According to polling there’s been a marked downturn in voter support for Jim Martin (currently challenging Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss in a run-off in Georgia) among blacks.

Whatever turns out to be the case, at the close of early voting Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State’s office 345,564 had voted, and 22.5% of those votes were African-American, an ominous dropoff from the 34.5% of black early voters for the general election.

So it appears, at least from vote tallies so far, that a lot of black voters turned out to vote for Obama.  But they’re not going to turn out again to vote for some white guy.

Which shows just how important the black vote was for Obama’s victory.