One of the big quandaries for Democrats as they approach the 2020 elections - here in Virginia, the same applies to the 2019 elections - is how they increase their margin of support among Hispanic voters. With Trump in office, one would think Hispanic voters would be flocking to the polls to vote for almost any Democrat yet in Florida, Republicans wooed Hispanics and increased their margins while Democrat candidates failed to adequately campaign for the Hispanic vote and seemingly took it for granted. The other issue that applies to all Millennials, but Hispanic Millennials in particular is the lower turn out among younger voters even as they will be the ones most harmed by Trump/GOP policies over time. A column in the New York Times looks at this issue (while not mentioned, I suspect GOP appeals to conservative Catholic Hispanics is also a problem). Here are column highlights:
The future success of the Democratic Party depends on the crucial — but unsettled — allegiance of the nation’s growing Hispanic electorate.
Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster and podcast host based in Miami, addressed the party’s Latino quandary in a December interview with The Associated Press: The question is not are Democrats winning the Hispanic vote — it’s why aren’t Democrats winning the Hispanic vote 80-20 or 90-10 the way they are winning black voters?
In the 2018 midterms, Democrats showed gains among Hispanic voters in most states, compared with 2014. Party operatives are concerned, however, about the slow rate of growth of these improved Democratic margins. They are equally worried about turnout — at a time when many thought that President Trump’s rhetoric and policies would produce impressive gains among Latino voters for the Democratic Party.
Take turnout. Hispanics are one of the fastest growing ethnic constituencies in the United States, but their level of political participation is not keeping pace with their overall population numbers.
[T]he number of Hispanic voters in midterm elections has grown steadily, from 2.9 million in 1986 to 6.8 million in 2014. At the same time, however, turnout — measured as a percentage of total eligible adult citizens 18 and over — has experienced a relative decline.
In a preliminary analysis of Hispanic voter turnout last year, Catalist, a Democratic firm that builds voter lists, found significant increases in turnout of three to five percent, comparing 2018 with the 2014 midterms. Texas, Nevada and California saw five percent increases, Florida four percent, New Mexico and New York three percent.
Turnout rates and levels of support are two key (but quite different) political measures. While Latinos had a turnout rate of 27.1 percent in 2014, their support for Democratic House candidates that year was 62 percent. Their support for Republican House candidates was 36 percent, according to exit polls.
Republicans won two close statewide races in Florida in 2018, one for senate and one for governor — despite the gradual erosion of Republican support among Cuban-Americans in the state and despite the continuing influx of pro-Democratic Puerto Ricans in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Nationally, Democrats went from 62-36 (26 pts) in 2014 to 69-29 (40 pts) this election. In Florida, Democrats went from 58-38 (20 pts) in 2014 to 54-44 (10 pts) this year. . . . this shift occurred despite the fact that Trump did everything possible to alienate Latinos, along with undercutting Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis, the winning Republican candidates for Senate and governor.
By all accounts, Scott and DeSantis campaigned almost daily in Hispanic precincts, while their Democratic opponents, Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum, took the Hispanic vote for granted.
“We had no infrastructure,” Christian Ulvert, Gillum’s director for Spanish-language media, told Politico:
And honestly, Democrats have been playing catch-up on Hispanic outreach for two decades, because Republicans have invested in it. You can’t close that gap overnight.
Despite the decline in Republican support among Cuban-Americans, Michelson emphasized that [t]here has always been a contingent of Latinos who identify as Republican and are more interested in Republican/conservative (or anti-Communist) policies than in immigration issues or racism.
Revealing a contrast to Florida, Matt A. Barreto, a political scientist at U.C.L.A. and a co-founder of Latino Decisions, analyzed turnout and voting patterns in Texas. In a March report, Barreto described a huge pro-Democratic turnout increase there, ranging from 105 to 125 percent in eight counties where Hispanics make up more than 90 percent of the population. There were significant gains in counties with white majorities of 83 to 91 percent too, but these upturns were smaller, in the 35 to 55 percent range.
The ability of two conservative Florida Republicans to make such inroads simply by campaigning diligently suggests that the Democratic hold on Latinos is less firm than many believed.
The data, provided to The Times by Public Opinion Strategies, one of the two firms that conducted the survey, found that Trump’s approval among Hispanics was highest among men and among the affluent — 40 percent for both — and among men without college degrees, at 39 percent.
While many Democrats expected Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, especially the family separation debacle, to produce a decisive shift to the left among Hispanics, that has not proved to be the case.
Asked about the declining share of eligible Hispanics turning out on Election Day, Barreto countered that the growing numbers of eligible Latinos are almost entirely driven by U.S. born young Latinos turning 18 and entering the eligible voter pool.
In a common pattern, Barreto pointed out, “young people have very low rates of voter registration and voter turnout — especially in midterm elections.” Because of that, Barreto said that in order to get a better picture, the data should be age-adjusted so that turnout levels of older voters of different races and ethnicities could be compared.
What conclusions and what questions remain in the wake of these complex and sometimes conflicting trends in the Hispanic electorate?
First and foremost, Latinos remain a decisively Democratic constituency, with important caveats.
Latinos’ partisan loyalties are much less hard and fast than, say, those of either African-Americans or white evangelicals. The results in Florida demonstrate that Democrats risk defeat if they fail to campaign heavily in Hispanic communities, and Republicans stand to gain at the margins if they are prepared to invest time, money and energy.
The major question mark going into 2020, assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, is whether Hispanic opposition to his presidency will prevent a recurrence of the Florida 2018 phenomenon. Will Trump’s presence so nationalize the election that down-ballot Republicans will face a brick wall when they try to make modest inroads among Hispanics?
To date, Trump has shown every intention of turning the election into a referendum on himself, and all the baggage he carries, with no regard for the political survival of fellow Republicans.
If anything, he appears determined to drive up hostility to him among Latinos. For the past two days, for example, the president has ranted on Twitter, attacking Puerto Rico and its political leaders.
Behaving this way, Trump may succeed in driving up support among “his people,” as he likes to call his voters. But if he keeps it up, he will be doing both his Democratic opponent and the Democratic Party as a whole a huge favor as far as the Latino vote goes.
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