A quick note on Latino voters: Latinos are a notoriously late deciding vote. We are also challenging to poll because sample sizes often aren’t big enough to accurately reflect voter sentiment in baseline polls. The FL polling is instructive but needs to be considered cautiously
Any poll looking at Hispanic voters in Florida with a sample size <200 in a state as diverse as Florida can’t accurately gauge sentiment. Hispanics are 18% of the statewide vote, Cubans are about 1/3rd, Puerto Rican’s about 1/3rd and the remaining is other South & Central Am’s.
That means, if properly weighted, the sample sizes of Cubans & Puerto Rican’s in the poll had sample sizes of 60 people or so - not a good look at all. Having said that I & others who specialize here, have been very vocal about warning signs with the Latino vote all year
There are very few pollsters who I have any degree of confidence in when gauging Hispanic political opinion. Many are run by partisans & academics more interested in leveraging contracts than being competent political advisors. This is a very big on-going problem for DEMs
PEW remains the gold standard but doesn’t chase political campaign dynamics.
Regardless while I am and have been concerned about the Latino vote for Biden (I raised the same alarms about Clinton in ‘16 - she had the exact same problem just smaller) there is time to correct it with a change in tactics. This can be fixed but time is getting short.
There needs to be both a massive investment in a GOTV program with Puerto Ricans & non-Cuban Hispanics coupled with an aggressive campaign challenging Trump in Miami-Dade to mitigate the Cuban vote expansion. Ceding ground on socialism when Trump is already a dictator is crazy.
Bottom line: This is fixable. It needs to be addressed seriously now and resources sufficiently. This is a MAJOR problem in the Democratic Party. It’s one I’ve watched and competed against successfully on the GOP side for years. Latinos will pass blacks as 2nd largest votinggroup
Stop ignoring and delaying attention to Latino voters. Those days are gone if you want to be a competitive party nationally.
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Can we talk about Trump and Latino voters for a minute?
Lots of questions being asked about what it is Trump is doing to get more and more Latino votes. Is it him? Is it machismo? Is it disinformation on WhatsApp?
How can Democrats be losing base vote to THIS guy? 🧵
Most of what is happening with the rightward shift is happening despite GOP efforts not because of them.
Cubans & Venezuelans are an exception but their numbers are so small they’re not reflected in national polling.
The country is undergoing two major changes
The first is the ‘education divide’ where college educated voters are consolidating under the DEM banner and non-college voters under the REP banner.
Latinos have a 21% college grad rate compared to 33% for non-Hispanic whites.
Let me offer some advice when you’re talking to Republican friends, family & neighbors about not voting for Trump. This is how you can tell who is and isn’t voting for Trump.
A short thread 🧵
If someone says “I really don’t like the way he handles himself and his offensive tweets but I like his policies” that person is a Trump voter.
This person knows what they’re doing is wrong but they’re rationalizing the behavior they know is wrong.
If someone says “I don’t like Trump or his policies but no way I’d ever vote for Biden” this person is a Trump voter.
This person doesn’t care, even enjoys doing the wrong thing and won’t be bothered by being forced to answer for it or think about it.
Guys I’m not looking to deep at the numbers cause I don’t think we need to. Besudes im at the airport eating beef jerky and gummy worms for dinner cause I think I’m still 20 something doing campaigns.
But here’s what I’m looking at:
Most of Haley’s vote is anti-Trump not pro-Haley. This continues to be the key data point I’m focused on.
Biden keeps putting up ridiculous numbers and anti-Biden messaging is falling worse than flat. If there was anti-Biden sentiment Dean Phillips would be getting oxygen
Only real metric I’m looking at is share of Haley voters reporting anti-Trump in the exits. That numbers really big. Most of that goes back to him but we’re still taking big numbers - much more than he can afford to leak
Female and young voters are clearly energized this year (and that’s great) BUT that doesn’t explain the wide discrepancies in polling and results (on both sides btw).
This doesn’t appear to be a methodology or weighting problem.
You can’t get to these numbers because ‘women are fired up’ or ‘Gen Z is gonna save democracy’
If 100% of female & youth voters went for Biden (and damn they may have) that means men did too. So deep breaths folks.
I’m of the belief it’s a problem with the instrument itself.
Ive explained over the past four years that congressional approval ratings, job approval ratings, right/wrong track, and even good or bad economic news are no longer reliable reflections of political decision making.
The science of politics is not wrong - the art is.
It has been since 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea.
This war will be more defined by disinformation, psyops, currency manipulation and destabilization efforts than in the last World War.
Russia, Iran, China & North Korea are coordinating
The attacks on the US and our allies.
There are four fronts: Ukraine (led by Russia), the Middle East (led by Iran), Taiwan (led by China) and the United States (where internal destruction & division is fueled internally by factions in the GOP)
Alone, neither would be successful.
As a coordinated strategy it’s hard to see how they don’t severely weaken Americas standing.
The most damaging to the world & the US is the internal discord they’re creating here at home.