# Hispanic voters and the 2016 election **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 26, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970 "2015-08-26T18:17:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/81 "2015-08-30T06:05:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Even if Trump is the nominee, Latino voters aren’t going to be the ones to stop him. White and black voters still decide who wins elections in this country, white voters by swinging back and forth and black voters by turning out or not turning out. Latinos are still too concentrated in states that don’t matter in the Electoral College. And really, if you take out California and New Mexico, Latino voters don’t even vote all that Democratic. In Texas and Florida, where Latinos COULD make a difference, they don’t seem all that inclined to back Democrats in as large numbers. So much for not carrying water. As it should be clear you are trying to subtract the Hispanic vote from the Democratic column, and mentioning black voters as it was going to be to your advantage. Like if the black voter would ignore what Trump did in the past too to black renters. Again, from your cite: > [@](#): > > On the other hand, **Republicans would have to win 49 percent of the Hispanic vote to win the popular vote (with other vote shares and turnout rates being equal to 2012), but they would still lose the Electoral College, 289-249**. \*\*Republicans would have to improve to 63 percent of the Hispanic vote before they would win the Electoral College. \*\*This is, incidentally, similar to findings from FiveThirtyEight in 2013. And Hispanics made a difference in Florida and the battleground states: > **[Latino Voters in the 2012 Election](https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2012/11/07/latino-voters-in-the-2012-election/)** > > Latinos voted for President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by 71% to 27%, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center, a > [@](#): > > Latinos voted for President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by 71% to 27%, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center, a Project of the Pew Research Center.1 > > Obama’s national vote share among Hispanic voters is the highest seen by a Democratic candidate since 1996, when President Bill Clinton won 72% of the Hispanic vote. > **[Latino vote key to Obama’s re-election | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/politics/latino-vote-key-election/)** > > The sleeping giant has awoken: Latinos not only helped Obama win in key battleground states, but they made up 10% of the electorate for the first time ever. > [@](#): > > The sleeping giant has awoken: Latinos not only helped Obama win in key battleground states, but they made up 10% of the electorate for the first time ever. > > Latinos, the fastest growing minority, making up 16% of the nation’s population, made their mark on election night as they voted for President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney 71% to 27%, a lower percentage than Republican candidates have received in in the last three elections. > > … > > “If we don’t do better with Hispanics, we’ll be out of the White House forever,” said Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ana Navarro, who was the national Hispanic co-chair of McCain’s presidential campaign. > > Zuania Capó-Ramos of Puerto Rico moved to New York just in time for the 2008 elections, but she didn’t vote until this year. > > “I had just come to the U.S. and still did not quite understand how to work the election process in this country. I felt misinformed regarding the difference between political parties,” Capó-Ramos said. “Obama seemed like an excellent candidate, however, it was not until the most recent elections that I became active in American politics and issues affecting the Latino community.” > > Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of exit poll data stated that 77% of Hispanic voters said undocumented immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, while 18% said such immigrants should be deported. Among all voters, fewer than two thirds (65%) said these immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status, while 28% say they should be deported. > > “When Mitt Romney brought on **Kris Kobach** as his adviser for his campaign, that really made an impact on the Latino community,” said Leo Pierson, a campaign surrogate for the Ohio Latino Leadership Council to Re-Elect President Obama. Pierson started volunteering in March 2011 and provided guidance on Latino affairs and outreach in Ohio for the campaign. > > Latinos only make up 3% of the swing state’s population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, of which Obama received 53% of the Latino vote. > > “The GOP drove Latinos away with their anti-Latino agenda in being very vocal on ‘self-deportation’,” said Pierson. “It didn’t help that Mitt Romney said the Arizona immigration law was the model for the nation. That stuff sticks.” > > Romney said he only supported the E-verify portion of the controversial Arizona immigration law, also known as SB 1070. After he made that statement, his opponents were able to characterize his support as being for the entire law, and that alienated many Latino voters. > > However, Latino voters might have made up their minds in 2011, when Mitt Romney stated he would veto the DREAM Act, but his reluctance during the second presidential debate to provide specifics on an alternative approach on immigration reform could have sealed the deal for most Latinos. Boy, that Kris Kobac comes up like a bad penny huh? Really, when Trump goes to be joined to the hip with Arpaio the Hispanics are **not** going to be sitting around like before when Romney also approached nativists. We Hispanics will vote and our efforts and money will also be key. