# Trump Did Better Than Romney With Minorities. WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 11, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477 "2016-11-11T07:32:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/1 "2016-11-11T07:32:40Z")
Anyone want to take a stab at explaining this one? I am completely at a loss. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/2 "2016-11-11T07:44:19Z")
WAG: Lots of Blacks voted for Obama cause he is, you know… He picked up more Hispanic votes in Florida (almost 40%, compared to an average of between 10-15% elsewhere), I wonder if Obama’s Cuba policy had something to do with it Quite a few Hispanics are…white and he did very well in white voters. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/3 "2016-11-11T07:54:24Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > WAG: > Lots of Blacks voted for Obama cause he is, you know… > He picked up more Hispanic votes in Florida (almost 40%, compared to an average of between 10-15% elsewhere), I wonder if Obama’s Cuba policy had something to do with it > Quite a few Hispanics are…white and he did very well in white voters. I’m seeing conflicting reports on the latino vote > **[Trump inspired record Latino opposition. It just wasn’t enough.](https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/10/13586956/latino-turnout-exit-poll-clinton-trump)** > > Clinton drew a record share of the Latino vote, and Latino turnout was huge. So who knows what he actually got. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/4 "2016-11-11T07:59:27Z")
My WAG? The Hispanics that vote are citizens already. They don’t want illegals taking their jobs any more than than Bubba J or Walter or Achmed do. Also as said b4, Obama got more Black votes because of his ancestors. Hillary didn’t have that going for her. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/5 "2016-11-11T08:12:20Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I’m seeing conflicting reports on the latino vote > > [Don’t believe those exit polls saying 25 percent of Latinos voted for Trump | Vox](http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/10/13586956/latino-turnout-exit-poll-clinton-trump) > > So who knows what he actually got. Well, I find it hard to believe, too, but…the linked article states that exit polls are bad and favor Republicans, but in both this election and 2004, the exit polls had the Democrats doing much better than they actually did, so I’m dubious. But even if the article is right, he got 20% of the Latino vote and came CLOSE to outperforming Romney. The black Democratic vote plummeting from 93% all the way to 88% I can see, but how does Donald Trump get one out of every five Latinos to vote for him?! He was much more overtly racist against Latinos than against Blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/6 "2016-11-11T08:48:05Z")
First you need to understand that the percentages are [not things that exist in some ideal vacuum](http://dr35ey0x3otoq.cloudfront.net/uploads/default/original/3X/8/8/880553df9a2d08301375064b2708fecb7950f614.png), and understand the level of the voting in your country collapsed. Since the level of votes that Trump got is worse than Romney, the percentage is not against a similar number but a small set. So you first have to understand the composition of the data rather than make the naive comparison between percentages that are not comparable. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/7 "2016-11-11T09:13:53Z")
The level of voting declined slightly, but it certainly did not “collapse”. Trump got about 60 million votes to Romney’s 61 (I’m using final BBC numbers; your linked graph appears to short both of this year’s candidates about a million votes). These are very highly comparable numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/8 "2016-11-11T09:41:05Z")
The overall voting did indeed collapse. And even on the Republican side was low. For the small increase Trump shows you only need that those non white minorities who are hard core in their support of the Republican to turn out in a normal way, as the overall percentage of the minorities was down. The percentage is only a meaningful if you understand the respective ratios, you are otherwise comparing the oranges to the pears. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/9 "2016-11-11T09:52:25Z")
My theory is that Obama performed better among minority voters than a generic white Democrat would. This year’s election, featuring Hillary, was just regression to the mean/average. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/10 "2016-11-11T15:48:49Z")
> [@PoppaSan](#): > > My WAG? The Hispanics that vote are citizens already. They don’t want illegals taking their jobs any more than than Bubba J or Walter or Achmed do. Also as said b4, Obama got more Black votes because of his ancestors. Hillary didn’t have that going for her. This is the explanation I heard by the conservative talking heads on TV. Latino doesn’t mean Mexican. Citizens with Puerto Rican or Cuban heritage might consider stricter limitations on illegal immigration a good thing. I think the point above about Florida is a good one, too. Look at Texas, Trump only won by I think 8 points. That’s pretty darn low for a GOP candidate. Maybe the Latino vote in Texas went completely opposite from the Latino vote in Florida. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/11 "2016-11-12T04:47:26Z")
