ELECTIONATE NOVEMBER 15, 2012
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When the initial national exit polls showed an increase in Hispanic turnout and support for President Obama, political commentators immediately resolved that Romney's deeply conservative immigration stance doomed him. The “immigration” explanation, or perhaps excuse, quickly easily attracted bipartisan support. The argument satisfied Democrats who had long anticipated a Latino surge to inaugurate a new era of Democratic dominance in national elections. And the immigration excuse was quite convenient for Republicans of all brands, minus Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Tom Tancredo. The establishment wing of the Republican Party supported comprehensive immigration reform all along, and pinning the blame on immigration reform allowed true conservatives to avoid questioning deeply held position closer to the core of their beliefs.
Certainly, Republicans need to improve with Latino voters, and quickly. The Latino share of the electorate is poised to increase incrementally in every election for the foreseeable future, raising the GOP's burden with Hispanics each year. Romney's performance among Latino voters was abysmal, and it wasn't helped by his stance on immigration reform. But the immigration explanation for Romney's defeat isn't quite as good as it sounds. As mentioned over the last few days, the GOP also fell short of their benchmarks with rural Midwesterners, voters in well-educated and affluent suburbs, and African Americans. Hispanic voters were just one of many components of Obama’s victory, not an overriding factor. The GOP will have miscalculated the breadth of their challenge if they adopt immigration reform as their one-plank plan for recapturing the White House in 2016
The numbers illustrate the folly of relying too much on a Latino turnaround to produce a Republican victory. Obama leads the national popular vote by about 3 points, but the exit polls indicate that Hispanics represented just 10 percent of the electorate. Finding 3 points worth of gains in 10 percent of the electorate is extraordinarily challenging: for Republicans to win the popular vote by means of Hispanics alone, they’d need to gain a net-30 points among Latino voters, reducing Obama’s 44 point lead to just 14 points. While there’s nothing wrong with the GOP aiming high for 2016, it’s very difficult to imagine Democrats falling beneath 60 percent of the Hispanic vote in a competitive national race. Republicans will need to compliment improvements among Hispanics with plenty of gains among other demographic groups.
And the importance of the Hispanic vote is diminished by the Electoral College. While Hispanic voters were truly decisive in Florida, Latinos are inefficiently concentrated in non-competitive states, like Texas and California. In many battleground states, the Hispanic vote plays a vanishingly small role. Obama won New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Iowa by a larger margin than the Hispanic share of the electorate, suggesting that Obama would have won if Romney had won every Hispanic voter in those states. The exit polls suggest that Hispanics represented just 3 and 5 percent of the electorate in Virginia and Ohio, only slightly more than Obama’s 2 and 4 point margins of victory. Even in the southwestern states where the Latino vote has played a critical role in the recent fortune of Democratic candidates, Obama’s strength among non-Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada gave Democrats breathing room to withstand considerable losses among Hispanic voters.
Here’s a simple way of looking at it: if Hispanics swing 20 points in the GOP’s direction in every swing state, Obama would have won the Electoral College by a 303-235 margin. While losses among Hispanics would cost Obama his narrow win in Florida, even a net-20 point GOP gain wouldn’t swing Colorado or Nevada. Even if it did, Obama would have still won through either Virginia or Ohio.
And although “evolution” on immigration reform is probably prerequisite to any serious GOP effort to repair its support in the Hispanic community, many commentators have correctly observed that moving to the left on immigration isn’t a panacea. There are many reasons why Hispanics lean-Democratic, and it’s an open question whether concessions on immigration reform could erase the memory of a half-decade’s worth of immigration fights. It might also be significant that the state where the Latino vote figures most prominently into Republican fortunes is Florida, the state where immigration might be expected to have the least importance, since Puerto Ricans and Cubans are probably less connected to the immigration debate than Hispanics originating in Mexico or Central America.
The Republicans have a Hispanic problem. But they also have a problem with young voters, African Americans, affluent suburbs, and the rural Midwest. A winning GOP coalition in 2016 will involve gains with each of these groups, not just one. And if Republicans assume that a quick flip flop on immigration reform will produce massive gains among Hispanics, they'll probably be disappointed.
