{"id":13405,"date":"2023-08-08T16:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T16:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13405"},"modified":"2023-08-10T19:14:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T19:14:40","slug":"there-are-right-and-wrong-ways-to-court-voters-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13405","title":{"rendered":"There are right \u2014 and wrong \u2014 ways to court voters of color"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by <\/em>Ian Haney-L\u00f3pez <\/em> <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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My granddaughter is part of a new generation that will swell the number of Latino voters to 32 million this year<\/a>. Somewhere in the United States, a young Latino turns 18 every 40 seconds, and the Pew Research Center<\/a> projects that in 2020 we will become the largest nonwhite segment of the electorate, surpassing African Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost\n two-thirds of Latino voters align with the Democratic Party (62% \nDemocrat compared with 34% Republican), so it seems evident this wave is\n a boon for Democrats. But there\u2019s potential danger as well. Recent \nresearch shows that Democratic efforts to woo Hispanics \u2014 or, more \nprecisely, certain forms of outreach \u2014 can cause liberal white voters to\n shift their allegiance from Democrats to Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own \nresearch on racial dynamics in voting confirms this insight. But I\u2019ve \nalso found that there\u2019s a way to galvanize Latino voters that, far from \nalienating whites, energizes them as well. In a close election, 2020 \ncould well turn on whether \u2014 and how \u2014 Democrats reach out to Latino \nvoters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way to connect to Hispanic voters is to run ads in Spanish. This appeals to voters proficient in Spanish. And even for those who are English-dominant (as are 90% of Latinos born in the U.S.)<\/a>, campaign ads in Spanish can communicate respect and welcome. But to a disturbing number of white Democrats, Spanish seems to communicate something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research<\/a>\n of the political scientist Mara Cecilia Ostfeld should give Democratic \ncampaigns pause. Ostfeld conducted a 2012 experiment with almost 600 \nwhite adults using a 30-second ad taken from the Obama campaign. Half \nthe group watched the original in English. The other half watched a \nversion in which the audio content was presented in Spanish, \nsupplemented by English subtitles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whites who identified as \nRepublicans largely rated Obama poorly. Whether they watched the English\n or Spanish version mattered little to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But among whites who \nidentified as Democrats, the Spanish ad had a significant negative \nimpact. \u201cLevels of favorability toward Obama were about 11 percentage \npoints lower among white Democrats after viewing the ad with \nSpanish-language content \u2014 despite the fact that there were English \nsubtitles and the content was, therefore, fully accessible \u2014 relative to\n when viewing the same ad entirely in English,\u201d Ostfeld reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ostfeld\n found similar negative effects when Democratic candidates were \ndescribed as \u201ccourting\u201d Hispanic voters. In 2016, she showed white \nadults two versions of an online news headline. One said \u201cHillary \nClinton Courts Undecided Voters.\u201d The other declared \u201cHillary Clinton \nCourts Latino Voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When shown the Latino outreach version, white Democrats were about 9%\n less likely to say they would vote for Clinton, and 11% more likely \nto vote for Donald Trump. The difference in reaction among white \nDemocrats \u2014 currently 59% of all Democratic voters, according to Pew<\/a> \u2014 could easily swing the 2020 election if this effect were to manifest in the voting booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\n effect is similar to what I\u2019ve found with race in electoral campaigns. \nMany whites have long filtered Democratic efforts to woo African \nAmericans through a zero-sum frame in which they worry that gains for \nblacks come at the expense of whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a large research project I co-directed<\/a>\n found that there are ways to address race that generate enthusiasm for \nprogressive positions among people of color while increasing, rather \nthan diminishing, support from whites as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To study how to talk about race in political campaigns, in 2018 we polled<\/a>\n a nationally representative sample of 2,000 people. Among other things,\n we asked respondents which came closer to their views: a pro-business \nmessage or a progressive economic message. The pro-business message \nsaid: \u201cTo make life better for working people we need to cut taxes, \nreduce regulations, and get government out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the \nprogressive message, we offered respondents two versions. One included \nthe italicized text and the other did not: \u201cTo make life better for \nworking people we need to invest in education, create better paying \njobs, and make healthcare more affordable for white, black, and brown<\/em> people struggling to make ends meet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n race-silent version of the progressive message beat the pro-business \nmessage by a margin of 32 points. This result suggests that voters \ngenerally prefer progressive over pro-business economic policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n when the progressive policy message included the phrase \u201cwhite, black, \nand brown,\u201d the winning margin over the pro-business message increased \nto 41 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, this included a big jump in favorable \nresponse from whites. Hearing that progressive policies would help \n\u201cwhite, black, and brown people\u201d increased white support for investing \nin education, creating better-paying jobs, and making healthcare more \naffordable by 12 percentage points. The inclusion of whites in the \nmessage seemed to dispel the concern that gains for nonwhite groups come\n at the expense of the white group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats should recognize that mobilizing nonwhite communities risks\n alienating white voters, if done in the wrong way. Democrats have not \nwon a majority of the white vote in a presidential election since 1964<\/a>.\n To defeat Trump, they need to win big among voters of color, including \namong young people who are the most diverse rising generation ever, \nwhile also building enthusiasm among white voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats can do both by reaching out to communities of color while stressing that empowering each group is good for every group, whites included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Ian Haney L\u00f3pez is a law professor at UC Berkeley and the author of \u201cMerge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Ian Haney-López My granddaughter is part of a new generation that will swell the number of Latino voters to 32 million this year. Somewhere in the United States, a young Latino turns 18 every […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[81],"class_list":{"0":"post-13405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latino-vote","8":"tag-latino-vote"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13405","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=13405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13852,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13405\/revisions\/13852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}