Hispanics continue to turn right
For years we’ve heard that the Hispanic vote is more naturally conservative rather than leftist, especially on social issues. But that group’s voting behavior didn’t seem to change.
Beginning with certain Texas border counties in the 2020 election, however, there is increasing evidence that, for whatever reason, this tide is turning:
The nation’s large and diverse group of Hispanic voters is showing signs of dividing its support between Democrats and Republicans more evenly than in recent elections, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, a troubling development for the Democratic Party, which has long counted on outsize Hispanic support.
One year after giving Democratic House candidates more than 60% of their vote, according to polls at the time, the Journal survey found that Hispanic voters are evenly split in their choice for Congress. Asked which party they would back if the election were today, 37% of Hispanic voters said they would support the Republican congressional candidate and 37% said they would favor the Democrat, with 22% undecided.
Hispanic voters were also evenly divided when asked about a hypothetical rematch in 2024 of the last presidential contenders, with 44% saying they would back President Biden and 43% supporting former President Donald Trump. In 2020, Mr. Biden won 63% support among Hispanic voters, nearly 30 points more than Mr. Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a large survey of the presidential electorate.
The main issue appears to be economics, however, rather than social and values concerns.
[NOTE:The WSJ article is behind their paywall, so I can’t get to it.]
The conservative/traditional side (let’s avoid the word “Republican” for now) may win a majority of Hispanics eventually. It may even win a solid chunk of the Black vote someday.
I despair of winning a significant number of Jewish votes though.
Am I wrong?
JimNorCal;
Depends how you define “Jewish”. If you’re talking about secular Jews who know almost nothing and care less about Judaism, or who actively hate it, then perhaps not. But religious observant Jews already lean right, and the more religious they are the more right they lean. That group also has a lot of children, and so it’s growing.
Also, even secular Jews are a very small voting demographic in this country compared to blacks and Hispanics. They do contribute a fair amount of money to the Democrats, though.
Thanks, neo. Yes, I meant culturally (genetically?) Jewish not religiously Jewish.
I think it’s more Republicans becoming more populist and meeting them part way. And in Texas you have the issue of so many having deep and multigenerational American roots, not true of this group in all parts of the country.
Hispanics and blacks have never fit the Democrats’ image of “Brown People” and therefore equally in favor of Socialist solutions. First, Hispanics have never been allies of or fond of blacks. I remember when I was in college Nat King Cole put out an album in Spanish. It flopped. I think Hispanics, even those who were legalized by amnesty 30 years ago, are very unhappy with the flood of illegals coming over the open border. Many are still near the bottom of the economic ladder and are threatened by illegals. The Democrats seem to be stirring up racism in blacks to try to keep them voting and that might work for a while but the police defunding thing is getting their attention.
From the article: “Hispanic voters in the survey ranked economic issues as the priority for Mr. Biden and Congress to address. Hispanic men said Republicans had the better economic policy, by a margin of 17 points. Hispanic women, by contrast, said Democrats had better economic plans, by a 10-point margin.”
It’s the economy.
One reason why Republicans should scream about boys in the girl’s restrooms, etc. Bold colors, not just be nice little pastel colors.
“in Texas you have the issue of so many having deep and multigenerational American roots”
Good point. And, esp in FL we have Hispanics that have come from failed lefty nations like Cuba and Venezuela.
Frederick right on about a minority of long-time old time Hispanics in the border states. Otherwise mostly Hope-ium. This pinata is stuffed with Tannerite.
Those who rule a multi-ethnic indigestible stew must divide and conquer.
There is no game theoretic super smart way to finagle one’s way out of this game once you’re in it. You have to play. And play hard.
So, as it always eventually goes in our cyclical travails, it’s Back to Blood. Tom Wolfe wasn’t a prophet, he just went places and looked around and then had fun with words. That’s heresy in our age.
Truth is simple and old Abe Lincoln specialized in it. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
The thing about fooling people is that the non-ideological eventually start comparing rhetoric with results.
Biden promised a lot yet after a year in office; skyrocketing crime, empty shelves and steadily rising inflation are getting a lot of people’s attention. Not to mention the mandates, never ending vaccine shots, people getting fired, defunding the police, protesting parents being declared domestic terrorists and the majority of Americans being declared racist participants in white supremacy.
Fool the non-ideological often enough and people start to figure out that they’re being lied to and no administration in American history can match the transparent lies out of the Biden administration.
