When did Democrats last win the white vote in Senatorial races?

[Calthrina950]

The question is as in the title. As people on here should be aware, the white vote has become more and more Republican at all levels in recent years. No Democrat has won the white vote in a presidential race since Lyndon Johnson did so in 1964. And in the South, Democrats have lost white voters due to the Civil Rights Act and the Republican Revolution, among other developments (i.e. economic changes, demographic shifts, etc.) So, when was the last time Democrats won the white vote in a Senatorial race? In other words, when did a Democrat running in a particular state (i.e. Georgia, South Carolina) last win the white vote while running for the Senate in that state? Are there any guesses as to when it last happened for each state?

[Calthrina950]

Alabama:  Shelby 1992
Arkansas:  Pryor 2008
Florida:  Graham 1998
Georgia:  Nunn 1990
Louisiana:  Breaux 1998
Mississippi:  Stennis 1982
North Carolina:  Morgan 1974
South Carolina:  Hollings 1986
Tennessee:  Gore 1990
Texas:  Bentsen 1988
Virginia:  Warner 2008

My best guesses for the former Confederacy

These seem very reasonable, given that every Democratic Senator on this list won by double digits or in absolute landslides in those respective years.

[Calthrina950]

Kamala Harris won the white vote in California in 2016, along with Hillary Clinton at the Presidential level.

That makes sense, given that Harris won the vast majority of California's counties. As to Georgia, isn't it possible that Zell Miller in 2000 won the white vote? He defeated Mack Mattingly by 20 points, got 58% of the vote, and won 144 of Georgia's 154 counties.

[Calthrina950]

Oregon: Ron Wyden 2016
Nevada: Harry Reid 2004

Do you have any guesses as to Colorado? Or any other Western states besides California?

[Calthrina950]

Here's a map of the above discussion if anybody wants to use it or fill it in (some states are still being debated I realize):

Is Missouri color-coded as 2012? Is it possible that McCaskill won the white vote that year? She defeated Akin by 16 points and carried typically Republican suburbs around Kansas City and St. Louis.

[Calthrina950]

Kamala Harris won the white vote in California in 2016, along with Hillary Clinton at the Presidential level.

No, she didn't.

I meant that Clinton won the white vote in California, not nationally. Trump lost the white vote in California.

I am fairly certain you are wrong.

Actually, he is correct. According to the Sacramento Bee, Hillary Clinton won white voters in California by 5% in 2016: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article119870398.html.

[Calthrina950]

Kamala Harris won the white vote in California in 2016, along with Hillary Clinton at the Presidential level.

No, she didn't.

I meant that Clinton won the white vote in California, not nationally. Trump lost the white vote in California.

I am fairly certain you are wrong.

Actually, he is correct. According to the Sacramento Bee, Hillary Clinton won white voters in California by 5% in 2016: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article119870398.html.

Ah, my apologies. I was thinking white men.

Trump won white men, not whites in general. Trump still did worse with white men in California than he did in most states.

Are there any states where Trump lost white men outright? I would imagine either Massachusetts or Vermont would fit that category.

[Calthrina950]

Kamala Harris won the white vote in California in 2016, along with Hillary Clinton at the Presidential level.

No, she didn't.

I meant that Clinton won the white vote in California, not nationally. Trump lost the white vote in California.

I am fairly certain you are wrong.

Actually, he is correct. According to the Sacramento Bee, Hillary Clinton won white voters in California by 5% in 2016: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article119870398.html.

Ah, my apologies. I was thinking white men.

Trump won white men, not whites in general. Trump still did worse with white men in California than he did in most states.

Are there any states where Trump lost white men outright? I would imagine either Massachusetts or Vermont would fit that category.

Bumping this up because these questions were never answered. Also, because I would like to know how the status of the "last Democratic victory with white voters" map has changed, given the recent midterms.

[Calthrina950]

Kamala Harris won the white vote in California in 2016, along with Hillary Clinton at the Presidential level.

