Thread by @cornellbelcher

So recent story on Black turnout in 2022 has been getting a lot of traction, but unfortunately it shows the complication of talking about math. It’s kinda playing with math in a way to drive 1 small part of a story about AA turnout in a negative way. A short thread to unpack this

So AA turnout(-9.8 points) did notable drop frm 18,however (context) 18 is crazy outlier tht was more like Presidential year thn a midterm & AA turnout was only 4 points off the overall & importantly it was +5 points higher in 22 thn the last normal midterm (2014) not an outlier!

So the story could be tht Black turnout in 22 was actually much better thn it has been on avg for the last decade. I would argue tht the fact tht turnout was at least 5 points higher than what we typically expect looking at the avg frm 2002 to 14 is good news. 👏🏿 👏🏿

but yes much more must be done.  A more important conversation is how do we get all voters of color participating at the same rate as white voters. AAPI & Hispanic voters were considerably off the overall avg. They were off more thn 10 points. Driving a story about low AA turnout

… is kind of missing the forest for the trees. We can’t rest until all minority voters are turning out at higher rates but that’s a conversation about resources & empowering more organizers frm those communities. That’s a more helpful conversation.