From Gallup:
On the Democratic side, only Hillary Clinton is a familiar figure to a substantial segment of U.S. Hispanics. As a result, she is the only one with a sizable net favorable score. Three-quarters of Hispanics have an opinion of Clinton. With 58% viewing her favorably and 18% unfavorably, she has a net +40 favorable score. This is remarkably similar to Clinton’s image among Hispanics in advance of the 2008 presidential primaries, in June 2007, when 63% viewed her favorably and 20% unfavorably.
Bernie Sanders is the next-most-recognized Democrat, known to 25% of Hispanics. Nearly as many view Sanders unfavorably as favorably, giving him a +5 net favorable score. The other Democrats — Jim Webb, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee — are each known to only 14% of Hispanics and, as a result, have even lower net favorable scores, ranging from +2 to -2.
I wonder where these numbers come from. My understanding is that O’Malley had a good record on immigration issues, but my guess is that this is linked to disapproval for his policing record, even though it’s policing largely directed at blacks.
Affirmative action skeptic and CSA defender Webb is also doing better than I expected. Sanders has a lot of work to do if he wants to have a hope of winning in Nevada, and obviously the Clintons have a substantial groundswell of support in this key demographic. Favorability vs. Republicans would be an interesting dataset to explore in the future.
From Univision:
But Republicans are AWESOME at making themselves toxic to these folks, which makes it a much more cohesive bloc than it ought to be.
There is a growing ‘faith and family left’ that is conservative on moral questions and liberal on economic ones, and many Hispanic and latino voters are in that mix.
Using the same Pew survey as a source.
This ignores the broader issue that (in the context of Democrat-on-Democrat elections) a majority of neither group likes progressives. This is cultural and structural; and operates independent of ideology.
Case in point, the Chicago Mayoral election this past spring.
Limited to the Democratic Presidential nomination dynamic, Clinton has a lock on the black and Latino vote, because the Saunders people (at present) haven’t the slightest clue about how do do outreach to these groups (and their constituent parts).
The irony is that it is not Saunders as an individual who repels these voters, but the institutional culture of his campaign.
Which proved fatal to his efforts to become Mayor. Washington got the lakefront liberal whites, all blacks, and a majority of the Hispanics on his side. The lakefront liberals and blacks voted against the second Daley, but blacks always opposed him. And the reverse happened with Chuy, who carried Hispanics but by a thin majority and lost the other groups decisively.
Sanders has hired a savvy BLM activist as his communications director and has been picking up endorsements from African American activists, but I would agree the candidate needs to ‘feel the pain’ and the ‘speak the language’ in a more direct and less academic way. It’ll be uphill.
We’ll start with the fact that Sanders’ press secretary comes from Public Citizen (which is conspicuous by its absence in black politics, and has no grassroots credibility whatsoever), one of whose tasks is to shut down any disruptions from Black Lives Matter. Insofar as the latter is concerned, the Sanders campaign is entitled to deal with potential disruption; but it’s amusing to see the presumed affiliation, given the reason for her employment.
Nor do endorsements from activists give Sanders a net benefit, because few of them have credibility on ground, and fewer have any real-world organizing skills – social media in isolation does not win elections; you can’t tweet your way to heaven. This lack of on-the-ground connections between Sanders’ black activist supporters and the black (and Latino) base is illustrated by his lack of name recognition in those communities.
Going after Sanders, both at Netroots and in Seattle, worked for BLM because Sanders’ supporters played into the traditional black perception that white progressives are intrinsically racist. That does not mean that BLM has a constituency in the electoral sense of the word, which is why the BLM meeting with Clinton worked to her advantage with black voters (who by and large agreed with her side of the argument).
I cited the Chicago election because it was one in an ongoing series of case studies that illustrate how progressive organizing recruits for its opposition. The main problem with the Garcia campaign (according to Chicago operatives with whom I spoke) was that his “progressive” allies really pissed off the locals by presuming support rather than asking for it.
