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  Tough Districts = White Districts

  Posted Friday, May 09, 2008 5:13 PM | By Christopher Beam

  As part of her Superdelegate Reassurance Tour, Hillary Clinton today sent out a PowerPoint slide show measuring her performance in the 20 "tough districts" that went for Bush in 2004 but elected Democrats in 2006. She won 16 of them; Barack Obama won 4. The point being that Democrats need to win these districts in the fall and congressional candidates will need a strong top of the ticket.

  The slide show then breaks down the districts’ demographics: Thirteen of the districts have more than the average proportion of seniors, Hispanics make up more than 10 percent of voters in four of them, and half of them are more than 40 percent rural.

  But one thing the Clinton Power Point doesn’t point out: They’re also really, really white. Here’s the percentage of African-Americans in each of the 20 districts. Districts Obama won are in bold; the rest went for Clinton: 

  AZ-5: 2.8 %
  AZ-8: 3.1 %
  CA-11: 3.5 %
  FL-16: 6.0 %
  IN-2: 8.2 %
  IN-8: 3.7 %
  IN-9: 2.3 %
  KS-2: 5.1 %
  MN-1: 1.0 %
  NC-11: 4.6 %
  NH-1: 0.8 %
  NY-19: 5.4 %
  NY-24: 3.4 %
  OH-18: 1.9 %
  PA-10: 1.9 %
  PA-4: 3.4 %
  TX-22: 9.4 %
  TX-23: 3.0 %
  WI-8: 0.6 %

  Filed under: Hillary Clinton

About Christopher Beam

• Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.

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