In Florida, African-American voter turnout is lower than Clinton had hoped

(Image credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

published 1 November 2016

Hillary Clinton's campaign has run into trouble in the tight battleground state of Florida, where essential African-American voters are not turning out for early voting in the kinds of numbers that would meet expectations. "[The Clinton campaign is] not doing enough in the black community. I have been screaming for months about this and nothing changed and now look what's happening," Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), who "represents one of South Florida’s largest African-American communities," told Politico.

Normally African-Americans lead in-person voting, but as of Sunday black voters make up just 16 percent of those ballots, as opposed to 25 percent in the first two days of in-person early voting in 2012. "My reaction is pretty clear: I. Told. You. So," South Florida African-American activist Leslie Wimes said. "All their talk about enthusiasm in the black community was bulls---. Bulls---. In September, I said they had time to fix the problem. Now we're a week away from the election and they can't fix it. Let's hope the Hispanic vote bails her out."

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White voters so far have cast 2.6 million early votes eight days out, which is 80 percent of all the early votes they cast in the entire 2012 election. And mixed-race, Asian and other-race voters so far have cast 209,000 ballots, which is 76 percent of their 2012 total.The lowest-performing group: African Americans. They cast about 421,000 early and absentee ballots as of Monday morning, accounting for 55 percent of the total early ballots that black voters cast in 2012, [Associated Industries of Florida's] analysis shows. [Politico]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.