By Angela Eckhardt

If yo didn’t know there was a big difference between the black male and black female voting blocks, you can be forgiven. Media pundits talk about the black vote as if it were a monolithic force. But political strategists know better, and the black female vote is the gold Democrats are after.

Black women tend to be more politically active than their male counterparts. They are more likely to vote in elections, and indeed are more likely than any other demographic to report that all their friends are planning to vote in the upcoming election. They even beat out black men in voter value by the raw numbers: there are significantly more eligible black female voters than male.

That’s why a search for “black women” voters will turn up dozens of articles about how Democrats are courting this crucial voting block, but hardly any concern for the black male vote, where the party has a growing problem.