ** percent of Black voters reported voting for Kamala Harris.

Prior research has found that descriptive representation by race, ethnicity, or gender increases political action, but it has paid less attention to how the intersection of these identities influences participation. We extend this literature by assessing the effects on voter turnout of collective descriptive representation in U.S. state legislatures on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and their intersections. We argue that members of historically excluded groups respond to the overall composition of their state’s legislature. We test this proposition in seven elections (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012). Our results are consistent with the minority empowerment literature, as overall collective representation does substantially increase turnout among previously excluded groups. However, the impact varies intersectionally. For white women, gender trumps race, as higher collective gender representation, regardless of race or ethnicity, increases voter turnout. For African Americans, race trumps gender, as both black men and women respond most consistently to higher levels of collective racial representation. For Latinos, we find less consistent results, but note a collective ethnic turnout effect for 2002 and 2006. We conclude that collective representation, especially at the intersection of identities, is an important factor influencing levels of turnout among previously excluded groups.

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of Black Male Voter Project Ef Inc.

In the 2020 election, around 42.8 percent of Asian voters exercised their right to vote. An additional 57.7 percent of Black voters voted. Voting rates have generally declined in presidential elections since 1996.

This graph shows the percentage of votes of the 2016 presidential elections in the United States on November 9, 2016, by race. According to the exit polls, about 37 percent of white voters voted for Hillary Clinton.

Replication Data for: The Effects of Dehumanizing Attitudes about Black People on Whites' Voting Decisions

Note: Explore this map with the activity The Underground Railroad.This map shows which states and territories in 1850 permitted the enslavement of people, and which did not. Slavery had been practiced in North America since well before the United States was founded in 1776, and by 1850 it was a key part of the agricultural economy of the southern states. Large cotton plantations operated on the labor of enslaved people, particularly Black Africans. Meanwhile, the northern United States had a more industrial economy, and by 1850 had mostly prohibited slavery for economic, political, and moral reasons. Though these states were considered “free” states, in many cases this meant that slavery wasn’t widespread. Even in states and territories where slavery was technically illegal, there were many loopholes that kept people enslaved and restricted free Black people.

In the years before the American Civil War, which began in 1861, the question of whether new states would allow slavery caused a lot of disagreement and tension between the North and South. The United States was carefully balanced to have as many "slave" states as "free" states, giving both sides an equal number of senators. The South was worried that if more free states were added, this balance would be upset, and the North would be able to pass legislation banning slavery in the United States. The North didn't want slavery to spread to new areas, both for moral reasons and because they didn’t think it was fair that enslaved people couldn’t vote but counted as part of the population when assigning congressional delegates. They argued that this gave the South an unfair advantage when voting for new laws. To try to keep the peace, a series of compromises, such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 were proposed to determine what states and territories would or would not permit slavery.

Another issue that caused tension between abolitionists in the North and slave owners in the South was the ongoing trade of enslaved people. The United States government had banned foreign slave trade in 1800, but this did nothing to free the people who were already enslaved in the United States. States in the upper South, such as Virginia, now profited from selling enslaved people to new states in the Deep South.

To escape enslavement, some enslaved people used an informal network of routes, places, and people known as the Underground Railroad to travel in secret to the Northern United States and into Canada, where slavery was illegal. The Underground Railroad was not a literal underground railroad, but because escaping from slavery and helping enslaved people escape was illegal, the network operated in secret. The “conductors” were the people leading enslaved people to freedom and the “station masters,” those who hid enslaved people on the way north. According to some estimates, between 1810 and 1850, the Underground Railroad helped to guide 100,000 enslaved people to freedom.

This map was made through the process of digitization, or tracing historical maps using modern geographic information system (GIS) software. These maps don’t always line up perfectly with modern boundaries, for many reasons. Over time, natural landmarks, such as rivers, can shift their paths, and human landmarks, such as buildings and roads, can be abandoned and demolished. There are also differences in the accuracy of hand-drawn maps compared to computer-drawn maps.

The original maps are published in Harper’s Atlas of American History, and are available through the Library of Congress:

Slavery and Slave Trade 1830-1850

Routes of the Underground Railroad 1830-1865

Fox, Dixon Ryan. Harper's atlas of American history, selected from "The American nation series," with map studies, by Dixon Ryan Fox. [New York, London, Harper & Brothers, 1920] Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/32005827/

Since 1824, when the popular vote was first used to determine the overall winner in U.S. presidential elections, the share of the population who participate in these elections has gradually increased. Despite this increase, participation has never reached half of the total population; partly due to the share of the population below the voting age of eighteen, but also as many potential voters above the age of eighteen do not take part, or are ineligible to vote. For example, in the 2016 election, approximately twenty million U.S. adults were ineligible to vote, while over 94 million simply did not participate; in this election, Donald Trump won the electoral college with 63 million votes, which means that 19.4 percent of the total U.S. population (or 27.3 percent of eligible voters) voted for the current president.