And this brings us to the irony of the whole thing: as a Walter Reuther-style social democrat, Sanders has the potential as a candidate to obtain black and Latino support, but that potential is undercut by his campaign’s institutional culture.
I completely agree, on both counts, and it’s something Garcia supporters I know mentioned. It’s why Karen Lewis would’ve been better since she has the entire CTU and most CPS families behind her, and likely would’ve been able to talk with rather than talk down to black activists. I think Sanders was guilty of talking down at Netroots, I think he is trying to talk to with mixed success. And it will take not just recruiting black staffers but actually dialogues with BLM to form solutions. Their platforms on racial justice are awfully similar, and both are stronger than what Hillary has put out so far.
BLM activists who met with Clinton were vocal about how mistreated they felt, though having watched the encounter myself, I honestly think Hillary showed her true self in a good way-there’s the wonk I’ve been wanting on the campaign trail.
By interrupting him during his stump speech phase at Netroots, BLM gave Sanders the high ground. He and his supporters blew it by citing the March on Washington, which those same supporters compounded by suggesting that black people should be grateful for a Sanders candidacy.
That basically created the dynamic wherein Sanders’ campaign framed itself as a Clinton outreach mechanism insofar as the back electorate is concerned, and the actions of the campaign since then have nothing but reinforce the frame.
Frankly, I’m inclined to blame the campaign more than the candidate in this matter. Sanders’ response in isolation would have worked to his advantage (the protesters could have waited for the Q&A after the speech, and Sanders being pissed-off at the interruption would have been understandable), but the sheer barrage of white progressive entitlement that followed was the kiss of death, from which his campaign may not recover.
That said, Sanders doesn’t need outreach to black activists; he needs credible black operatives, given the activists’ liabilities cited above.
Given the purposeful lack of organization of BLM nationally, I’ll restrict the following to its Boston chapter: When BLM staged their protest in front of Marty Walsh’s home at four a.m. without checking whether the Mayor was in town (he wasn’t, and that fact was common knowledge), they established a reputation for infantilism within Boston’s black community that remains to this day.
(Apropos of nothing, the protest was in opposition to the proposed 2024 Boston Olympics, and Boston’s black and Latino communities were the only racial demographics a majority of whom supported the Games.)
Hispanics? Really? Come on, Gallup. Does anyone know if they are just using the less-favored term, or are they really polling people of Latin American descent, including from Spain, but excluding Brazil?
Also, in the same poll, Trump’s approval rating is -51. LOL.
Presumably they’re asking people if they’re of Hispanic descent when thy call them, rather than trying to second guess voters self identification.
…but the relevant populations do not as a rule care.
Having said that, most competent pollsters phrase questions of self-identity in such a way as to not get caught up in semantic issues at the expense of getting relevant responses.
Links to the issue can be found here, here, and here.
for Democrats to move forward with their progressive agenda especially in light of the emerging anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist Trumpian bigotry.
This racist puke strategic blunder presents us with an advantageous opening we would be foolish not to exploit.
Secretary Clinton’s historic strength in the Hispanic community, especially when contrasted with her opponents historic weakness, should not be underestimated if we are serious about winning in November.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
And it’s making all of the Republicans, including Jeb, say stupid things on Latino issues and immigration reform. ‘Anchor babies’ could well be the ‘self deportation’ of 2016.
the farther right they go in the primary — the more impossible it will be for them to tack to the center sweet spot in the general. And that is how we win; by capturing the vast, powerful independent voter who is turned off by their crazy 14th Amendment citizen nullification, big government, bureaucratic nightmare, trillion dollar mass deportation madness of 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Let’s not forget that Iowa and New Hampshire are both ridiculously white (us still using these as our first screen of candidates is an issue of its own, but a topic for another time).
While the support of Latino voters is hugely important for later primary states, and then of course the general election, it’s possible for Bernie to do really well in these first two primaries and use that to increase his recognition and support among Latinos. As the post says, it’s not that Latinos dislike Bernie, it’s just that they don’t know about him. If he places first, or even a strong second, to Clinton in the early primaries, he’ll get far more media attention and that should help him close the gap.