There’s a misconception among Democrats that young people and minorities are unreliable voters. This is not actually true: DEMOCRATIC young people and minorities are unreliable voters. The reason Trump did better than Romney among minorities is because minority turnout was lower. The Republican minorities came out like they always do and the Democratic minorities stayed home or voted third party. One of the interesting things about Gary Johnson’s showing is that he did just as well or better among minority voters as among white voters. 3% is obviously far less than he should have gotten, but it shows that potentially there’s no reason a small government message can’t work equally well with minority voters as white, as long as you show them respect. But anyway, Clinton lost enough minority voters to Johnson to decide the election. And that’s why I’m seeing a lot of black celebrities on Facebook ranting about third party voters. ---
**Author:** ![Crisstti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Crisstti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crisstti)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/12 "2016-11-12T05:12:02Z")
Politicians’ demands that people vote for them to stop this or that candidate is nothing but blackmail imo. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/13 "2016-11-12T05:40:46Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > The overall voting did indeed collapse. > > And even on the Republican side was low. > > For the small increase Trump shows you only need that those non white minorities who are hard core in their support of the Republican to turn out in a normal way, as the overall percentage of the minorities was down. > > The percentage is only a meaningful if you understand the respective ratios, you are otherwise comparing the oranges to the pears. So true. Much of the commentary about this election is a case study in the innumeracy of the commentariat, many of whom really need to be trained on how to interpret numbers. Just simple stuff like percentages and ratios. Or else maybe they should leave the interpretation to 538 and Upshot. The bottom line about this election is that Trump didn’t really win it, Hillary lost it. Trump changed the Republican coalition but didn’t expand it while Hillary lost voters in the upper-Midwest who have been voting for Democrats for 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/14 "2016-11-12T05:51:13Z")
I don’t think Trump won, per se, but I also think Trump himself was part of the problem. A candidate with Trump’s focus on the white working class but who doesn’t turn off college educated voters would probably see an expanded coalition. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/15 "2016-11-12T15:30:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One of the interesting things about Gary Johnson’s showing is that he did just as well or better among minority voters as among white voters. 3% is obviously far less than he should have gotten, but it shows that potentially there’s no reason a small government message can’t work equally well with minority voters as white, as long as you show them respect. But anyway, Clinton lost enough minority voters to Johnson to decide the election. Really? That is very interesting to me, do you have any links? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/16 "2016-11-12T15:58:11Z")
Trump did poorly among Hispanics. Just not AS poorly as many assumed he would. Why not? A few possible reasons: 1. Hispanics are pretty apathetic to begin with, and rarely vote in large numbers. Even TRUMP didn’t scare them enough to vote. 2. Hispanics born in the USA have no special love for foreigners coming here looking to take their jobs. 3. Many Hispanics are drawn to “strongmen,” which is why real, enduring democracy is rare in Latin America. Some liked Trump’s comical machismo. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/17 "2016-11-12T16:26:29Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > 1. Hispanics are pretty apathetic to begin with > > … > > 1. Many Hispanics are drawn to “strongmen,” And people say _Trump supporters_ are racist… ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/18 "2016-11-12T16:54:39Z")
> [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](#): > > And people say _Trump supporters_ are racist… Hispanic voters do have a poor turnout rate though. Usually 15-20% lower than non-hispanic whites. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/19 "2016-11-13T00:56:59Z")
> [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](#): > > And people say _Trump supporters_ are racist… Pssst… I didn’t vote for Trump. I’ve considered him a repulsive sphincter for decades, and I voted for Evan McMullin. Now it’s your turn. Explain what I said that was incorrect. The Hispanic vote has been a sleeping giant for years, and as of 2016, it’s still snoozing. Texas COULD be a purple or even blue state if Hispanic voters weren’t apathetic. But they ARE apathetic. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477/20 "2016-11-13T04:01:34Z")
> **[Political News, Analysis and Opinion | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/politics)** > > Politics at CNN has news, opinion and analysis of American and global politics Find news and video about elections, the White House, the U.N and much more. Johnson got 5% of the white vote, 4% of the black vote, 6% of Latinos and Asians, and 7% of those who identified as other. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-did-better-than-romney-with-minorities-wtf/771477.md?page=2)