The Hispanic Vote

Via-Jer's Notes

I have mentioned on several occasions that I do not believe the "Hispanic" vote will be nearly as important in the 2012 election as the media and the pundits make it out to be.

This is not to say that it is not an important voting block or that in the future Hispanics will not take on a greater role in the electoral process than they do now or ever have, they most certainly will. I am only saying that it is doubtful that they will  play as decisive a roll in 2012 as is being given to them by the chattering class. I also do not believe that the Democratic Party has or is going to continue to have a stranglehold on the Hispanic vote, but that is a discussion for another day.

To understand why I doubt the "political punch" of the Latin vote you must first understand where Hispanics have a degree of influence in the political process. It is somewhat like Blacks who make up 13% of the population but as a voting block have virtually no affect in a state like Wyoming where they comprise only 1.29% of the population.



In the same way, Hispanics though they make up about 16.7% of the American population, are not equally dispersed in each state. They are also not a monolithic block, they have  various backgrounds and national origins, Cubans, Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Haitians, etc. Here are the top ten states by Hispanic population

1. New Mexico - 46.3%
2. California - 37.6%
2. Texas - 37.6%
4. Arizona - 29.6%
5. Nevada - 26.5%
6. Florida - 22.5%
7. Colorado - 20.7%
8. New Jersey - 17.7%
9. New York - 17.6%
10. Illinois - 15.8%

And here are the remaining states where Hispanics make up more than 10% of that states population:

11. Connecticut - 13.4%
12. Utah - 13.0%
13. Rhode Island - 12.4%
14. Oregon - 12.7%
15. Washington - 11.2%
15. Idaho - 11.2%
17. Kansas - 10.5%

 Looking at the list a few things become apparent. The first is that all the states that border Mexico which hold the largest percentage of Hispanics- California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are not in play in this election. Arizona and Texas will go for Romney while California and New Mexico will go for Obama. .

The next group of states are important in the presidential election, Nevada, Florida and Colorado. As far as the rest of the states with over 10% Hispanic population, they like the Mexican border states are pretty well predetermined electorally as either being "blue" or "red" states. If one of the candidates "flips" any of those states they will have already insured their election irregardless of the Hispanic vote. So a very large majority of the Hispanic vote will have little affect on the presidential electoral process in 2012.

Before we get into the specifics of the states where the Hispanic vote could have an influence in 2012, there is another important issue we must look at, turnout. Just because a particular state has a large block of Hispanics they obviously have less impact if they don't vote. Below are the seven states with highest proportion of Hispanic population and the turnout of Hispanics according to the exit polls in 2008 and (in parenthesis   how they turned out compared to their population density.

1. New Mexico - 40% (-6.3%)
2. California - 18% (-19.6%)
2. Texas - 20% (-17,6%)
4. Arizona - 16% (-13.6%)
5. Nevada - 15% (-11.5%)
6. Florida - 14% (-8.5%)
7. Colorado - 13% (-7.7%)

As you can see in not a single one of these states did the Hispanic population vote near their population's demographic ratio. If, for example, in Nevada Hispanics make up 26.5% of the population but only make up 15%  of the electorate, their influence is greatly diminished. This turnout ratio becomes important too in looking at polls as we will look at shortly.

So what are we left with here? In 2012, there are only three states where the Hispanic vote will have any bearing whatsoever. Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

Florida is obviously the largest prize in the electoral  race with 29 electoral votes, but it is here where the Hispanic vote not being monolithic comes most into play. From Univision in January

Perhaps no state carries the political weight of Florida, a unique, multi-cultural hotbed that could ultimately decide not only the GOP nominee but also the next president, making the state’s Latino vote a coveted commodity.

But politicos courting the Sunshine State be warned: Latino voters in Florida are unlike those in the rest of the country. The state’s voters are dominated by Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans, not Mexican-Americans like in southwestern states like Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, meaning that their priorities can be very different....

