A relatively recent Fox News Latino poll showed President Obama leading Mitt Romney among Latinos by a 5:1 ratio. The actual results were 70% for Obama and 14% for Romney. By way of comparison, the national exit polls from 2008 showed Obama leading McCain 67%-31%. Let’s attempt to see what this change could mean by looking at Colorado.
McCain did better among Latinos in Colorado (61%-37%) than he did nationally. By my calculations, 2,273,805 Coloradans cast a vote in 2008, and 295,595 (13%) of them were Latino. If Obama won 61% of their votes, then he beat McCain 180,312-115,283 with the Latino vote. In other words, he netted votes roughly 65,000 votes strictly through his advantage with Latinos. Considering that he won the state by 215,000 votes, his advantage with Latinos wasn’t decisive, but it certainly added some cushion.
Now, let’s try to plug these new poll numbers in and see what we get. With a 70%-14% advantage, there is 16% undecided or planning to vote for a third party. In 2008, only 1% of Latinos voted third party. So, to be fair, let’s split the undecideds between Obama and Romney, giving each 7.5% of them and leaving one percent unallocated. This means that Obama will get 77.5% of the Latino vote compared to 21.5% for Romney. Assuming nothing else changes, including the overall turnout or the percentage of the electorate that is Latino, here are the new numbers.
Total vote: 2,273,805
Total Latino vote: 295,595
Votes for Obama: 229,086
Votes for Romney: 63,553
Net difference: 165,533
Net increase from 2008: +100,000 for Obama
Obama would go from netting 65,000 votes in 2008 to netting 165,000 votes in 2012. And, remember, he only won the state by 215,000 votes in 2008.
This is just one example. And it’s not an overly optimistic example because while Romney can hope to improve his numbers with Latinos, Obama can also expect a higher percentage of the Colorado electorate to be Latino.
I don’t have the exit poll numbers I need to check other relevant states, but McCain only won his home state of Arizona by 195,000 votes. A comparable drop-off in Latino votes would doom Romney in Arizona. Likewise in Missouri, which McCain won by less than 4,000 votes. Even a state like Texas, which McCain won by nearly a million votes, begins to look quite purple if Obama is approaching 80% with the Latino vote. As for states that Obama won, like Nevada and New Mexico, these kinds of results will put those states far out of reach.
No wonder Romney wants an Etch a Sketch.
I hope this meme dies by April, because I’m not sure I’m up to hearing it 97 million more times until November.
Personally, I want Mitt to use the etch-a-sketch once he finally gets rid of his little Santorum problem. I don’t want to see a presidential contest where a candidate feels forced to smear and harass Hispanic people and threaten women with forced, traumatic vaginal probing and deny them access to health services. That’s humiliating for the nation.
Mitt Romney doesn’t have any particular animus towards Hispanics or GLBT or women or whatever. At least, not any more so than any other out-of-touch, 65 year old, white dude. His personal agenda is to break the backs of unions, deregulate corporations, cut taxes for the wealthy, and massively redistribute wealth upwards. That should be enough to hate him. That should be enough to crush him in November.
The fanaticist, “religious” psychopaths who have turned this country into a laughingstock had their fun with their little pretend efforts to have a say into who should be president of this country. Their just reward should be seeing their party nominate someone from outside their fucked up tribe, without their consent, who then turns on them and their sicko beliefs in a microsecond.
In a best of all worlds scenario, every person with some semblance of a conscience and a soul would abandon the Republican Party in droves. Every week another lifelong elected official would gather the cameras to announce that “Those people do not represent me, or the best this country has to offer, and as a result, I can no longer represent them in office. They can go to hell.” But the Party isn’t brave enough to purge its most wicked membership. They’re greedy. They love their tax cuts too much, and refuse to give them up so that Democrats can help poor people get proper healthcare and education (the crime!).
As much fun as it might seem in the abstract to see the GOP base get its due with Santorum, in a country where statehouses as we speak are committing untold horrors against their constituents, I’m glad the system has conspired to produce Romney as the candidate. And I hope he does spend his summer trying to talk to the Hispanic community as actual human beings, and not castigate them as criminal freaks who need to be deported back to Mexico.
And I hope he does spend his summer trying to talk to the Hispanic community as actual human beings, and not castigate them as criminal freaks who need to be deported back to Mexico.
And they should believe that Mittens is sincere, why? Mittens isn’t his father.
I don’t want to see a presidential contest where a candidate feels forced to smear and harass Hispanic people and threaten women with forced, traumatic vaginal probing and deny them access to health services. That’s humiliating for the nation.
Far more embarrassing to us to have someone governing that way, and there’s no reason to believe any Republican president wouldn’t. Moderate-ish Mitt may have been when he was MA governor, but as president – after this hideous primary – he’d have Something To Prove, and that’s the kind of thing that can cause serious disasters (qv. Iraq invasion.)
Mitt Romney has as much chance of getting elected as I do. Obama is unbeatable.
This has only to do with how I hope the general campaign is conducted. The Republican candidate will be afforded equal time in the media by default. My hope is that nothing more than a fraction of it will be dedicated to hatred and bigotry and misogyny, rather than the entirety.
Mitt Romney has as much chance of getting elected as I do. Obama is unbeatable.
No, he’s not unbeatable. But he’s not going to get beat by these clown shows.
Good point. Without looking it up, I assume Romney governed with a Dem legislature in MA. Thus his tenure there offers no predictive value as to his conduct with a Rep or divided Congress. His tenure was also pretty much free of teabaggers. I worry more about Romney as prez even more than Santorum, who would be pretty up front with the craziness, while Romney would cave to every demand from the Rightfringe that frightened him.
Everybody seems to fear that Romney would be following the dictates of the Tea Party. In actual fact, he’d be following the dictates of the Bush and Cheney families, and using the Tea Party and religious wingnuts as useful idiots the same way Bush and Cheney always did, to maintain some tenuous control of the GOP against upstarts like the Koch Bros, Shelly Adelson, Harold Simmons. Except that they have even more influence in the party now and they’re much feistier. Nevertheless, Mitt would be the sock puppet between Bush/Cheney and the hostiles.
If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound possible, you’re right, but that’s what Rove and the gang are hoping to pull off. And that’s only within the GOP. As far as beating Obama, that’s even more doubtful.
Romney will also draw Mormons out of the woodwork in states like Colorado and Arizona. They’re not a huge slice of the voting population, but they will vote almost unanimously for Romney, and I could see that effect cancelling out the boost Obama gets in Latino voting there.
They didn’t stop Mittens from getting embarrassed in Colorado.
Somebody more knowledgeable about Western voting patterns can correct me, but I would think the differential is in favor of the Latinos. This is on the assumption that while both groups would be highly motivated to vote in 2012, Mormons turnout is normally high whereas Latino turnout is quite a bit lower. If this is correct, then there are potentially a lot more new Latino votes out there than new Mormon votes.
mormons only make up 2.5% ± of the population in co, and anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that they vote pretty reliably. however, those that l’m acquainted with personally, tend to be jack mormons and not necessarily likely to vote for romney just because of his religion.
latino/hispanics on the other hand, comprise 20.7% of the population 2010 census. ergo, your observation “there are potentially a lot more new Latino votes out there than new Mormon votes.” is one that l would support. the advantage may not be as large as boo predicts, but imno, it will be substantial.
McCain also came off as softer on Latino demands than any Rep now dares to be. Yeah, he ranted about getting “the fence” built, and supported the AZ immigration outrage, but he talked soft and supported some kind of (inadequate) amnesty — “humane treatment” as I recall. The current candidates don’t dare show anything near that sort of “weakness”.