The Demographic Milestone of the 2012 Election

The 2012 election will of course be noted by history for its outcome: The United States re-elected its first black president, a milestone many commentators argued that was even more momentous than Barack Obama's first election. Now with a few months' reflection – and some fresh data out today from the Census Bureau – it turns out that the 2012 electorate was itself historic, marking a watershed for both black voters and America's increasingly diverse voting public.

For the first time, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites in a presidential election. More than two-thirds of eligible blacks cast a ballot (66.2 percent), more than two percentage points higher than turnout by non-Hispanic whites (64.1 percent). Since 1996, when the Census Bureau first started to collect consistent citizenship data, the black turnout rate has increased by 13 percentage points.