Latinos: Base or Swing?
Michael Blood of the Associated Press reports on Republican hopes for Latino voters in 2008 even despite the Republican Party’s spectacular mishandling of the immigration issue. I’m quoted in the article:
Democratic pollster Andre Pineda, who is advising New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign, conducted research after the November 2006 elections that identified a generational shift in Hispanic voter patterns.
Pineda said Hispanic immigrants who become citizens and register to vote become Democrats in nearly 70 percent of the cases, with Republican registration at 18 percent. In the next generation, Democratic registration drops to 56 percent and GOP registration increases to 25 percent. By the third U.S.-born generation, Democratic and Republican registration among Hispanics is nearly equal.
While newer arrivals to the United States feel more strongly about immigration issues, subsequent generations share the concerns of Main Street America — the war, taxes, education, crime, he said.
“We need to … make our case on those issues, otherwise we are going to lose them,” Pineda said.
Many Democrats think of Latinos as base voters. I think that’s too simplistic. Especially in California, Latino voters who have come to the country recently are base voters - ripe for turnout efforts. But Latino voters who have been here for many generations are swing voters and therefore key targets for persuasion.
My poll of Latinos voters in California that was quoted by Blood suggests that Democrats need to do a much better job of holding on to Latinos through the generations. Democrats who get all excited about Democratic performance with Latino voters in 2006 or recent national poll numbers regarding party ID are missing a key point:
Nobody thinks the Republicans are going to win a majority of Latino voters in 2008. But if Republicans carve out enough Latino votes, they can win states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Those states may very well decide the presidency.
