Post-Election Analysis of Latino Voters
By Dr. Henry Flores, News Taco
Bueno all the dust has finally settled. Well, at least until after the meeting in the White House where it will be decided whether to expand our military involvement in Syria/Iraq but that is another story for another column. Nevertheless, I want to try and make “heads or tails” out of all the punditry going about concerning how Latinos voted in the recent mi-term elections.
What Politicos are Saying?
By politicos I mean those pollsters and campaign professionals who were hired by one or the other of the politicians running for various offices this past week. Republican politics are declaring that Latinos abandoned Democrats, not in high numbers but enough to make a difference. Reading the tea leaves this indicated to the pundits that Latinos are open to Republican Party overtures without the party having to change their agenda.
Across the aisle Democratic Party politicos are saying that the Latino electorate voted as expected , except that they didn’t vote in large enough numbers for Democrats to win. So in states such as in Colorado, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Texas, Florida where Latinos figured to make a difference, they did not. As a result Democrats lost some elections by larger margins than anticipated and lost some elections they thought they would win.
What the Exit Polls Showed?
Here the numbers add scientific obfuscation to an already misunderstood outcome. If you read all of the polls you discover that they do not all agree. Having designed, constructed, and implemented a few polls in my lifetime I can tell you that the differences are caused by various elements unique to polling. For instance, how you design the sampling frame, draw the sample, design and ask the questions will all affect your outcome. If you look at a poll that was commissioned by a politician or a particular party you may have to live by an interpretation they paid for. If you look at a poll that was commissioned by a private corporation you still have to live by the findings they paid for. Then some pollsters prefer different methodologies for sampling, designing questions and so forth which will result in still different sets of findings. In the end you need to look at techniques used by pollsters such as Nate Silver, who looks at all polls, studies their histories and does long-term aggregations in order to make sense of the most recent polls.
The problem in using polls to understand Latino voters is that we have not been appropriately polled until recently and there are only a hand-full of polls that adequately look at Latino voting patterns. Currently, (this is not a paid plug!) the most solid Latino polling organization is Latino Decisions whose pollsters are superb methodologists and manage to implement methodologies producing the most unbiased results of any out there to-date. What they found was that with one exception, that of Brian Sandoval in Nevada, Latinos on average only cast a little more than 30% of their vote for any statewide Republican candidate regardless of the state. This pretty much mirrors what Latino partisan support has been since President Clinton’s elections.
So, What Does This Tell Us About the Latino Vote?
Essentially, the analysis of Latino votes for the 2014 mid-term elections reveal some things that were already known but bear repeating. Latinos are permanently in the Democratic Party column. Approximately 65% of Latino voters remain loyal to the Democratic Party, another 30% are solidly loyal to the Republican Party and the remainder appears to float between the two majors or cast their votes for candidates of other parties. If Republicans want to win more Latinos over to their side they need to do a great deal more than just say a few words in Spanish, roll out some Latino in-law or relative, or eat Mexican food. Republicans need to take a close look at their policy agendas and make some deep changes. Democrats, on the other hand, need to spend more time among Latinos and making them feel more welcome in the party. One thing that does work to get Latinos to the polls and that is personableness. Latinos already have an affinity with the Democratic Party’s general agenda, all that is left is making Latinos feel like they are vested in the game of politics.
Henry Flores, PhD, is a Distinguished University Research Professor, Institute of Public Administration and Public Service; Director, Masters in Public Administration (MPA); Professor of International Relations and Political Science at St. Mary’s University.
[Photo by Joe Shlabotnik/Flickr]