That makes sense, given that Harris won the vast majority of California's counties. As to Georgia, isn't it possible that Zell Miller in 2000 won the white vote? He defeated Mack Mattingly by 20 points, got 58% of the vote, and won 144 of Georgia's 154 counties.

Oh yes, Miller definitely won the GA White vote in 2000.  I forgot about that one since it was a special election.  Nunn would have been the last in a regularly-scheduled election.

Hate to bump this but since it was already bumped in February, why not. This is incorrect, Mattingly defeated Miller 50-45 with white voters according to exit polls.

And I'm going to bump this again, but what exit polls are you speaking of? CNN? Or some other network? The county map in that Senate race implies that Mattingly lost the white vote, given that Miller won almost all of the heavily white counties in North Georgia.

[Calthrina950]

Considering West Virginia 2018:

Joe Manchin won by 3.3%

CNN Exit polls had him up by 3% with White voters and up by 13% with non-White voters, which feels very, very, wrong.

Let's try like this:
The Black share of the electorate is likely slightly more than 3%
Other minorities are hard to guess, but probably have crept up to 2% even in a midterm environment.
I see no reason why Manchin should not have won the Black vote 90-10 or something.
Other minorities may be less D than in other states, but (exit poll garbage aside) I would think they were still at least 60-40 for Manchin.
This would mean Manchin netting 2.5% or so from Black voters and maybe close to 0.5% from other minorities.
This in turn would leave only 0.3% netted from White voters. Such a margin would get rounded to 0 very easily. And would effectively become 0 if we assume that other minorities were actually more Democratic.

So my look is that it is best to think of Manchin as having effectively tied the White vote in 2018.

West Virginia is a very white state, so the difference between its overall vote and the white vote isn't that substantial. I think Manchin eked out a very narrow plurality of white voters, carrying white women, while white men almost certainly went for Morrisey.

[Calthrina950]

Did Manchin or Morrisey win the white vote? I think Morrisey won it, despite losing statewide in a very white state. In Hawaii, did Mazie Hirono or Ron Curtis win the white vote?

As was noted above, Manchin. Exit polls claim that West Virginia white voters went for Manchin, and I know from the work that reagente has done that West Virginia whites typically vote about 1-2% to the right of the state. Since Manchin won by 3.23%, I think it's probable that he edged Morrisey among whites by approximately 1% or so. As for Hawaii, Mazie Hirono obviously won the white vote; Hawaii whites are among the most liberal in the country, and Hawaii was one of the few states where Hillary Clinton won white voters in 2016 (and she got 62% of the overall vote compared to Hirono's 71%).

[Calthrina950]

Considering West Virginia 2018:

Joe Manchin won by 3.3%

CNN Exit polls had him up by 3% with White voters and up by 13% with non-White voters, which feels very, very, wrong.

Let's try like this:
The Black share of the electorate is likely slightly more than 3%
Other minorities are hard to guess, but probably have crept up to 2% even in a midterm environment.
I see no reason why Manchin should not have won the Black vote 90-10 or something.
Other minorities may be less D than in other states, but (exit poll garbage aside) I would think they were still at least 60-40 for Manchin.
This would mean Manchin netting 2.5% or so from Black voters and maybe close to 0.5% from other minorities.
This in turn would leave only 0.3% netted from White voters. Such a margin would get rounded to 0 very easily. And would effectively become 0 if we assume that other minorities were actually more Democratic.

So my look is that it is best to think of Manchin as having effectively tied the White vote in 2018.

West Virginia is a very white state, so the difference between its overall vote and the white vote isn't that substantial. I think Manchin eked out a very narrow plurality of white voters, carrying white women, while white men almost certainly went for Morrisey.

Yes, a very narrow plurality for Manchin is more likely than a very narrow plurality for Morrisey, but my point is that the difference is so small that it is best to think the White vote as a tie.


Of course Manchin won the White vote big in 2012 instead (so that would be the Democrats' last time in WV).

