{"id":13540,"date":"2023-08-08T19:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T19:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13540"},"modified":"2023-08-10T18:41:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T18:41:52","slug":"beware-the-post-midterm-hot-takes-about-latino-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13540","title":{"rendered":"Beware the post-midterm hot takes about Latino voters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Democrats seem to have staved off the worst, but Republicans still made some inroads.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Christian Paz<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Mayra Flores, the South Texan GOP darling, declared it plainly<\/a>: \u201cThe red wave did not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was talking about the possibility of Republicans sweeping competitive House, Senate, and governor\u2019s races around the country. But she might as well have been referring to the much-hyped<\/a> Republican<\/a> realignment<\/a> of Latino voters during the 2022 midterm elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t have a full set of data and we might not for some time. But based on what we know from imperfect exit polls and election surveys, while Republicans did make gains with Latino voters in some places, it doesn\u2019t appear that the Great Realignment materialized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flores was part of the cohort of conservative Latina candidates<\/a> that Republicans were hoping could cement the idea that Democratic dominance with Latino voters was over. Running for reelection in a redrawn district, she lost Tuesday night. She wasn\u2019t the only one: In South Texas, Republican challenger Cassy Garcia failed to knock off conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, while in Virginia, moderate Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger soundly beat political newcomer and former police officer Yesli Vega by three points, a bigger margin than in Spanberger\u2019s last two elections. Both challengers needed large numbers of Latino support to win, and they just didn\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the picture if we take a sweeping overview. But if we look narrowly, at specific communities, signs of a smaller, more nuanced \u201cparadigm shift<\/a>\u201d do appear, so resist the messages from those who say Democrats have no problems with Latinos or that Latinos aren\u2019t actually shifting right. Take Florida, where in 2020, former President Donald Trump dramatically improved<\/a> on his 2016 performancein Latino-heavy Miami-Dade County, cutting into President Joe Biden\u2019s margin of victory. This year, Miami-Dade and the state as a whole went red, reelecting Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio by double-digit margins<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were places where Democrats performed well with Latinos too. In Pennsylvania, Democrats in statewide races seem to have won Latinos by the same margin as Biden did in 2020, about 70-30<\/a>, even as Latinos made up a bigger share of the electorate than in that election. As more votes are counted in Arizona and Nevada, a similar picture could emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the landscape sounds complicated, that\u2019s because it is. Data isn\u2019t yet available to give us a complete picture of how Latinos voted. But so far it seems that while Republicans and Democrats may have held on to and even made some gains with certain Latinos in certain places, it is far too early to declare any sudden, major shifts in the Latino vote. Essentially, beware Latino vote hot takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifts across the country make the national picture messy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Votes are still being counted in states with large Latino populations (like California, Arizona, and Nevada<\/a>), meaning narratives about how Latino voters swung in the 2022 midterms are being made using incomplete voter data. Early exit polls are also imperfect tools from which to extrapolate national narratives, in part because they are calculated based on predictions about what the national electorate might be on Election Day and have to be corrected according to the electorate that actually turned out. And exit polls don\u2019t tell us as much as county and precinct-level analyses that take time to produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, limited voter data and exit polls are all we have to work with right now. And both show Republicans seem to have made improvements with Latinos nationally. Compare the AP VoteCast numbers, gathered through a combination<\/a> of mail, online, and phone surveys and research: from 2018<\/a> to 2020<\/a> to 2022<\/a>, Democrats share of Latino support drops from 64 to 63 to 56 percent, while Republicans\u2019 share increases from 33 to 35 to 40 percent. Network exit polls over those three cycles show Democrats\u2019 share of votes declining from 69 percent in 2018<\/a> to 65 percent in 2020<\/a> and to 60 percent in 2022<\/a>, while Republican shares increased from 29 percent in 2018<\/a> to 32 percent in 2020<\/a> and then 39 percent in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that\u2019s unclear about these figures is whether they show a decline or a reversion to a previous state of political orientation. As Equis\u2019 Carlos Odio<\/a> has highlighted, these figures mirror Latino GOP support in the 1990s. It will take some time, likely decades, to fully understand the answer to this question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>

Weird flex but go off. Per exits (*grain of salt*) Hispanic GOP support this year was roughly what it was in Clinton\u2019s first midterm, a point ahead of \u201802, two points ahead of \u201898, \u201814. https:\/\/t.co\/c9KsZwa6gX<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/3Ib22GDQvw<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Carlos Odio (@carlosodio) November 10, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>