{"id":12998,"date":"2023-08-04T18:49:55","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T18:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=12998"},"modified":"2023-08-10T15:07:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T15:07:46","slug":"what-the-polls-say-about-julian-castro-and-the-other-vanishing-latino-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=12998","title":{"rendered":"What the polls say about Julian Castro and the other vanishing Latino candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Alex Gonzalez<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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The New Texas Tribune poll<\/a>\n released on Monday shows that even in his home state of Texas, Julian \nCastro has become the vanishing Latino candidate. Castro  received only \n3% percent in Texas Tribune and only 9% of support among  Texas \nHispanics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to explain what has happened to Juli\u00e1n Castro\u2019s campaign \nwithout taking his \u201cLatino\u201d identity into consideration. It\u2019s more \nlikely that Juli\u00e1n will become one of those vanishing Latinos candidates\n like Antonio Villaraigosa, Loretta Sanchez, Kevin De Leon in \nCalifornia, David Garcia in Arizona and Lupe Valdez in Texas who naively\n assume the \u201cLatino\u201d label alone was a political identity that would \nlure Mexican-Americans, who are the 80% of all Latinos across the \nSouthwest, and 90% in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still don\u2019t know how this will end for Castro but the odd are against him since he has remained at 1%<\/a>\n after almost 6 months of campaigning.  But, the failure of Julian \nCastro to appeal to Latino voters, thus far, should be a sign for \nDemocrats to reassess what they are doing with  the \u201cLatino\u201d label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julian Castro kicked off his campaign 5 \u00bd ago, and he has been at 1% in all national polls<\/a>,\n I recall seen 2 polls where he actually made it to 2%. When polls are \nbroken down by state and by race\/ethnicity, Castro is at 1% among all \nDemocrat voters  and  3% in Texas according new Texas Tribune poll or 4%\n in Quinnipiac poll<\/a>, and among \u201cHispanics\/Latinos\u201d in Texas Castro gets only 9% and 10% respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\u2019 not sure if this is a failure of the \u201cLatino\u201d identity that is \nnot monolith and generate no passion, or whether it\u2019s that Julian\u2019s \nnice-guy demeanor, or the fact he may be too progressive to appeal to a \naverage Mexican-Americans, or Latino voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even some Democrat \u201cLatino\u201d activists already are \u201csounding the alarm\u201d<\/a>\n that the party needs to do more keep Latino voters engaged. But these \nparty activists who right away assume it\u2019s the party apparatus \nresponsibility.  But is it the party or the candidate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I\u2019m not sure if this is a failure of the \u201cLatino\u201d identity \ndoes not generate political passion, or that its; Julian\u2019s lukewarm \nprogressive views that don\u2019t appeal to Latino voters who are mostly \nMexican-Americans. One thing that I am firm about is that labels such as\n \u201cLatinos\u201d\n or \u201cHispanics\u201d does not generate political mobilization or high turn \namong \u201cLatinos\u201d because both labels are invented by the media and party \ntechnocrats and honchos to create the false idea of a \u201cLatinoland.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this trend continues, Julian would be another unsuccessful \n\u201cLatino\u201d experiment like  most recently, Lupe Valdez in Texas, Antonio \nVillaraigosa and Kevin De Leon in California , David Garcia in Arizona, \nall Latino Democrats that failed to generate enthusiasms and get voters \nto the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julian Castro is at 1%<\/a>\n nationally. At 1% nationally, one could argue because there are so many\n candidates that Castro is been overshadow by other candidates, and \nthough his ethnic \u201cLatino\u201d label is  strong qualifiers, the media is not\n giving enough air time to Castro. But what the polls may indicates is \nthat Democrats across the board don\u2019t think Castro\u2019s is strong enough to\n defeat Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the latest comprehensive poll by The Economist\/You Gov<\/a>\n Joe Biden leads with 27%, followed by Bernie Sanders with 16%, \nElizabeth Warren 11%,  Pete Buttigieg with 9%, Kamala Harris with 8, and\n Beto O\u2019 Rourke with 2%. Julian Castro is at 0%. But when all the poll \nare added, Nationally, Julian is at 1%% and Beto is 4.5%. But this poll \nis generally mirror of all national polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the most recent national polls including both the total Democrat voter choice and Hispanics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click