I think it’s almost 100% due to Trump and the machismo parts of his personality. It’s 0% due to RINO Republicans, even Hispanic ones, unless the Hispanic ladies are voting for them because they’re pretty. Also I think part of it is a growing realization that requires unlearning (the hard way) that Democrats are for the Little People. In a lot of South / Central American countries, the ‘Democrats’ are often conservatives, and the ‘Republicans’ are radical, sometimes Socialists. Hispanics are working class, and in the South, more conservative than their voting history seems to show. Maybe it’s taken time to come around.
Can I just suggest to Neo (and everyone else on here), to consider a WSJ subscription? I get full online access and the print Weekender for $8/month. I think it’s well worth it for a MSM newspaper that is a more right-leaning, and just a little more objective, than any other MSM source except Fox News (and I hate television news).
There were many WSJ articles, particularly opinion pieces, which intrigued me but were behind the pay wall. Eventually, I just gave in and subscribed. I am happy I did.
BYPASS paywalls:
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/master/README.md
I think Teixeira and Judis’s emerging majority thesis is the single most destructive political idea of the last half-century at least. Why compromise now when you expect to be able to just steamroll your adversaries in just a few years?
Minorities beginning to vote Republican is the only way I see to change the existing paradigm. This poll is good news indeed. Let’s hope it plays out in 2022 and 2024.
JimNorCal and neo – I question the continuing relevance of the “culturally Jewish” category. When we were growing up neo, intermarriage was rare and being Jewish was pretty well-defined even if you weren’t religious. Now intermarriage rates are high, I suspect over 50% for “non-religious” Jews . Does “culturally Jewish” now follow the one-drop rule? If so then does it really mean anything?
Ackler, the WSJ opinion page is indeed more conservative than most though even there, there is a fair amount of NeverTrumpism. However the news pages are as bad as the New York Times.
And may I add that many “Hispanics” not only do they not like to be called Latinx, but they don’t like “hispanic” “latino” etc. These are meaningless terms. What is a “hispanic”. Someone born in a Latin American country? Not usually. Know Spanish or Portuguese? Many, many do not. Are they genetically united—um no. The vast majority of “Hispanics” in the US are of Mexican descent-the majority of these are mixed Amerindian/European; but some are not. And there are European/Black/Japanese/Chinese descent people in Latin America. This is a label started in the Nixon years. Cubans like to be called Cubans. Venezuelans like to be called Venezuelans. People like me who were actually born in a Latin American country and even speak Spanish, we do not like these gobbledygook term foisted upon us, and that now seems to have taken a life of its own in main stream America.
@FOAF:
If it follows the one drop rule, I’ve got some bad news for you courtesy of 23andMe.
Come to think of it, I’m no stranger to shape-shifting and No True Scotsman arguments…
FOAF:
The one-drop rule apparently applies if there’s anything political to be gained from applying it.
@ Neo > “for whatever reason, this tide is turning:”
The pull seems to be economics, but I think there is also some connection with Leibowitz’s description of “The Turn” — when something finally gets your attention (economy, in this case; anti-Israel bias in his), you start looking at all the other ways the Democrats are not actually implementing your principles, despite their rhetoric.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/12/08/another-changer-heard-from/
@ Kate, quoting > “Hispanic men said Republicans had the better economic policy, by a margin of 17 points. Hispanic women, by contrast, said Democrats had better economic plans, by a 10-point margin.”
How can it be JUST the economy when there is such a huge divergence in POV between the two sexes?
Are they shopping in different stores?
OR – are the men looking at results (assuming policy = implementation), and the women only at plans (cue “The Turn” again).
Hypocrisy is hidden, and rhetoric very persuasive, when you own all the propaganda outfits.
PS: Ever notice there is no polling done using the Heinz 57 Genders division of demographics?
(I claim no originality in this observation; came from some pundit.)
Gina,
I hear the same from my Brazilian friends – lots of Brazilians in Hawaii for the surf.
Hispanic. Ha. They don’t even speak Spanish! Portuguese.
Most people—of any ethnic persuasion—don’t “do” crazy.
(Perhaps with the possible exception of those who rationalize—or justify—“crazy” by stressing “morality” or “human rights” or “the arc of history” or “the messianic age”…or “transformation. Or “PERFECTION”.)
In any event, might the following be considered the “beginning of the end” or the “end of the beginning”…?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/senate-dems-defect-help-gop-pass-bill-blocking-bidens-vaccine-mandate
In fact they’re totally repelled by it. Turned off.
+ Bonus (of the Huxleyan kind):
https://twitter.com/TeslasMuseToo/status/1468728232350420993/photo/1
H/T Ron Coleman twitter feed.
