Handicap Super TuesdayFollow

Significantly? No. Not without some actual evidence.

In the past four years, the amount of Hispanics who identify as Republicans has dropped by half. The amount identifying as Democrats has grown. No, I don't think the Democratic candidate will have a significant impact in CA. Sorry.Well, as long as you're "pretty sure".

Edited, Feb 6th 2008 10:32pm by Jophiel

What part of 2-1 and up to 4-1 depending on age range did you not get out of the table I posted? That was straight out of the California Democratic primary exit polls. I didn't make up those numbers. The best age category had Clinton getting 62% to 37% Joph. That's the best ratio Obama gets in California among Latinos.

How can you interpret those numbers in any way other then to say that Clinton is "significantly more popular" then Obama?

See. Cause if 50% of Latinos voted for Obama, and 50% for Clinton, we'd say that they were "equally popular", right? So if one candidate gets more, we can say that they are "more popular". And when one gets twice as many, we can say that candidate is "significantly more popular".

What would constitute sufficient evidence for this Joph?



Got a source for that? And is that measuring actual party membership, voting, exit polls, or an otherwise unconnected survey? Was this poll taken right in the middle of the Immigration fight last year (when "identifying as a Republican" would often be equated with "opposing immigration")?


Sounds more like wishful thinking then anything else.





Sure. You keep thinking that. Obama is much more beatable then Clinton, especially by McCain. Clinton could possibly have pulled the moderate votes from a Republican, especially if the Republican had been one of the more "far right" candidates. Obama against McCain? You're seriously overestimating the amount of radical left wing people in this country if you think that's a good match up.

Kind of late to clarify, but CA voters who are officially independent {unaffiliated/undeclared) could only obtain a democratic ballot in this primary. The GOP didn't give us the option to vote for one of their guys. So that % of GOP "declared" voters didn't go up at all as far as raw ballot numbers, while the % of Dem ballots rose by the majority of the undeclared numbers. Minus whoever decided to just vote for our local and state measures and not for the Dem primary.

I hardly see CA going red in the general either though!

You're comparing a mid-term election to a presidential race. Totally different things. Mid-terms are purely about local politics (you're just electing someone to represent your district and/or state). Voters are going to tend to vote their own local interests, and that pretty much always favors Democrats since their politics and methodology is designed specifically to cater to that. So a large majority of latinos in this district preferred the Dem running in that district.

That does not translate to a single candidate's appeal nationwide, even with the same ethnic voting block. Unless you're assuming that Latinos in San Diego hold *exactly* the same political views as Latinos in say Chicago, or New York, or Miami...




What? Obama wanted to give drivers licenses to Hispanic voters? Lol...

Illegal immigrants (presumably) don't get to vote Joph. And I think it's silly to assume that legal immigrants (Hispanics/Latinos in this case) magically support a candidate because he wants to provide benefits to those who didn't go through the same process they did. Some of the most outspoken critics of that sort of "open borders" approach around here are Latino groups. Specifically because they see themselves as the group that most has to compete for jobs with illegal immigrants and that they tend to get lumped into the same group (by people like you apparently), when they want to be treated as normal legal citizens just like every other citizen.

McCain's position on immigration, while not sitting well with the "law and order" Republicans, does resonate very strongly with many Latinos in the states along the Mexican border (like California).


Hah. And you missed one quote from that article:



I'll also point out that those were nationwide polls. Narrow it down to California and I think you'll find he does even better. I seriously would not count out the possibility of CA going red this year. With the exception of a few radical districts in the Bay area, most Californians are extremely moderate. The rhetoric from the far right or far left simply doesn't move us. Clinton is seen as the moderate Dem candidate, with Obama being the radical. On the other side, McCain is seen as the moderate Republican candidate.

Obama would almost have to completely change his style and message to do really well in California. Of course, he's got a numerical advantage starting out, so he can do just "ok" and still win. But I think he'll have a lot more trouble here then you think.

