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32 days until the November 5th elections. What do we know, what have we learned? Part Two

Oct 4, 2024

By Dave Andrusko

We’ve followed the movement of Hispanics out of the Democrat column for years. The shift is unmistakable and a new NBC News poll and another powerful analysis by Ruy Teixeira provide the numbers and some explanations. In a moment, we’ll dissect Teixeira’s column “The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Problem Deepens: It really is getting worse.”

First there is NBC News’s “Poll: Democrats’ advantage with Latino voters continues to shrink,” written by  Nicole Acevedo and Mark Murray.

The subhead lays it out: “Harris leads Trump nationally among Latinos, 54% to 40%, but Democrats’ edge is at its lowest level in the last four presidential cycles.”

They write of the findings of the NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC survey that

While Harris’ 14-point advantage is an improvement from President Joe Biden’s standing when he was at the top of the ticket, it is still lower than the past leads Democratic presidential candidates enjoyed in 2012 (by 39 points), 2016 (50 points) and 2020 (36 points), according to NBC’s merged polling data from those past cycles.

What is Acevedo’s and Murray’s explanation?

Driving the declining support for Democrats in the presidential contest are defections from Latino men, particularly those without college degrees and those under the age of 50, the poll shows. But solid Democratic support from Hispanic women, or Latinas, has helped offset some of that erosion.

How about which party Hispanic’s want to be in charge of Congress?

In the battle for control of Congress, Democrats hold a double-digit lead in congressional preference — but it’s down from past election cycles.

 

In this poll, 54% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-  controlled Congress, versus 42% who want Republicans in charge.

But look at the pattern:

That 12-point lead represents a steady decline from September 2012 (when the Democrats’ advantage was 45 points), September 2016 (when it was 34 points), October 2020 (26 points) and September 2022 before that midterm election (21 points).

In the interest of time, we’ll look at just two of 13 data points Ruy Teixeira examines to judge “whether the rightward drift of Hispanics is continuing” before jumping to his conclusion.

4. A strong working-class Hispanic shift is consistent  with detailed precinct-level analysis of the 2020 vote in Hispanic (and Asian) neighborhoods released by The New York Times in December of 2020. And a just-released analysis of precinct voting in Philadelphia by The Philadelphia Inquirer shows a stunning 75 percent net increase in the vote for Trump in working- class Hispanic precincts between 2016 and 2020.

 

5. The latest data indicate that the Democratic margin among Hispanics is continuing to fall this cycle. Cook Political Report maintains a database of crosstabs from high quality surveys and finds the average margin for Harris among Hispanics to be around 12 points. That’s an 11-point drop from Biden’s 23-point margin among Hispanics in 2020 (which in turn was a 16-point drop from Clinton’s advantage in 2016).

Teixeira’s conclusion?

The times they are a-changin’! While we are still far   away from Democrats losing majority support among Hispanics, the signs of a continuing rightward shift among these voters are unmistakable. Combined with general deterioration among working-class voters of all races, it appears Democrats, win or lose in this election, are in urgent need of a new theory of the case for growing their coalition.

More on Monday. Have a great weekend.

Categories: Politics