U.S. Racial Turnout Gap Widens Again

Data on the U.S. racial turnout gap shows how important representation is for participation in the electoral process. Concerning Black participation, Barack Obama was elected president with a turnout gap of 0 percentage points between Blacks and whites in 2008 as well as in 2012. However, later elections saw this gap increase in size once more, reaching a high of 14 percentage points in a presidential election year in 2024 (and of 19 percentage points in a midterm in 2022), meaning that fewer Black Americans turned out to vote than white Americans despite being eligible. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cited the missing Obama racial turnout gap as a reason for introducing major new restrictions to a section of the Voting Rights Act governing districts favorable to non-white Americans electing their preferred candidates. The majority opinion did not cite opposing data from more recent years.

Other groups turn out even less than Black Americans, but didn't undergo such big fluctuations in recent years, data by the Brennan Center for Justice shows. Asian-Americans show a relatively consistent gap of above 20 percentage points, which dipped to a low of 15 percentage points in 2020, the year Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected president and vice president. Latino turnout gaps also grew slightly over time from 16 percentage points in 2008 to 22 in 2024 and from 21 in 2010 to 27 percent in 2022 (midterms).

Overall, the U.S. racial voting gap stood at 20 percentage points in 2024, up from just 11 in the presidential election of 2008. Potential reasons include not only a potential lack of representation through districts and candidates, but also other voting rules like ID laws and restrictions to early or mail-in voting, which often target minorities.