When Labor Goes Away, Who is Left?: Race, Class, and U.S. Voter Turnout 1972-2012.

Organized labor has been a major mobilizer for the Democratic Party, increasing turnout for low-income union members as well as other potential voters. Yet as unions decrease in membership, are low-income people less likely to vote than they were previously? I argue that the decline of organized labor impacts demographic groups differently. Using a large-scale collection of individual level data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) on voter participation, I find that low-income whites drop out of the electorate when they were left without alternate mobilizing forces. In contrast, for low-income African Americans, consistent messaging from churches, race-based groups, and communities all point potential voters to the Democratic Party. The overarching consequence of changing political participation is to shift the racial composition of the low-income segment of the Democratic electorate, impacting how the party sees and relates to low-income people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]