...For an indication of just how unique Florida Latinos are, look no further than the fact that they tend to vote Republican, while Hispanics throughout the rest of the country lean strongly towards Democrats....

...In 2008, Obama won 57 percent of Florida’s Latino vote, compared to 42 percent for Republican nominee John McCain. A breakdown of that Latino vote, however, reveals that Cubans in the state differed strongly from non-Cuban Latinos there. Cubans supported McCain 53 percent to 47 percent. Non-Cuban Latinos, though, backed Obama by 65 percent to 33 percent.

In a recent ABC story we learn that this difference in the Hispanic make up in Florida is beginning to take a toll on Obama's chances in Florida.

If two new polls are to be believed, Republican Mitt Romney is making up some serious ground among Hispanic voters in Florida. 

President Barack Obama still retains a big lead among Latino voters nationally, and a new Florida International University/Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald (FIU) poll of likely Florida Latino voters shows Obama leading Romney 51-44 percent. But the margin is smaller than the one Obama had in 2008. 

Also, a Mason-Dixon poll conducted for Tampa Bay Times/9 News/Miami Herald late last week showed Romney actually leading among Latinos 46-44 percent. 

Florida Hispanics are not going to save Obama, in fact Florida has all but been lost to Obama.

So regarding the Hispanic vote we are left with Colorado and Nevada, nine and six electoral votes respectively. Both states show the polling to be very close with the RCP average showing Romney slightly ahead in Colorado and Obama slightly ahead in Nevada.

This is where a close look at the polls shows that things may not be exactly how they appear. Let's take a very recent poll in Nevada done by the Las Vegas Review-Journal which shows Obama leading Romney 48 to 45. A close race to be sure but if you look at the internals it may actually be closer than the overall number indicates.

The first thing you notice is that Obama is only beating Romney by 8% among Hispanics. Perhaps this is a bit  closer than what the actual vote will be, who knows, but I have not seen a poll out of Nevada yet showing Obama receiving more than 63% of the Hispanic vote. This sounds impressive  but in 2008 Obama received 76% of the Hispanic vote in Nevada! If in fact Obama is running 10% or more below his 2008 numbers with Hispanics in Nevada then he has problems.

The question is how, if Obama is under performing so badly among Hispanics in Nevada, can he still be leading in the polls? Consider the above chart, the bottom line of the chart is the breakdown of who was polled. (The turn out model). Now compare it to the 2008 exit polls on ethnicity.

The column on the left is the turn out which had a White/Black/Hispanic ratio of 69/10/15. where the Las Vegas Journal-Review poll has a 62/8/20 ethnic ratio. The poll which shows an Obama lead of 3% over samples Hispanics compared to their 2008 turnout numbers by 5% and more importantly under samples whites by 7%  though some of those may be caught in the "other" category. If the ethnic turnout this year is anywhere near what it was in 2008 and the Hispanics vote is anywhere near what the polls are showing, Obama will lose Nevada.

In Colorado polling has Obama in the mid to high fifties among Hispanics compared to the 61% he received in 2008. Not as bad a drop off as we have seen in either Florida or Nevada, but a drop off none the less. In a close contest in these battleground states especially where Obama is bleeding off other constituencies, these small or even as is the case in Florida, large losses of support among the Hispanic population could be critical and decisive.

In spite of a media narrative to the contrary, Obama will not do as well with Hispanics in 2012 as he did in 2008. Like all of his constituencies it may not be reflected  in percentages but more likely it will show up in smaller turnout ratios.

As I've said from the beginning, the key to Obama's defeat will not be the result of his standing in the minority communities though it has dropped there as well, the reason he will lose is because he can not attract enough white voters to carry him over the top.

Nationally every percentage point of white vote that Obama loses must be made up for by an increase of non-white voters of nearly two and a half percent . Fortunately for Obama it is not a national vote so the ratios in states with large Hispanic populations are not quite so burdensome, but the fact remains that as he losses white voters in these states he has to make them up with a far less motivated or enthused Hispanic population.

I do not believe he can do it.