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/82 "2015-08-30T06:12:15Z")
Nice aspirations, but Latinos being a factor in elections is a long way off. And by then, most Latinos will be known as “white voters”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/83 "2015-08-30T06:17:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Nice aspirations, but Latinos being a factor in elections is a long way off. And by then, most Latinos will be known as “white voters”. Again, you are only willing to ignore what happened in the past presidential election: > [@](#): > > The sleeping giant has awoken: Latinos not only helped Obama win in key battleground states, but they made up 10% of the electorate for the first time ever. > [@](#): > > “If we don’t do better with Hispanics, we’ll be out of the White House forever,” **said Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ana Navarro** , who was the national Hispanic co-chair of McCain’s presidential campaign. > [@](#): > > What might have swayed Latinos to vote for Obama more than anything else? **Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida says the GOP was never able to connect with them.** > > “The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them,” Rubio said in a statement on Election Day. > > Democratic political strategist and commentator for The New Yorker Richard Socarides said on CNN’s Early Start, “You can have engagement, but if you have no solutions on immigration, people who are concerned about those issues are not going to support you.” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/84 "2015-08-30T06:25:22Z")
And again, you are continuing to ignore that even more unsavory people are coming to be a part of the campaign of Trump and he kowtows to people like Arpaio. Perhaps you are also missing something more important here: what you are saying is indeed not going to discourage Hispanics, far from it, just like before your misguided dismissals and sour grape act toward Hispanics will not help the Republicans at all. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/85 "2015-08-30T12:18:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If Trump is the nominee you’ll see a Democratic President. But if Trump isn’t the nominee, winning 65% of white votes is not out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps it’s possible, but it seems extremely unlikely to me. But we’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/86 "2015-08-30T19:25:52Z")
Heading somewhat back to the OP, I did have a question. Why does it seem as though when there is discussion about the Latino vote on the Republican side, they are eager to trot out Cuban-Americans as their street cred? I have been hearing about how Cruz or Rubio on the ticket would be a game changer, but that does not reflect the comments I see and hear in various other Latino communities, mostly because Cuban-Americans quite often self-identify as, and look, Caucasian, tend toward a higher average socioeconomic status than other Latinos, and they have a favored status in so far as immigration issues are concerned. I just don’t get it. Then again, this is also the party that brought us Michael ‘they’ve got a black guy, so we need a black guy’ Steele, so I don’t expect a nuanced view of race from them as a rule. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/87 "2015-08-30T20:02:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **adaher** : > > Gigo, while winning the popular vote is important to me, the GOP would actually need 60% or more of the Latino vote to win the electoral vote assuming all else remains the same. Why assume all else remains the same? If the Republicans want to win, they need to make multiple changes. One prospect for those changes is to win more of the Latino vote. There are routes to victory that do not involve increasing the Latino vote share, but they require making multiple other changes. If the Republicans focus on making only one change, leaving everything else the same, then they will lose, because there is no one change they can make that’s large enough. > [@](#): > > Quoth **GIGObuster** : > > Really, when Trump goes to be joined to the hip with Arpaio the Hispanics are not going to be sitting around like before when Romney also approached nativists. “Nativists” is the wrong word, here, given that the people they’re trying to exclude are more native than the ones trying to exclude them. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970/88 "2015-08-31T03:43:09Z")
I agree. Rather than winning 4% more of the white vote, we could win 10% more Latinos, 10% more African-Americans, and 1% more whites. There are many paths to victory. Plus there’s pride. If the GOP wins, they will probably have outperformed Romney across the board, which would be considered major progress. Heck it’s progress even if we fall short again, but see major improvement with minority voters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hispanic-voters-and-the-2016-election/728970.md?page=4)