The Myth that more African American turnout will flip the south for Obama

Campaign Myth 2: Thirty Percent Will Flip the South - Behind the Numbers: "Using the 2004 election as a baseline - this is the election against which final analysis will gauge Obama's ability to 'turn' states 'blue' - and exit poll estimates of the proportion and preferences of black voters, suggests black turnout would have to spike considerably higher - 50 percent or more - for Obama to win many of these states.

Taking Georgia as an example: George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 17 points in 2004, a massive margin, and better than his 12-point victory in 2000. Average GOP advantage: 425,796 votes. But add in 1996 (when Bob Dole beat Clinton by a single point) and 1992 (a narrow Clinton win), and the average drops to 216,218 votes, a much lower threshold. Using the CPS data further confounds the issue. The 2000 CPS estimate for black turnout in Georgia exceeds the total number of African American registered voters in the Georgia Secretary of State's database by more than 27,000.

Substituting the 2000-2004 average for the 1992-2004 average and using estimates of black voter turnout from the state government, shows that black turnout would have to go up by 81 percent to put Obama over the top; again assuming all else remained the same. Compared with 2004 alone, black turnout would have to about double (increase 96 percent) to give Obama the state's 15 Electoral College votes."

Very interesting read with hard facts on the ramifications of additional African American turnout.