McCain Will Do Better Than Bush Among Latinos
Here's a prediction nobody else is making about this election....Barack Obama's alleged 3-1 advantage over Latino voters will not materialize come November. I'm pretty sure memory serves me right that John Kerry was also clobbering Bush among Latino voters in polling throughout the 2004 cycle. On election night, however, Latinos turned out to give Bush more than 40% of the vote, an all-time record for the Republican candidate in Presidential elections. It simply doesn't make sense demographically that the most Latino-friendly Republican in Congress would be losing so badly to an African-American given the tensions between the black and Latino communities. With all that in mind, I'll go out on a limb and predict Obama wins the Latino vote by no better than a 55-45 margin this fall.
Why the disconnect between weak poll numbers for Republicans among Latinos and the ultimate election night returns? Simply put, many of the Latino poll respondents cannot or simply do not vote come election night. Working-class Hispanics have incredibly low rates of citizenship and thus wield next to no might in elections. Nonetheless, when phoned for an opinion poll on Presidential preference, they may be inclined to participate and thus give Democrats artificial strength in the Latino community. Come election night, the actual Latino electorate is disproportionately Cuban and middle class, and thus far stronger in support of Republicans than what polling throughout the campaign would suggest.
The same thing is likely to happen in 2008. For all of the hype about the Latino vote and its growing prominence, expect the share of the Latino vote to increase from 8% to 9% at best. And if Obama's candidacy provokes improved African-American turnout, I would not be at all surprised to see Latino turnout proportionally decline in 2008, despite their blistering population growth.
It's the same story every two years. Massive quantities of ink are used in stories promoting the idea of the surging Latino vote having the potential to swing elections with their millions of new voters, but ultimately the "new voters" do not exist...and the Latino vote that does show up at the polls gets more and more conservative. The overarching lesson to be learned from this trend is that both the media and pro-immigration liberals are clueless in regard to how disenfranchised the Latino vote in America is proportionate to their population and their contribution to the nuts and bolts of our economy. Most working-class Latinos can't and don't vote. End of story.
Why the disconnect between weak poll numbers for Republicans among Latinos and the ultimate election night returns? Simply put, many of the Latino poll respondents cannot or simply do not vote come election night. Working-class Hispanics have incredibly low rates of citizenship and thus wield next to no might in elections. Nonetheless, when phoned for an opinion poll on Presidential preference, they may be inclined to participate and thus give Democrats artificial strength in the Latino community. Come election night, the actual Latino electorate is disproportionately Cuban and middle class, and thus far stronger in support of Republicans than what polling throughout the campaign would suggest.
The same thing is likely to happen in 2008. For all of the hype about the Latino vote and its growing prominence, expect the share of the Latino vote to increase from 8% to 9% at best. And if Obama's candidacy provokes improved African-American turnout, I would not be at all surprised to see Latino turnout proportionally decline in 2008, despite their blistering population growth.
It's the same story every two years. Massive quantities of ink are used in stories promoting the idea of the surging Latino vote having the potential to swing elections with their millions of new voters, but ultimately the "new voters" do not exist...and the Latino vote that does show up at the polls gets more and more conservative. The overarching lesson to be learned from this trend is that both the media and pro-immigration liberals are clueless in regard to how disenfranchised the Latino vote in America is proportionate to their population and their contribution to the nuts and bolts of our economy. Most working-class Latinos can't and don't vote. End of story.
posted by Mark at 7:23 PM
5 Comments:
Mark, I know its a little off topic, but I am wondering what you think will happen in your home states of Iowa and Minnesota. Where in each state do you think Obama will gain ground over Kerry?
Obama's win in California is pretty much a foregone conclusion, despite insistence after insistence from McVain that he can compete in my ultra-expensive state. Obama will do better among white voters in CA than Kerry did, but Hispanics will probably be about evenly divided between him and McVain, meaning Obama will probably have a victory margin maybe slightly smaller than Kerry's.
Yeah, I think Obama will do pretty much the same as Kerry in California. Him doing worse among Hispanics will probably lead to McCain doing better than Bush in the two Democratic central valley districts(CA-18 and CA-20), while Obama should close the gap in places like CA-11 and CA-50.
Mr. Phips, that's a very interesting question and I honestly don't have a cogent answer. My initial thought was that senior citizen-heavy counties in rural Minnesota and Iowa would recoil at the prospect of an Obama Presidency and thus weaken Obama's performance relative to Kerry's in the population centers of both states. But polling in both states has been quite lopsided to Obama, while polling in neighboring North and South Dakota is close enough to suggest that the anti-Obama sentiment among seniors may not be a factor in the Upper Midwest. Beyond that, McCain is a long-standing critic of U.S. farm policy, ethanol subsidies in particular, while Obama is a supporter, which suggests more Midwestern corn farmers will identify with the Democrat than the Republican this election.
With all that in mind, I think if the election were held next week, Obama would likely see across-the-board regional improvements in Minnesota and Iowa, growing his margins in the metro areas and breaking even in the rural counties. Nonetheless, I think it's impossible to call this race until the next three weeks pass. The Republican slime machine has barely rolled up its sleeve let alone flexed its muscle and it already has Obama on his heels. My expectation is that next month's GOP convention will be such a masterfully crafted hatchet job against Obama that he'll be rendered unelectable from that point on barring a debate mismatch that could get Obama back in the game the way the first Kerry debate got him back in the game against a hapless and unprepared Bush.
If the GOP convention caricature against Obama sticks, his campaign will be in such freefall that I wouldn't rule out McCain victories in both Minnesota and Iowa.
sara, welcome back. I think your analysis is generally right about California, although I'm not certain the white vote will be stronger for Obama than Kerry. Even if it isn't and Obama's campaign totally implodes, he should still be able to carry California by at least five points.
Mark, I think you are being far too pessimistic here. Around this time in 2006 you were predicting that Sherrod Brown would lose the Ohio senate race to Mike DeWine. Three months later Brown beat DeWine by a 56%-44% margin.
You could well be right here, but I would at least wait until around mid September to see how this thing will go.
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