2012 would be the last Senate race in which it can be said, with certainty, that white voters went Democratic in West Virginia, but I still think Manchin narrowly won them in 2018 as well. Now what are your thoughts about Georgia 2000? Given this county map:

Who do you think won the white vote that year? My gut says Miller, but ShadowoftheWave says that exit polls indicated Mattingly won them. If you'll notice, most of the heavily white counties in North Georgia voted for Miller.

[Calthrina950]

Considering West Virginia 2018:

Joe Manchin won by 3.3%

CNN Exit polls had him up by 3% with White voters and up by 13% with non-White voters, which feels very, very, wrong.

Let's try like this:
The Black share of the electorate is likely slightly more than 3%
Other minorities are hard to guess, but probably have crept up to 2% even in a midterm environment.
I see no reason why Manchin should not have won the Black vote 90-10 or something.
Other minorities may be less D than in other states, but (exit poll garbage aside) I would think they were still at least 60-40 for Manchin.
This would mean Manchin netting 2.5% or so from Black voters and maybe close to 0.5% from other minorities.
This in turn would leave only 0.3% netted from White voters. Such a margin would get rounded to 0 very easily. And would effectively become 0 if we assume that other minorities were actually more Democratic.

So my look is that it is best to think of Manchin as having effectively tied the White vote in 2018.

West Virginia is a very white state, so the difference between its overall vote and the white vote isn't that substantial. I think Manchin eked out a very narrow plurality of white voters, carrying white women, while white men almost certainly went for Morrisey.

Yes, a very narrow plurality for Manchin is more likely than a very narrow plurality for Morrisey, but my point is that the difference is so small that it is best to think the White vote as a tie.


Of course Manchin won the White vote big in 2012 instead (so that would be the Democrats' last time in WV).

2012 would be the last Senate race in which it can be said, with certainty, that white voters went Democratic in West Virginia, but I still think Manchin narrowly won them in 2018 as well. Now what are your thoughts about Georgia 2000? Given this county map:

Who do you think won the white vote that year? My gut says Miller, but ShadowoftheWave says that exit polls indicated Mattingly won them. If you'll notice, most of the heavily white counties in North Georgia voted for Miller.

The county map is pretty deceptive, it would make you think "oh sure of course Miller won White voters by a lot" when clearly it's not so.

Anyway, even imagining 25% of voters were Black and Miller won them by 80 percentage points (and I would think that both numbers may be a little low) already nets 20 percentage points to Miller.
If you consider that other people of colour were maybe 3-4% of the electorate and surely favored Miller, you have Miller losing the White vote.

I would think that what happened is that Miller's margin among White voters in the very White Northern Georgia rural counties and South Central Georgia rural counties were pretty much drowned out by the suburbs of Atlanta (counties of Forsyth/Cherokee/Gwinnett/Henry/Fayette etc.) and by the Black Belt some, where Whites are wealthier and were very Republican.

These are logical points, but we have to remember that this election was twenty years ago, and Georgia was not as diverse then as it is now. The Atlanta Metropolitan Area, in particular, has changed dramatically since 2000, and this is a major factor as to why Democrats are once again competitive in the state. Moreover, the Democrats still had residual strength among rural white voters in the state during the early 2000s, at least at the downballot level, and most of the counties Miller carried were of that profile; Al Gore lost these counties by landslide margins to George W. Bush.

[Calthrina950]

