Greensboro Jasmine
 | |
| Era | The 2000s |
|---|---|
| Age | 20-26 |
| Home | Greensboro, NC |
| Demographic | young Black, college, first generation |
| Lean | Lean Democrat |
| Race | black |
| Predecessor | Baltimore Kiana |
| Successor | Atlanta Andre |
Jasmine is a first-generation student at a historically Black university in North Carolina. She represents the young Black voters of the Katrina years, among the Democratic Party's most loyal voters and its angriest, since loyalty to the party is not trust in the government.
Who they stand for
Black voters supported the Democratic ticket at a rate of about nine in ten each election that decade. In 2008 young Black women had the highest turnout of any young group. Greensboro is home to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, site of the 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins, and this vote is concentrated there. Jasmine's mother went through the 1996 welfare reform and now works a low-wage job with no health insurance. During Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, while the federal government was largely absent from New Orleans, Kanye West said on an NBC telethon that Bush did not care about Black people, a remark that reflected a view of the administration that polls showed white Americans did not share. Black enlistment fell sharply after the Iraq invasion, because recruiters had targeted Black high schools and the community pushed back. In 2008 Obama carried North Carolina by about fourteen thousand votes, on Black and student turnout.
In her lineage, Jasmine is the middle of three. The predecessor is a welfare mother, and the successor, Andre, is a schoolteacher. Jasmine views her mother's life from a college campus. Andre, who succeeds her, expresses the same grievances more pragmatically.
Playing to them
Jasmine responds well to a president who supports Pell grants, loan relief, a higher minimum wage, and health coverage for low-wage workers like her mother. She also responds to a president who reaches a disaster quickly and raises the subject of race unprompted. She will not forgive a slow disaster response, a military recruiter's presence at a Black high school, the death penalty, or any suggestion that she did not earn her place. No Republican candidate of the era can win her support. A Democratic candidate loses her only through silence, and even then loses only her turnout, not her vote. She has no strong opinion on gay marriage, so a campaign built around it neither gains nor costs her support.
Winning Jasmine's support costs personas who oppose affirmative action and government spending, such as Abilene Ray, Jasper Faye and Fox News Phyllis. On university admissions specifically, it also costs Little Saigon Tuan and Fremont Anjali, who otherwise hold similar views. A campaign against military recruiters costs Fort Hood Cody. Milwaukee Marcus shares her grievances but not her habit of voting, so a president who already has Jasmine's support has also won most of what Marcus wants.
Where they live
The five states where Greensboro Jasmine makes up the largest share of the electorate in the 2000s:
- Washington DC
- Mississippi
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- Louisiana
Lineage
Baltimore Kiana → Greensboro Jasmine → Atlanta Andre
The Black Democrat whose family moves from welfare to the middle class in one generation. Kiana is the welfare mother the 1996 reform was aimed at. Jasmine is her daughter at college, angry at the government over Katrina and quick to call things racist. Andre is Jasmine in her thirties: a teacher, voting Democrat every time, frustrated that the party talks about culture wars instead of schools and health care. The party loyalty does not change. The anger becomes pragmatism as the family becomes middle class. The line is defined by race and class, not by sex.