The folks at National Review aren't sure there was a big jump in turnout, though the Associated Press is quite emphatic that voters went to the polls in epic numbers.

In any case, exit poll data says black turnout in California was way up: From 6 percent of the electorate in 2004 to 10 percent this year. One imagines that this is in large part due to enthusiasm for Obama.

Obama opposed California's Proposition 8 -- though not very strongly. (An enduring question is why he opposed it: Obama said he opposes same-sex marriage but supports civil unions. Proposition 8 deals only with marriage and would allow for civil unions.)

But African-American Californians overwhelmingly supported Prop. 8, by a 7-to-3 margin. Black women (who made up 6% of the electorate) were even more supportive, telling exit pollsters they voted for the measure by a 3-to-1 margin.

Update: I've been playing with math and could use some help from some more math-friendly readers out there. Is is true that if black turnout had been 6 percent rather than 10 percent that the measure would have failed? I did one set of calculations that had Prop. 8 losing by 7,000 votes or so without the bump in African-American turnout, but another set of calculations had the measure still winning by 268,000.

Well, the exit polls aren't really exact enough to do this kind of math anyway.

Meanwhile, The Advocate, a gay magazine, offers another reason why Obama's election may have been bad news for Prop. 8: "No on 8 volunteers fear that with the election all but won for Barack Obama, California Democrats who would have otherwise waited in line after polls closed might be inclined to call it a night -- bad news for Prop. 8."

Update from a reader:

If ALL of the pro-Prop 8 African-Americans stayed home, then it would not have passed.  It would have received 48% of the vote.  But if turnout dropped from 10 to 6 percent for this group, the pro and anti group would have lost voters (assuming that preferences for prop 8 were uncorrelated with turnout, i.e., those who turned out for Obama were not more or less inclined to vote for prop 8).

Posted by Ted Olsen at November 5, 2008 | Comments (83)

California completes the trend nationwide: abortion ballot measures lose, marriage measures win.

Both were tight: with 92 percent of the ballots counted, California's parental notification measure failed by less than 500,000 votes (out of nearly 10 million).

Proposition 8, which revokes same-sex marriage, is even tighter, winning by 363,639 votes (a 3.6 point margin). This is going to be a huge story today, since it's the first time that a state has barred same-sex marriage after allowing it.

Not close at all was California's measure regulating livestock confinement, which passed by almost a 2-to-1 margin.

Posted by Ted Olsen at November 5, 2008 | Comments (10)

The anti-Proposition 8 folks ended their campaign with a shocking commercial attacking Mormons. Thought a wide variety of religious groups have worked to support Proposition 8 -- which would define marriage as a heterosexual, two-person union -- the support of Mormons was highlighted by opponents. They started a Web site asking people to provide identifying information about Mormons who supported the initiative. And then they developed this ad:

As a piece of propaganda, the piece is fascinating. Note, for
instance, the effeminacy of the LDS missionaries.

Anyway, the Catholic Conference of Bishops has already responded to the ad, calling it "a blatant display of religious bigotry and intolerance." Salt Lake city station KSL ran a piece on the "particularly vicious attack ad" here.

I'd be curious if, like Liddy Dole's "Godless" ad, an ad like this helped or hurt the anti-Prop 8 forces.

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 4, 2008 | Comments (14)

Supporters of California's same-sex marriage ban have raised $17.8 million, compared to opponents, who have raised $12.4 million, the L.A. Times reports.

Dan Morain and Jessica Garrison write that Proposition 8 could be the most expensive measure focused on a social issue, according to Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies and an expert on initiatives.

A separate state -- South Dakota -- is preparing for another abortion battle when voters will be asked on the ballot to outlaw almost all abortions.

U.S. News and World Report writes that Sarah Palin's candidacy has sparked re-emergence of culture war issues like abortion.

Reporter Jay Tolson writes:

"The Palin pick was seen by many as McCain's way of reigniting the culture war - a limited culture war - while not getting too directly involved in it. In fact, says James Davison Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia and the first scholar to apply the culture-war concept to the American scene, that war had never really gone away but had only moved into the background. The Palin pick, he says, returned it to the foreground, where it now shares the limelight (and headlines) with the economy and the war. But it's not, he believes, the same old battle. 'The lines of the culture war are changing,' he says. 'The gender views, for one, were so much sharper, traditional versus modern. So much has changed in the last 28 years.'"

"Although there is now more enthusiasm for the Republican ticket among religious conservatives, Pew Forum researcher Masci says that evangelicals 'are still up for grabs.'"

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at September 23, 2008 | Comments (0)