Racial voting again dominates city's Democratic primary

The results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the City of St. Louis had a very simple geographic tone. Draw a line from the western city limits to the Mississippi River along the southern borders of Wards 28, 17, 19, 6 and 7. Regardless of aldermanic or committee endorsements, victorious Lewis Reed carried every ward north of that line, and incumbent Jim Shrewsbury carried every ward south of it. No exceptions!

A slightly more sophisticated version has four zones. At the north end are Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26 and 27. All eleven of these wards gave Reed over 75% of the vote, averaging a little over 80%. Next come the central corridor wards just south of there, Wards 6, 7, 17 and 28, where Reed won by smaller margins ranging from 55-65%. (This band is broken geographically by a narrow southern arm of the 19th, but a precinct-level analysis, when available, will probably show that “arm” with results more similar to this band than the rest of the ward.) Next are Wards 8, 9, 15, 20 and 25 on the near south side, which all went for Shrewsbury by margins ranging from 53-65%. Finally, the remaining wards to the south and west, Wards 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 23 and 24, all voted for Shrewsbury with 2-1 or better margins, all but one topping 70%.

These geographic stripes are explained (surprise!) by race. Generally, the blacker the ward, the stronger it went for Reed, and the whiter the ward, the stronger it went for Shrewsbury. Four of the city’s five purest (i.e., most segregated) black wards (27, 4, 22, 1) were Reed’s top four wards, each giving him over 85% of the vote. In the other totally segregated black ward, the 21st, Shrewsbury had the backing of the ward’s alderman and committeeman, but that support only dropped the Reed vote there by 5 points. The 12 wards represented by black aldermen were Reed’s 12 best wards.

At the other end, the six wards where Shrewsbury topped 70% are the city’s whitest. Reed carried only two of the wards represented by the five white aldermen who endorsed him, both from the central corridor. Shrewsbury apparently won most of the young white progressive voters in the integrated neighborhoods surrounding Tower Grove Park, carrying both the 8th and 15th Wards with about 58% in each.

So why did Reed win? Even though Shrewsbury is the first serious white candidate ever to lose a one-on-one citywide Democratic primary to a black candidate, I reject the notion that people were fed up with Shrewsbury’s performance and voted to throw him out. Elections like that show an upward spike in turnout (because pissed-off people turn out to vote), and that didn’t happen this time. Only 13.3% of registered voters cast ballots. The result, as I speculated in my preview post, was a reflection of who voted and who didn’t. Reed won by 2,042 votes. There are more Shrewsbury fans than that who were too complacent to vote and were kicking themselves this morning.

One interpretation is that Reed had more appeal across racial lines than Shrewsbury, winning 32.6% in the predominantly white south side while Shrewsbury was winning less than 20% in the predominantly black wards north of Delmar. That difference overcame the fact that turnout on the south side was much higher than up north. If Shrewsbury had won 77% of the south side vote instead of just 67%, he would have won.

But I think the other side of the coin is more significant: that 3-1 majority of Democratic primary voters who continued to vote for the candidate of their own race, notably African Americans. Shrewsbury had worked hard to please African American voters, especially with his support for civilian oversight of police and his crucial leadership role in eliminating medical waste incineration from north St. Louis. Even in racially divisive elections, black voters have historically given a third of their votes to white incumbents like Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, former State Sen. Pat Dougherty and even Mayor Francis Slay. If Shrewsbury had won a third of the vote north of Delmar instead of less than 20%, he would have won. It is mind boggling to me why Shrewsbury would do more poorly among black voters against Alderman Reed than Slay, who is regarded by many black voters as a virtual political antichrist, got against Alderman (and respected attorney) Irene Smith just two years ago. There are over a thousand black voters out there who apparently voted for Slay two years ago but for Reed this time. I’d love to ask them why.