The majority of American blacks embrace victimhood as a way to get over.
Hispanics don’t.
You seem to know an awful lot of people(!)
(One should be careful with such sweeping claims—either that or be prepared to be very surprised…)
Our little retirement home is in a working class neighborhood with about 40% of the people having Spanish surnames and we all have big pickup trucks because we are Texans, I guess. My neighbors are home owners, hard working people, some still use Spanish as their primary language and others have been in Texas for multiple generations and don’t speak Spanish at all. I think they identify more as Texans than anything else and they are all over the place with their political views but family appears an important part of their lives, from babies to great grandparents. At least that’s what I see with my friends and I would not want to live anywhere else.
Regarding the WSJ:
As a resident of my community I have a library card and with that card I read the WSJ online (ask your librarian how to get to it from the library’s website, most libraries have access to tons of periodicals online) or at the library. The WSJ’s site allows non-subscribers to do the daily crossword (which I do daily) online, or print it as a pdf.
Doh.
We’re about to see the left suddenly discover the importance of controlling our southern border.
When demokrats enact any and all measures to close the open border with Mexico, that will definitively tell us that hispanics will vote Republican.
Until then, I have trouble believing that hispanics are leaving the socialist fold.
Re:Geoffrey Britain on December 8, 2021 at 7:31 pm said:
Truth is simple and old Abe Lincoln specialized in it. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Lincoln’s statement does not address the element of “time;” unfortunately “some of the time” can be a very, very long time or at least long enough to see you country basically cease to exist.
Also, in Lincoln’s day, there were no social welfare policies; everybody, one way or another, had to make their way through life without govt. freebies.
About 35% of the US population today receives some sort of govt. benefit, and many of these folks vote.
And voters oft times do not connect the problems they face on a day to day basis, with the policies of those they vote into office. This is a real problem.
Frankly, those on public relief should not be allowed to vote at all, because they will continue voting for those politician that will give them handouts, yet never propose or enact policies that will truly help them.
Those folks receiving govt. relief are not fooled at all; they know who to vote for to continue receiving their freebies.
One factor I haven’t seen mentioned so far is that Hispanics are losing sympathy for a party that puts black concerns front and center all the time, while taking Hispanics for granted. This of course only got worse with the BLM riots. A lot of those small businesses that were trashed by the rioters were owned by immigrants, many of them from Latin America.
At street level, Black-Hispanic relations are often lousy. Mexican gangs ethnically cleansed blacks out of Southern California. Last year in CA, blacks voted to revive affirmative action while Hispanics voted against it. Joe Biden hamhandedly offended the 50% Hispanic Border Patrol with his comments about them “whipping” Haitians. The list goes on. The Dems are going to have a hard time accommodating both groups as the idpol gets crazier.
When the WSJ and the “moderate” Republicans figure out, as Trump did, that working, taxpaying Hispanics do not favor open borders, and those who do will always vote for the party of bigger handouts, then they will maintain and possibly increase their share. If not, it will go back to what it was very quickly.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-turn-liel-leibovitz
Count me skeptical about an even split here, but it’s encouraging to see Hispanics are a bit more results-oriented. My favorite part of the article was this:
Does this not capture the progressive mindset toward identity groups perfectly? Hispanic men cannot possibly have their own agency and make decisions based on their own economic self-interest. No, no, the only possible explanation is that they were seduced by the Dark Lord Trump.
:eyeroll:
Starr County, in South Texas and on the border, voted 18% for Trump in 2016 and 47% for Trump in 2020. Tejanos don’t like those open borders,
Just for completeness – Powerline today (Friday) had a good post up, with some links to a Democrat pundit, and an NR response.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/how-bad-is-the-democrats-latino-voter-problem.php
Teixeira’s post.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-hispanic-voter-problem-dfc
“The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Problem
It’s Not As Bad As You Think—It’s Worse”
Dec 9
Kyle Smith’s commentary:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-emerging-democratic-minority/
And another good post by Teixeira – who seems to be a rational Democrat, in the fashion of Matt Taibbi and a few others.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-cultural-left-puts-a-ceiling
“The Cultural Left Puts a Ceiling on Democratic Support
Democrats Don’t Like to Admit It, But It’s Still True”
September 2021
As Smith said, “Here’s hoping the Democrats ignore their former demographics guru.”
@AesopFan:
Would those be registered Latino voters?
What if they just amnesty all the illegals?
(small voice)
“What’s this ‘if’?”