On the eve of the mid-term elections, the Democrats were worried about the impending defeat that the election would bring—and with good reason. The mania that had surrounded President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party only two years ago was now long forgotten. Mr. Obama’s silver tongue had clearly rusted and the president that had once been so popular had now become a burden to many of his party’s candidates.
Many of the demographic groups that had eagerly supported the Democrats in 2008 had tuned out for the 2010 elections. Young voters—left disillusioned and largely unemployed by two years of total Democrat control—had turned away from Mr. Obama. They were not won over by even an appearance on The Daily Show, let alone the chance to stay on their parents‘ health insurance plan until the age of 26.
Hispanics, too, appeared to have lost a degree of their enthusiasm for the Democrats. Preliminary data from the Pew Hispanic Center collected in September showed that while registered Hispanic voters still overwhelmingly preferred Democrats to Republicans 65 percent compared to 22 percent, only 51 percent responded in the survey as saying they were “absolutely certain” that they would vote on election day. Compared to the general voting public, which had 70 percent responding that they were “absolutely certain” about voting, Hispanics seemed less interested in the outcome of the election.
The Democratic Party was desperate to rebuild their diminished voter base and jumped into action. Much of their efforts were directed at exciting Hispanics, which compose roughly 10 percent of U.S. voters. In the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised a vote on the controversial DREAM Act in the lame duck session after the election. The DREAM Act is a bipartisan legislation that would pave the path citizenship for illegal immigrants who complete a college degree or two years of military service.
In California, infamous lawyer Gloria Allred arrived on cue for her pre-election spectacle with a cooked up “scandal” regarding California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s former maid who is an illegal immigrant. Many pundits on the left had been calling as much attention as possible to the supposedly “anti-Latino” policies of Tea Party-backed candidates. And from the White House, Mr. Obama urged Hispanics to “punish their enemies” in the GOP by voting Democrat.
These strategies of identity politics helped reduce the losses suffered by The Democratic Party in the November elections. Across the nation—with the exception of Florida—Hispanics supported Democratic candidate by nearly a two-to-one margin 64 percent to 34 percent. This preference for Democrats played a vital role in a number of elections across the country.
In Nevada, the Hispanic vote played a key role in the re-election of Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, over challenger Sharron Angle. Hispanics, which as of 2008 composed 26 percent of Nevada’s population, supported Mr. Reid over Ms. Angle 68 percent to 30 percent. In a race that was won by roughly 41,000 votes, the strong support of such a large segment of the state’s population may well have been the reason Mr. Reid’s political career remains alive. In the Nevada gubernatorial race, Brian Sandoval became the state’s first Hispanic governor without the support of Hispanic voters; only 33 percent of which backed him as opposed to the 64 percent that voted for Rory Reid. This shows that race plays a very limited role in determining the level of support from the Hispanic community.
Another state of interest is Arizona, which earlier this year became the epicenter of controversy about immigration reform. In the gubernatorial election the incumbent, Governor Jan Brewer was unsurprisingly one of the least popular candidates in the nation with Hispanics. Exit polls indicated that Brewer received only 28 percent of the Hispanic vote. Alternatively, in the senate elections, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain who is known for more friendly stances towards amnesty and immigration, received 40 percent of the votes cast by Hispanics.
In California, home of the largest Hispanic population in the country, the Democrats in both the Senate and governor’s elections were the beneficiaries of strong support from Hispanic voters. Hispanics voted for Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman 64 percent to 30 percent and supported the incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer to Republican challenger Carly Fiorina 65 percent to 28 percent. The support for both candidates strongly reinforced their victories.
The exception to the rule of Hispanics supporting Democrats was Florida which saw the election of Marco Rubio to Senate and Rick Scott as governor. Mr. Rubio, a Tea Party backed Republican of Hispanic background had the support of an estimated 55 percent of the state’s Hispanic voters. It is notable that Rubio’s ethnicity probably did not play too significant a role in determining this relatively high level of support; Florida’s Hispanic community is well known to lean to the right primarily due to the state’s large Cuban-American community. For this reason, the support among Hispanics for the Republican candidate for the Florida governor’s race, Rick Scott, was similarly high at 50 percent. It must also be noted that a poll done by Latino Decisions found that the majority of Florida’s non-Cuban Hispanics voted Democrat.
In addition to the election of Marco Rubio in Florida and Brian Saldovan in Nevada, the State of New Mexico saw the election of Susana Martinez to Governor—a third Hispanic candidate to be elected to a state-wide office on the Republican ticket—without much support from Hispanic voters.
The trend of Hispanic voters leaning heavily toward the Democrats has continued unabated. Even though Republicans demonstrated that they can still pull off huge victories without the support of Hispanics, the overall trend is still disturbing. The best way for the Republican Party to win over Hispanic voters is to prove to them over the next few years, that the policies of economic freedom and limited government best serve everyone, including Hispanics.
-Reid Bushell is a research assistant at the Edmund Burke Institute.