7 comments
How about the fact that Americans so dislike Republican policy proposals that the candidates were forced to lie about them and obfuscate in order to have a shot at winning the election. Is it possible that Americans on the whole do understand that their interests and the plutocratic agenda of the Republican party are not the same thing? All this discussion of how the Republican party can better pander to one or another segment of the electorate is rather nauseating, the flip side or Romney's equally nauseating claim that he lost because of "gifts" from Obama.
- roidubouloi
November 15, 2012 at 10:22am
I agree with roid and I would add that from tax policy to etch-a-sketch politics, to their predictions on the last election, to their assessment of why they lost, the Republicans have demonstrated a severe disconnect from reality.
- Nusholtz
November 15, 2012 at 3:50pm
While this is a great analysis of the Latino vote and its implications for future elections, I just don't buy the bigger argument about how the Republicans are in such horrible demographic trouble (as much as I wish that were the case). They can still be neanderthals on many social issues and top one-percenters on many economic ones and do quite well going forward. It involves moderating their immigration stance, shutting up or stomping on the occasional idiot who makes horrendous comments on rape, fielding a better candidate and running a better get-out-the vote operation. (And this all assumes that the Dems will nominate a strong candidate, run a good campaign and turn out the vote next time around, none of which are guaranteed.) I'm not saying pulling off these things in combination is easy to do, but it's far from impossible.
- Thunderroad
November 15, 2012 at 3:51pm
The GOP will be back. The Democratic machine has just passed them up in efficiency for the time being. Remember, the Republicans used to have a juggernaut of a machine, too. It wouldn't surprise me if they turned other racial groups besides whites against other groups, e.g., Asians (who are trending Democratic) against blacks or Latinos against Asians. Hey, if it can work with one race, it can work with others. I hope I haven't given them any ideas. But I bet they're already thinking along these lines. It's in their DNA.
- magboy47.
November 15, 2012 at 10:31pm
electonate is right on target, and essentially along with each of the first four comments, particularly mag's. many should expect the GOP to pander with astounding success unless others are adequately forewarned and ready for the consequences of there being rich and cunning opponents in 2014 and 2016--even more so than in 2012. the GOP will indeed be trying harder (for the same ends) in upcoming contests, and careful and sustained analyses by their opponents are required--often sooner rather than later. certainly, the GOP is more motivated because of what happened in 2012, and if their kind sense others' complacency, they will be all the more determined than some now suspect and correctly estimate them as to tactics, strategy, and: opportunities. i've noticed that some (elsewhere) seem to think that the GOP is doomed. what folly to presume such!
- cdmcl3
November 18, 2012 at 8:14am
What the author ignores is the gestalt of Obama supporters. Pictures from the two candidate's crowds spoke very loudly this election. GOP was on a broadside assault of single women and minorities, and we coalesced to fight back against the fascism of the angry white guys. For GOP to believe they can fracture and confiscate and own part of the coalition without a reaction is to believe in more magical thinking. Obama supporters knew the GOP was trying to isolate smaller subsets of voters, but the coalition held firm, and fought back as a whole against all the fascist tactics the ruling elites used to try to divide and conquer. It wasn't just women protesting the intrusions into their healthcare; it was just blacks talking about voter suppression; it wasn't just Latinos talking about immigration reform; and it wasn't just the poor talking about income inequality. Power was achieved in numbers based on striving for fairness and justice. GOP has no idea how to respond to this model since it has no one to vilify and hate.
- smabry03
November 18, 2012 at 11:01am
Great article, and I agree that a lot of the shock and need to "fix our image right now" of the GOP after the election doesn't really address deeper problems. I thought at first that it was silly to focus on immigration as an inroad to the broad "Hispanic" vote. But, I think it depends on what view the party is taking: long or short. Any Republican who imagines being a driving force in immigration reform will bring Hispanic voters to the right by 2016 is probably kidding themselves. But, if the plan is for future self-preservation, I think you have to hand it to them for finally waking up and starting to look forward. It may be less of a "this will save us now" and more of a "if we don't do this now, nothing will be able to save us later" situation. Immigration reform and pandering to new demographics may not be a cure, but it could be viewed as... I don't know, an inoculation that insures the GOP can survive long enough to find a cure.
- asdrhm
November 21, 2012 at 10:43am