Development throughout history

While the figures for the 2016 election may appear low, over 42 percent of the total population participated in this election, which was the third highest participation rate ever recorded (after the 2008 and 2020 elections). In the first election decided by a popular vote in 1824, only 350 thousand votes were cast from a total population of 10.6 million, although this increased to over four million votes by the 1856 election, as restrictions that applied to non-property holding white males were gradually lifted. Participation levels then dropped during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, as those who lived in Confederate states could not vote in 1864, and many white southerners were restricted or discouraged in the following election. Although universal suffrage was granted to black males in the wake of the Civil War, the majority of black Americans lived in the southern states, where lawmakers introduced Jim Crow laws in the late 1800s to suppress and disenfranchise the black vote, as well as poor white voters.

The next major milestone was the introduction of women's suffrage in 1920, which saw voter participation increase by seven million votes (or seven percent) between the 1916 and 1920 elections. Between the 1910s and 1970s, the Great Migration saw many black Americans move away from the south to northern and western states, where they faced fewer obstacles when voting and greater economic mobility. This period of black migration began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time many Jim Crow laws were repealed in the south, through legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Female participation also grew gradually, and has exceeded male voting participation in all elections since the 1980s. The minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in all states in 1971, although this seemingly had a minimal impact on the short-term trajectory of voter participation.

Recent elections

The 1992 election was the first in which more than one hundred million votes were cast, which was almost 41 percent of the total population. All elections since 2004 have also had more than one hundred million votes cast, which has again been more than forty percent of the total population. Another key factor in the increase in voter participation is the fact that people are living longer than ever before, and that those aged 65 and over have had the highest turnout levels since 1992. While some figures may be subject to change, the 2020 election set new records for voter turnout. Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, which many thought could cause the lowest turnout in decades, a record number of voters cast their ballots early or by mail, setting a new record of votes just shy of 160 million. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump received 81.3 million and 74.2 million votes respectively, both beating Barack Obama's previous record of 69.3 million ballots in 2008.

In the 1824 U.S presidential election, which was the first where a popular vote was used to determine the overall winner, approximately three percent of the U.S. population voted in the election, while only one percent actually voted for the winner. Over the following decades, restrictions that prevented non-property owning males from voting were gradually repealed, and almost all white men over the age of 21 could vote by the 1856 election. The next major development was the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution following the American Civil War, which granted suffrage to all male citizens of voting age, regardless of race. Turnout then grew to almost twenty percent at the turn of the century, however Jim Crow laws played a large part in keeping these numbers lower than they potentially could have been, by disenfranchising black communities in the south and undoing much of the progress made during the Reconstruction Era. Extension of voting rights Female suffrage, granted to women in 1920, was responsible for the largest participation increase between any two elections in U.S. history. Between the 1916 and 1920 elections, overall turnout increased by almost seven percent, and it continued to grow to 38 percent by the 1940 election; largely due to the growth in female participation over time. Following a slight reduction during the Second World War and 1948 elections, turnout remained at between 36 and forty percent from the 1950s until the 1990s. Between these decades, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971 respectively re-enfranchised many black voters in the south and reduced the voting age in all states from 21 to 18 years old. Participation among female voters has also exceeded male participation in all elections since 1980. Recent trends The 1992 election was the first where more than forty percent of the total population cast ballots, and turnout has been above forty percent in all presidential elections since 2004. Along with the extension of voting rights, the largest impact on voter turnout has been the increase in life expectancy throughout the centuries, almost doubling in the past 150 years. As the overall average age has risen, so too has the share of the total population who are eligible to vote, and older voters have had the highest turnout rates since the 1980s. Another factor is increased political involvement among ethnic minorities; while white voters have traditionally had the highest turnout rates in presidential elections, black voters turnout has exceeded the national average since 2008. Asian and Hispanic voter turnouts have also increased in the past twenty years, with the growing Hispanic vote in southern and border states expected to cause a major shift in U.S. politics in the coming decades.

In terms of the most popular presidents, in the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to have been elected by more than one fifth of the total population. Three presidents were elected by more than 22 percent of the total population, respectively Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Barack Obama in 2008, while Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984 saw him become the only president in U.S. history to win with the support of more than 23 percent of the total population. While the vote count for the 2020 election is still to be finalized, President-elect Joe Biden has already received 81.28 million votes as of December 02, which would also translate to over 24.5 percent of the total population, and will likely near 25 percent by the end of the counting process.