Alabama: 1992
Alaska 1974
Arizona: 1988
Arkansas: 2008, or 1998 as the last with R opposition
California: technically 2018, or maybe 2012 last with R opposition, if none of those then 2006 for sure.
Colorado: Maybe 2016? If not that then 2008 probably.
Connecticut: probably 2016? Really not sure though
Delaware: 2018? or maybe 2012 or 2006?
Florida: 2006
Georgia: 2000 probably, if not that then 1990, or 1984 with R opposition
Hawaii: 2018
Idaho: 1974
Illinois: 2008
Indiana: 2004
Iowa: 2008
Kansas: very likely 1930
Kentucky : 1992
Louisiana: 1998
Maine: 2018, or 1988 if you don't count King as a dem
Maryland: maybe 2018 or 2012? or maybe even 2010 or 2004? not sure really
Massachusetts: 2018
Michigan: probably 2014, if not that then 2012 for sure
Minnesota: 2018
Mississippi: 1982
Missouri: probably 1974, as I think Mccaskill narrowly lost whites
Montana: probably 2018
Nebraska: 2006
Nevada: 2004
New Hampshire: probably 2014
New Jersey: 1984 probably
New Mexico: almost certainly 2018, if not then 2006
New York: 2018
North Carolina: 1974
North Dakota: 2006
Ohio: 2006
Oklahoma: 1990
Oregon: 2016
Pennsylvania: maybe 2018 but still probably not. 2006 for sure
Rhode Island: Almost certainly 2018, if somehow not then absolutely 2014
South Carolina: 1986
South Dakota: 2008
Tennessee: 1990
Texas: almost certainly 1988
Utah: 1970
Vermont: 2018, or 2016 if you don't count Bernie as independent
Virginia: 2008
Washington: almost certainly 2018
West Virginia: probably 2018; 2012 for sure
Wisconsin: maybe 2018, if not then 2006 for sure
Wyoming: 1970

Blumenthal certainly won the white vote in Connecticut in 2016, as he garnered more than 60% of the overall vote, and Hillary Clinton, who did nearly 10% worse than him, only narrowly lost whites to Donald Trump (going by Reagente's calculations). I remember seeing a Fox News exit poll for Delaware which stated that Carper narrowly won white voters in 2018; the same is true for Maryland, where Cardin won them by 6 (while winning by 35% overall).

Kansas would definitely have been 1932, which is the last time the state elected a Democratic Senator at all (George McGill), who won his only full term that year (he won a special election in 1930). McCaskill probably garnered at least a plurality of white voters in her 2012 senate race, given that she very narrowly won the state outside of St. Louis and Kansas City (which are where most of the state's black voters live).

[Calthrina950]

My guesses for the northeast:

Connecticut: Blumenthal 2016
Maine: Mitchell 1988(!)
Massachusetts: Markey 2014
New Hampshire: Shaheen 2014
New Jersey: Menendez 2012
New York: Schumer 2016
Pennsylvania: Casey 2012
Rhode Island: Reed 2014
Vermont: Leahy 2016

In 2018 how did dems not win the white vote in CT MA???

Also Casey might have won the white vote in 2018

Kodak's post is from July 2018, before the 2018 midterm elections were held. Nevertheless, Murphy and Warren definitely won the white vote in their races, and exit polls indicated that Casey at least tied Barletta among white voters, if he didn't win them outright.

[Calthrina950]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Feinstein won the white vote in 2012. Blumenthal in 2016 won it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Whitehouse won it in 2018 because he won every county.

Feinstein got 63% of the overall vote in 2012, higher than what either Obama in 2008/2012 or Hillary Clinton in 2016 received (although Feinstein won by a smaller margin than Clinton did, because her race was a straight two-party contest with her Republican opponent that year, Elizabeth Emken). So, given that Obama only narrowly lost whites to Romney, I think that it's clear Feinstein captured a majority of them. As for Whitehouse, he has carried the white vote in all three of his races, as Rhode Island is among the whitest states in the country, and whites there tend to vote only about 2-3% to the right of the state. It would have been close in 2006, when Whitehouse unseated his Republican predecessor Lincoln Chaffee, but he probably garnered >60% of the white vote in 2012 and ~58-59% in 2018.

Now, as for my home state of Colorado, 2008 is almost certainly the last time the white vote went Democratic, as Mark Udall won by 10%. Barack Obama carried the white vote here against John McCain that same year as he was winning the state by 9%. This year however, I think Hickenlooper will take whites (as will Biden at the presidential level), since I expect him to beat Cory Gardner by close to the same margin as Udall's victory over Bob Schaffer. Colorado's whites are significantly more Democratic than in all of the state's neighbors, due in large part to the higher levels of education and income, and the large liberal contingent here.