2016: The Year Latinos Saved America?

*This is a big question, it’s a big boast. The truth is that the election will hinge on turnout in specific counties in specific states. In maqny of those places in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia . . . Latinos are few but enough to hold sway. VL

By Jon Ralston, The Atlantic (10.5 minute read)

Two of my long-time, politically well-experienced friends have been in Nevada recently, doing get-out-the-vote work. Independently, each has just sent me a note saying that their experience and observations match what the Jon “the sage of Nevada” Ralston has been reporting: Namely, a huge surge in early voting among Democrats and especially Latinos in Nevada, which bodes very negatively for Donald Trump’s prospects there and by implication elsewhere.

From one of them:

I’m in Las Vegas.  Been walking precincts for the last few days.   The surge in early voting (now completed) is real [as HuffPo reports]: Nevada’s Early Vote Ends With Massive Democratic Surge

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I haven’t been in Nevada so can’t compare impressions first-hand. But I can say that based on what Deb and I have seen around the country in the past few months—in Central Valley and inland southern California, in western Kansas, in rust-belt Pennsylvania and Michigan, in both Mississippi and Alabama—I’ve been preparing for the least surprising “surprise” of election day. Namely, “surprisingly” high turnout among Latino voters, which will play a “surprisingly” important part in sparing the country and the world a Donald Trump presidency, if in fact we are to be spared. READ MORE