Traditionally in the United States, voters who identify as white have the highest turnout rate of all major ethnic groups; when white voters of non-Hispanic origin (defined as European Americans, Middle Eastern Americans and North African Americans) are analyzed separately, the turnout rate increases further. In the past four decades, turnout among non-Hispanic white voters has fluctuated between 59 and 70 percent; three to five percent more than all white voters. In the six most recent elections, over seventy percent of non-Hispanic white people aged 65 and above have voted in presidential elections. In contrast to this, the youngest age bracket of non-Hispanic white voters, those aged 18 to 24 years old, had a turnout rate of just 37 percent in some years; this group still generally has the highest turnout rate among all ethnicities of this age, although black voters aged 18 to 24 did have the highest turnout rate in the 2008 and 2012 elections.

Throughout United States history, voter turnout among the voting eligible population has varied, ranging from below twelve percent in uncontested elections, to 83 percent in the 1876 election. In early years, turnout in presidential elections was relatively low, as the popular vote was not used in every state to decide who electors would vote for. When this was changed in the 1824 election, turnout increased dramatically, and generally fluctuated between seventy and eighty percent during the second half of the nineteenth century. Until the 1840 and 1842 elections, midterm elections also had a higher turnout rate than their corresponding presidential elections, although this trend has been reversed since these years.

Declining turnout in the twentieth century An increase in voting rights, particularly for black males in 1870 and for women in 1920, has meant that the share of the total population who are legally eligible to vote has increased significantly; yet, as the number of people eligible to vote increased, the turnout rate generally decreased. Following enfranchisement, it would take over fifty years before the female voter turnout would reach the same level as males, and over 150 years before black voters would have a similar turnout rate to whites. A large part of this was simply the lack of a voting tradition among these voter bases; however, the Supreme Court and lawmakers across several states (especially in the south) created obstacles for black voters and actively enforced policies and practices that disenfranchised black voter participation. These practices were in place from the end of the Reconstruction era (1876) until the the Voting Rights Act of 1965 legally removed and prohibited many of these obstacles; nonetheless, people of color continue to be disproportionally affected by voting restrictions to this day.

Recent decades In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the minimum voting age in most states from 21 to 18 years old, which greatly contributed to the six and eight percent reductions in voter turnout in the 1972 and 1974 elections respectively, highlighting a distinct correlation between age and voter participation. Overall turnout remained below sixty percent from the 1970s until the 2004 election, and around forty percent in the corresponding midterms. In recent elections, increased political involvement among younger voters and those from ethnic minority backgrounds has seen these numbers rise, with turnout in the 2018 midterms reaching fifty percent. This was the highest midterm turnout in over one hundred years, leading many at the time to predict that the 2020 election would see one of the largest and most diverse voter turnouts in the past century, although these predictions then reversed with the arival of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, 2020 did prove to have the highest turnout in any presidential election since 1900; largely as a result of mail-in voting, improved access to early voting, and increased activism among grassroots organizations promoting voter registration.

In U.S. presidential elections since 1964, voters in the 18 to 24 age bracket have traditionally had the lowest turnout rates among all ethnicities. From 1964 until 1996, white voters in this age bracket had the highest turnout rates of the four major ethnic groups in the U.S., particularly those of non-Hispanic origin. However participation was highest among young Black voters in 2008 and 2012, during the elections where Barack Obama, the U.S.' first African-American major party candidate, was nominated. Young Asian American and Hispanic voters generally have the lowest turnout rates, and were frequently below half of the overall 18 to 24 turnout before the 2000s.