on image to enlarge<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On May 4th, Harvard had a similar comprehensive poll<\/a>\n showing the same trend. Among all Democrat voters, Biden was leading \nwith 34%, followed by Sanders with 17%, Kamala Harris 9%, Beto O\u2019Rourke \nwith 8%, and Castro with 0%. Among Hispanics, Biden lead by 21%, \nfollowed by Sanders with 33%, Kamala Harris and Beto O\u2019 Rourke with 9%, \nElizabeth Warren 6% and Julian Castro with only 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, in the New CBS poll<\/a>\n last weekend in 3 primary\/Caucus states, Biden leads with 31%, followed\n by Warren with 17%,  Bernie with 16%, Kamala Harris  with 10%, Pete \nButtigieg with 9% and  Beto with 5%. Among Hispanics: Biden 27%, Bernie \n20%, Warren 17%, Beto 10%, Harris 10%,  and  Buttigieg 5%,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, nationally, Democrat voters think Julian Castro is not \nstrong candidate, and Hispanic voters may think that Biden, Sanders \nWarren, Harris and Beto O\u2019Rouker have better chance to beat Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the polls are broken down into states, the polls show very \nlittle variation from national polls about Julian Castro.  For example, \nlast week the LA Times\/Berkeley released a California poll<\/a>\n where Job Biden is leading with 22%, followed by Elizabeth Warren with \n18%, Bernie Sanders 17%, Kamala Harris 13%, Beto O\u2019Rourke with 3.2%, and\n Julian Castro with only 0.9%. see tables below <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though California is Kamala Harris home state, the state is also home\n toe largest bloc of Latino voters, yet Julian Castro barely appears as \nfavorite of Latino voters. Among Latino voters in this LA Times\/Berkeley\n poll Biden and Sanders lead with about 25% \u2013 combined support among \nEnglish and Spanish answers, Beto gets 6-7%, Kamala Harris 9-10%, and \nJulian Castro 6% among Spanish dominant  but only 1% among English \ndominant. Note that support for Julian among \u201cEnglish dominant Hispanic\u201d is 6% while among those \u201cSpanish dominant\u201d is only 1.2%. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

California is home the largest number of Hispanic voters and  about \n70% are Democrats, yet Julian is at only 3.5% among Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nevada is another state where the Latino Lote is very active. In the most recent Monmouth poll<\/a>\n from Nevada, Biden received 35%. Elizabeth Warren 16% and Bernie \nSanders got only 11%, Beto 3% and Castro got 0%.  Among Hispanics in \nNevada, Biden still has a comfortable lead with 27%, followed by Sanders\n with 19% and Warren with 11%, Beto 6% and Castro with 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas is home to Julian Castro and Beto O\u2019Rourke, and the latest Texas poll by Quinnipiac poll<\/a>\n showed Biden leading Bernie does much better than Beto and Julian among\n Hispanics.  Even in Texas, in the Quinnipiac Poll poll, Bernie does \nmuch better than Beto and Julian among Hispanics. According Quinnipiac \npoll,  in Texas, Biden leads the Horse race with 30%, followed by Beto \nwith 16%, Bernie sander with 15%, and Castro with only 4%. Among \nHispanics in Texas, Biden is at 20%, tied with Sanders at 21% while Beto\n and Warren are tied with 16% and 15% respectively with Castro getting \nonly 10% among Hispanics.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Similarly, the Texas Tribune poll i<\/a>s\n almost identical to the Quinnipiac poll regarding Julian Castro; In \nfact this may be the real reason why his Joaquin Castro  decided not \nchallenge Sen. John Cornyn in 2020. Among all Democrat in Texas, only 3%\n said they plan to support Julian Castro, and among Hispanics in Texas, \nonly 9% would support Castro. Both poll from Texas may suggest that \nJulian Castro is not very popular among Hispanics in Texas, or \nnationally. What the polls could indicate is that even if Hispanics do \nlike Castro they don\u2019t  think he is electable, or strong enough to beat \nTrump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationally, Democrat and Hispanic voters may presume that Biden, \nSanders Warren, Harris and Beto O\u2019Rouker have better chance of  beating \nTrump and Julian \u201cLatino\u201d identity is not strong enough to woo Latino \nvoters to coalesce behind Castro So Castro  will become just another \nvanish Latino candidate who assumed being \u201cLatino\u201d was enough to \nenergize Mexican-American voters. But Julian Castro alone is not alone \nin this failure to appeal to Latinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we look what happened to the other \u201cLatino candidates\u201d like Lupe \nValdez in Texas, Antonio Villaraigosa and Kevin De Leon in California, \nDavid Garcia in Arizona, we can see all these candidates failed to \ngenerate enthusiasm and get Latino voters to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\u2019 not sure if this is failure of the \u201cLatino\u201d identity that is not\n monolith and generate no passion, or that Julian\u2019s lukewarm  \nprogressive mantra that doesn\u2019t appeal to Latino voters who are mostly \nMexican-Americans in the Southwest<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Latino are not warming up to Castro could be electability.