Thread by @SteveKornacki

Really pleased that I can finally share this after months of working on it. We have put together a comprehensive history of the black vote in modern Democratic presidential primaries: nbcnews.com/politics/2020-…

A major part of this project involves state primary exit polls, which began widely in 1976. Even though they were sponsored by media organizations (like mine!), they are not readily available, but we tracked them down and compiled the black vote for every state primary since then

You will also find narrative histories of every Democratic campaign since '76, each told in terms of the role of black voters. And we've included some archived NBC News footage from those campaigns. There's a menu that will let you jump from race to race:

You'll see an important long-term trend. We pick it up in 1976, barely a decade after the VRA, with millions of African Americans still unregistered and their alliance with the Dem Party shaky. You'll see the progression to today, when about 1 in 4 Dem primary voters are black.

You may also notice how crucial Jesse Jackson is to this story. In the late '70s, he was alienated from the Dem establishment and even proposed an alliance with the GOP. But his '84 and '88 WH campaigns dramatically increased the role of African Americans in Dem politics.

Anyway, I hope you'll check it out and share your reactions. Make sure to check out the old NBC News clips (especially from the morning after Jackson's '84 DNC speech). I'll also post a few more clips here today that didn't make the cut for the online piece.

One more thing: We owe a ***huge*** thanks to Dr. William Mayer from Northeastern University in Boston (Go Huskies!), an expert on presidential politics whose help in tracking down and assembling this data was absolutely essential. cssh.northeastern.edu/people/faculty…

I said I'd post some more NBC News clips. Here's one from March 14, 1984: Jesse Jackson, his campaign saved by strong showings in AL and GA, talks to Today's Bryant Gumbel about the challenge of winning white support (and touts words of encouragement from Orval Faubus):

"Jesse Jackson, the Democratic front-runner? Today, that's the way it looks."

Here's a time capsule moment: NBC Nightly News's coverage of Jackson's shocking Michigan landslide in March 1988. This marked the closest he would ever come to winning the Democratic nomination:

Sept. '91: VA's Doug Wilder, the first popularly elected black governor, enters the Dem race, hoping to claim Jackson's base and add significant white support.

(Wilder dropped out before the first contests, and his absence allowed Bill Clinton to win the black vote decisively.)

"The Democratic or Republican Parties -- they cannot do without us. We are necessary. We must assert ourselves. Our time has come!"

NBC Nightly News coverage of Jesse Jackson's first presidential campaign kickoff on November 3, 1983: