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Monday, July 18, 2016

With Hispanics Trump Has Awoken a Sleeping Giant

Or so argues BaronSigfried, a commenter to a Jonathan Capehart piece about Trump and the Latino vote.

BaronSigfried:

"Drumpf has made this personal with hispanics. He represents an existential threat to them. This isn't just your regular ho-hum election where they really don't care who wins. They know full well that if Drumpf wins, they will wind up being a persecuted minority. Believe me,they'll turn out to vote if only because it's the only way they can slap him across the face. Drumpf has awakened a sleeping giant, one that really, REALLY doesn't like him."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/07/18/wow-hispanics-loathe-donald-trump-like-a-lot-but-enough-to-vote/#comments

Certainly hope so. Capehart in his piece holds up the specter that maybe turnout isn't there for Hispanics. Sure they hate Trump, but do they vote against him?

If not now, when? is my reaction. A poll yesterday showed that Hillary leads Trump among Hispanics 76-14.

"Clinton leads Trump among Latinos by 76%-14% margin, per NBC/WSJ/Telemundo oversample (English + Spanish interviews)"

https://twitter.com/mmurraypolitics/status/754707265068728320

This is better than Romney's 73-26 loss among Latinos.

But Capehart worries about turnout:

"When I asked Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, if she thought Trump could win given the devastating numbers in the Univision poll, she replied via email, “If Latinos sit it out.“ This is a very real concern that has been discussed for months."

"NALEO’s report showed that 27.3 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote this November. That means the record number of Hispanics NALEO believes will show up at the polls is less than half of that eligible-to-vote number. That same report showed that voter participation dropped from 49.9 percent in 2008 to 48 percent in 2012."

"And as a Pew Research Center study from last January made clear, lower Hispanic voter participation has the potential to get worse. But before I dive into that data, you need to know one of my favorite stats from aResurgent Republic report on Hispanic voters from 2012 that will put what follows into perspective."

"This is why, according to that Pew study, “The median age among the nation’s 35 million U.S.-born Latinos is only 19.” And then there’s this: “Hispanic millennials will account for nearly half (44 percent) of the record 27.3 million Hispanic eligible voters projected for 2016—a share greater than any other racial or ethnic group of voters.”
"Amazing, right? But, as Pew points out, like all young voters, Latino young voters “are less likely to cast a ballot than older voters.” In fact, with the exception of Asian Americans, they are less likely to vote than any other demographic."

"In 2012, just 37.8 percent of Latino millennials voted, compared with 53.9 percent among non-millennial Latinos. The voter turnout rate among Latino millennials also trails that of other millennial groups. Some 47.5 percent of white millennials and 55 percent of black millennials voted in 2012. Among Asian millennials, 37.3 percent voted."

This feeds into the larger voter participation problem among the Hispanic electorate pointed out by Pew. “In 2012, fewer than half (48 percent) of Hispanic eligible voters cast a ballot,” the report notes. “By comparison, 64.1 percent of whites and 66.6 percent of blacks voted.”

"If Trump is to be denied the White House, we know the power to do that is in Hispanic American hands, particularly those of millennials. They have to turn their palpable anger at the racist, xenophobic and nativist campaign Trump has run into record turnout and record voter participation. In short, they can’t sit it out."

Still, I think it's important not to confound two things. The percentage of eligible Latinos who vote and the absolute number who do as a percentage of the larger vote.

Obviously the Hispanic vote in 2012 was sufficient even if it was so large as a proportion of the eligible Latino vote. On the other hand, maybe more millennials vote this time. After all, they will be the big victims of Trump levels of deportation.



4 comments:

  1. He probably won't be doing so well with rape victims eithef if the press starts focusing on this:

    http://www.justiceforkatie.com/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mike, do you believe Katie needs justice? I do. =)

      (Actually I'm not 100% sure I believe her yet, but it might be fun to give this more exposure)

      Delete
    2. Well the story deserves to be more public. Seriously, we're electing a President.

      Bill Scher a Beltway writer who's pretty cool-insists to me he doesn't live in the Beltway, but it's not about geography but an attitude-says he thinks that some in the press are trying to get her to speak publicly.

      But if this were Hillary-like if Bill had a current case in court?-you better believe they wouldn't let that stop them.

      Delete
  2. This article from 538 dovetails nicely with your post here:

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-end-of-a-republican-party/

    Many have assumed that adherence to a certain conservative purity was the engine of the GOP, and given the party’s demographic homogeneity, this made sense. But re-evaluating recent history in light of Trump, and looking a bit closer at this year’s numbers, something else seems to be the primary motivator of GOP voters, something closer to the neighborhood of cultural conservatism and racial and economic grievance rather than a passion for small government.

    ReplyDelete