Um... Ok. How about the fact that in the last couple decades, the rates of Latinos voting for Republican presidents has increased dramatically. It's no longer a valid assumption to put all Latinos in the "minority that'll automatically vote Dem" category.

It's apples to apples Joph. We're talking about Latino votes for a president. Not how they vote in districts for their representative. And in the area that's relevant to this discussion, the pattern has been rising support for Republican presidents nationwide.



Yes. They are. But McCain is specifically viewed as being the guy who was pushing for immigration reform that Latinos agreed with, not the other way around. So that factor will help him, not hurt him.



I couldn't find any polls either, but how about this article?

Note, that this was written *before* McCain's big win on Super Tuesday. Particularly telling is this bit:



But it's just my own silly notions, right?



Except for Latinos in California, right?

*Shrug*

Honestly, I'd try to find more information but I'm not up for more "OMG that article predicting future reslts is SPECULATIVE!" and "LOL That poll is wrong because it didn't agree with me!"

Fine. Whatever. We'll see come November. If Obama is the nominee, we can put money on it, okay?

Lol. Typical response from a segment of the population that simply assumes "minority" == "votes as a block for Dems".

In 2004, Bush got over 40% of the Latino votes nationwide. That was up from 2000, which was also up from any previous Republican president.

It's an upward trend. Certainly, the specific position of a candidate on immigration will affect this in any given election, but that favors McCain in a McCain vs Obama contest. And that's because McCain is overwhelmingly seen by Latinos as someone who tried to pass "reasonable" immigration reform (guest worker programs, path to citizenship, etc), while Obama isn't know specifically for any position on the issue.


I did find an article talking about polls from Tuesday (still can't find the actual polling data though, which is always annoying). This bit is significant:



What it's basically saying is that Republican Latinos held basically the same positions on immigration issues in the same ratios as Republican voters as a whole. Yes. This is among Republican Latinos, but it's telling since it effectively debunks the idea that Latinos only vote Republican in spite of positions on immigration.

Probably none. There are Hispanics here who are 100% legal, and have no illegal relatives.

Nice job of attributing an intent to me that wasn't there in the first place.

Besides, why would the illegals be voting for the Republicans anyway?

Actually, the only racial stereotype I have of Latinos is that they hate blacks, and that's based more off of things I've heard about Southern California more than anything.

The question was intended more as a "...um, okay, how much of the Latino Republican base is illegals, as compared to, say, the Latino population of California in general?" though I see how it comes across as me being an *** instead.

It's funny that this conversation started because the majority of Cubans are in fact, Republican. Not all "Latino immigrants" have the same political ideas and will not all vote for the same person. And, as we all know, there are many Cubans who are here illegally, as well as many, many Cubans and their descendants who came here legally in the 50's, 60's, and beyond. Republicans have been viewed by Cubans as "tougher" on matters having to do with Castro, and, not only that, there's a vast majority of Cubans who are quite affluent, and Republican fiscal ideals suit their political tastes more. Many of them may even have illegal relatives, friends, maids too. (I'm not being snide about the "maid" part, in our culture only the most destitute people don't have a maid...even some maids have maids...it's very common even in middle-class).

That said, I was born in the US; however, my mother was born in Cuba, came here legally, and is quite liberal and always has been. However, we both can't help but shake our heads as all this hubbub about "THE LATINO VOTE" as if we were some clot of homogeneous people that all think alike. Mexicans =/= Cubans=/= Colombians=/= Puerto Ricans etc. and thus we have varying political agendas. As an example, my father is Puerto Rican and is a raging right-wing Bush supporter, as is his entire family. And, thinking on it, my mother's side of the family is very split between being left, right, and somewhere in the middle.

I didn't mean to get on a tangent, and this is not really directed at anyone but a general vent; but as a Latina is starts to grate a while hearing nothing but comments of the "impact of the Latino vote" and these assumptions about "what the Latinos want" when it is, in fact, a lot more divided than that depending on where you're from, what you do, etc. You know, just like any other ethnicity/race.

Edited, Feb 8th 2008 5:49pm by Alixana