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still don\u2019t know how this will end but if this trend continues, \nthe failure of Julian Castro to appeal to Latino voters should be sign \nfor those Democrats  that whatever they are doing is not to working to \nwoo \u201cLatino\u201d voters who are mostly Mexican-American voters to coalesce \nbehind the \u201cLatino\u201d candidate or to generate voter turnout or \nenthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Latino candidates fail to generate enthusiasm among Latino voters\n is strange but there is a pattern. It\u2019s already a cliche that say \nLatinos are not monolith because people don\u2019t want discus the obvious \ncultural and different regional  political characteristics of all Latino\n groups and the media idly just lumps all Latinos as one group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are the result of the races in Texas, California and Arizona \nwhere Latinos were running for top statewide posts.  The table shows all\n the results from the Mid-Term in 2018 where Latino candidate ran for \ntop statewide races.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Kristen Sinema in Arizona got more votes than David Garcia ( 1,191,100 \u2013 994,341 ) and Beto got 600, 000 more votes in Texas than Lupe Valdez. Latinos, it seems, are not drawn to the Latino candidate based on their ethnicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar pattern occurred when Kamala Harris won the Latino vote in \nCalifornia\u2019s U.S. Senate race in 2016. Exit polls showed that Loretta \nSanchez  won 53% of the vote in her bid for U.S. Senate in California. \nHowever, a survey<\/a> by the LA times\/USC also underlines that 48% of Latino voters backed Harris compared with 40% who supported Sanchez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, in primary in California Kevin De Leon made it to general \nElection with only 12%, In top-two primary, he came in 2nd place with \nDianne Feinstein receiving 44% of the vote.  see table above<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, Antonio Villaraigosa received only 13% of the vote in the \nCalifornia primary despite the fact that he campaigned for more than \nyear for Governor. The Republain candidate received almost twice the \nnumber of votes than Villaraigosa in the primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is one of the biggest mistakes Democrats Mexican-American \nvoters and party bosses make. They try the progressive politics of \n\u201cpeople of color\u201d hoping that, under this label, Mexican-Americans and \nother Latino groups will find a unifying national mantra with the \npolitics of African-Americans. However, outside party activists, the \nfact, the \u201cpeople of color\u201d struggle mantra is not very popular among \nMexican-Americans and does not generate enthusiasm that leads to real \nvoter turn or  support for Latino candidate.  And there is no proof the labels like Latinos or Hispanics<\/a>\n as politcal identity leads to higher turnout. Why? These labels are not\n political identities; they are purely made up by the media, party \nbosses\/technocrats and academics to lump all groups together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The polls show that, even in Texas where only 10% of Latinos support \nJulian Castro,  he has failed to appeal to Hispanic\/Latino voters across\n the Southwest. Why? Julian appeals only a very small group of \u201cLatino\u201d \nprogressives, but not the overwhelming majority of Mexican-Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A while back ago wrote that<\/a>, after Both Beto and Julian were officially running, no one should be surprised if Beto \u201cout-Mexican\u201d Julian since Beto is more Centrist. The polls show that Beto and Biden, who are more center-right than Julian, have out-Mexican-ed Julian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Gonzalez is a political Analyst, Founder of Latino Public Policy Foundation (LPPF), and Political Director for Latinos Ready To Vote. Comments to vote@latinosreadytovote.com or <\/em>@AlexGonzTXCA<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alex Gonzalez The New Texas Tribune poll released on Monday shows that even in his home state of Texas, Julian Castro has become the vanishing Latino candidate. Castro  received only 3% percent in Texas […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,72,73],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slider","8":"category-lrtv-articles","9":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13721,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998\/revisions\/13721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}