[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – California Governor Gavin Newsom failed in his efforts to impeach him in Tuesday’s recall election. But the rosy result may mask an erosion of Latino voter support for Democrats, which worries some party members for the future.
“Donald Trump got a historic number of Latino votes in 2020, and you can pretend it was because of this or because of that, but it’s not like Larry Elder broke through for these people. Something else is happening, ”said Michael Trujillo, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist, referring to the main Republican candidate when the recall attempt failed.
The former president made inroads with Latino voters in places like South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas last year. But many Democrats attributed the results to the peculiarities of Latin American populations in those regions, to Trump’s unique personality, or to the wrinkles of holding elections during a pandemic.
But in the first real-world test since the 2020 election, some data from California suggests the problem may be more widespread, a potentially troubling sign for Democrats ahead of the midterms of 2022, when Latino voters play a role. major role in the battle for Home in places like California.
Democrats have long warned that they take support from minorities – including black and Hispanic voters – for granted, assuming they would support the Liberals without doing enough work to gain their support.
“We are seeing something happening in the blue state of California, where a certain segment of the Latin American population is trending in the wrong direction,” Trujillo said.
California Latino voters have sided with Newsom and against the recall by 60-40%, according to an NBC News exit poll – a margin slightly lower than Newsom and other Democrats have earned in the past in California, especially among Latino men, and almost identical to the 59 to 41 percent split among whites.
By comparison, black voters broke 83-17% in favor of Newsom while Asian Americans backed the governor 64-36%, according to the exit poll.
In his first gubernatorial election three years ago, Newsom won 64% of Latino voters, according to NBC News exit polls at the time.
Whites and Latinos saw a significant gender gap, with Latin women more likely to side with Newsom by 19 percentage points and white women more likely to support the governor by 16 points.
Yet Dorian Caal, director of civic engagement research at the NALEO Nonpartisan Education Fund, an offshoot of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Civil Servants, warned against overreading early exit polls. .
“They’re notoriously limited with subgroups,” Caal said. “As you drill farther and farther, you get more and more margin for error. There is a lot more to unbox as more and more information is released. “
Caal noted, however, that the dominant political discourse often obscures diversity among Latino voters, with differences by gender, education, and age, among others, reflecting more familiar ruptures among whites.
Exit polls can be bolstered by actual voting data from the state’s most Latino county, Imperial, in the southeastern corner of the state along the Mexican border, where more than 80% of residents are Latinos.
The recall actually performed slightly better in the heavily Latino Imperial County than statewide, with 38.7% of county voters voting for Newsom’s impeachment, compared to 36.1% statewide. , although not all votes have been counted yet.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 won Imperial County by 41 percentage points. President Joe Biden won it by 25 percentage points in 2020. Now the pro-Newsom anti-recall effort has won it by 22.6 percentage points so far.
“There’s a canary in the coal mine and it’s called Imperial County,” Trujillo said. “This canary is coughing, and as a party we need to do more than just give him a throat lozenge or cough suppressant. We have to heal the cause. “
Almost 4 in 10 Californians are Latinos, so even small changes in their voting preferences can be significant.
“We all do such a good job at dissecting the white electorate, and for some reason we can’t do it with Latinos,” said Christian Arana, vice president of policy at the Latino Community Foundation, based in California.
“Because awareness has historically been late, underinvested, and quite frankly a little lazy, I feel like a lot of people are just missing the big picture here,” he said. “You can’t just come into our community and tell us about immigration.”
Arana noted, for example, that about a quarter of small businesses in California are owned by Latinos. A Latino college graduate working in Los Angeles may vote differently than an older relative in California’s agricultural Central Valley who listens primarily to Spanish-language radio, for example.
“The big warning is that you can’t let go of the awareness. Awareness has to take place every day, ”he said. “We are a complex and large group of people who make up the Latin American vote, and the candidates and political parties who recognize this and also invest in awareness will likely be the best. “
[ad_2]
Source link