The 1964 United States presidential election was contested by incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson of the Democratic Party, and Barry M. Goldwater of the Republican Party. This was the first election to be contested in all fifty states and Washington DC, and it took place on November 3, 1964, less than one year after Johnson ascended to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Johnson won the Democratic nomination quite easily, while Goldwater, a self-proclaimed conservative "extremist" defeated Nelson Rockefeller in a symbolic loss for the more moderate wing of the Republican Party. This marked the beginning of transitional period in US politics, where the Republican Party gradually became the de facto party of conservatism by 1980, and the Deep South became the Republican stronghold it is today. This was the only Republican ticket between 1948 and 1976 not to feature Richard Nixon. Campaign The civil rights movement was the prevalent issue in the election, and Johnson's progressive policies and pro-civil rights campaign compared with Goldwater's opposition of the civil rights movement and hardline conservative approach presented voters with two of the most converse candidates in US election history. Although Goldwater had come from behind to win the Republican nomination, he had pushed away many moderate Republicans along the way with his controversial and often harsh rhetoric. The Johnson campaign painted Goldwater as a right-wing extremist, while many prominent Republicans (including former President Eisenhower) refused to endorse Goldwater, with some even campaigning for Johnson. The Johnson campaign also made ads targeting Goldwater's willingness to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and used parodies of Goldwater's own slogans against him. Throughout the campaign Johnson led in all polls by significant margins, and as election day drew nearer his campaign's focus was on getting people to actually go out and vote, as they feared that many voters would stay at home as they believed their votes were not necessary for a Johnson win. Results President Johnson won re-election with the largest popular vote margin in any election that included all states and Washington DC (as of 2016). Johnson won 61 percent of the popular vote, carrying 44 states (and Washington DC) which returned him over 90 percent of the electoral votes. In contrast, Goldwater won just his home state of Arizona, and five states in the Deep South, further solidifying the South's transition from blue to red. In history, Johnson is remembered as an effective leader who accomplished much in his five years in office, particularly in the civil rights movement, although his escalation of the Vietnam War has been a black mark on his legacy.

In 2023, 67 percent of surveyed Americans said that Black people are treated less fairly than White people in dealing with the police in the United States, while 28 percent said that both Black and White people are treated about equally when dealing with the police. In comparison, 57 percent of Americans also said that both Black and White are treated about equally when voting in elections.

In 2022, approximately 81 percent of the voting members at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences identified as white. Furthermore, around 67 percent of the Oscars voters were men.

The 1972 US presidential election was contested between incumbent President Richard Nixon of the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party's George S. McGovern. Nixon won the Republican nomination easily, and was the firm favorite to win the election, due to his foreign policy (particularly when dealing with China and the Soviet Union) and the healthy state of the US economy. The early favorite in the Democratic Primary was Ed Muskie, although a forged letter (later revealed to have come from Nixon's campaign) claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks against French-Canadians, and this damaged his reputation in New England. When the press attacked Muskie's wife's character, the candidate made a statement refuting their claims, however the press used it as another opportunity to attack him, effectively ending his campaign. McGovern then became the frontrunner, although a significant challenge from Arthur Bremer was cut short when he was shot five times and paralyzed from the waist down. McGovern then went on to win easily, however notable other candidates were Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to run for either of the major party's nominations, and Patsy Mink, the first Asian American to run for the Democratic nomination. The only major third party candidate was John Hospers of the American Independent Party, while this was also the first time the Libertarian Party, which is the third largest political party in the US as of 2020, featured on the ballot. Campaign and Results Nixon's popularity grew as the campaign went on, while the press labelled McGovern a radical, left-wing extremist, who stood for "amnesty, abortion and acid". When it emerged that McGovern's running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had undergone shock-therapy for depression, some of the press claimed that this endangered the national security of the country should Eagleton become President. Despite the majority of public agreeing that Eagleton's depression would not affect their vote, McGovern asked him to step down, just three days after backing him "1000 percent". This lack of conviction damaged McGovern's reputation even further, and he dropped to just 24 percent in the polls. Eventually, Nixon won re-election, taking a majority in 49 states, ending up with 97 percent of the electoral vote. He also took over sixty percent of the popular vote, just shy of Johnson's share in 1964. This was the first election where a Republican took every state in the south. The only two areas where McGovern won were Massachusetts and Washington DC. One faithless elector voted for John Hospers of the Libertarian Party, making his running mate, Theodora Nathan, the first woman to ever receive an electoral vote in a US presidential election. Schmitz took almost 1.5 percent of the popular vote, but was unable to convert this into any electoral votes. Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal took place between 1972 and 1974 in the United States. It is arguably the largest political scandal in US history, and culminated in the only ever resignation of a standing US President. On June 17, 1972 (five months before the election) five men broke into the Democratic National Convention and wiretapped the then-President's political opponents. After the perpetrators were arrested, a link was subsequently found between the culprits and Nixon's re-election campaign, and further investigations (after Nixon was re-elected) uncovered evidence that directly implicated the President in the scandal and its attempted cover-up. Because of the attempted cover-up, Nixon lost practically all of his political support, and resigned as President before he would have undoubtedly been impeached and removed from office. Nixon was succeeded by his Vice President, Gerald R. Ford, who controversially granted a "full, free and absolute" presidential pardon to the former-President, clearing him of any wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal.

In the Brexit referendum of 2016, 53 percent of white adults voted to leave the European Union, compared with 73 percent of black adults. Remain won the highest share of votes in every ethnic group, with the exception of people who identified as being white.