Posted on 11/07/2014 7:29:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Republicans made historic gains across the country on Tuesday, including significant progress with minority voters. Republican Tim Scott became the first elected black senator from the South. Mia Love became the first Republican woman of African-American descent to be elected to the House, and the GOP Hispanic Caucus gained new members from West Virginia and Florida. But marquee names aside, the effort Republicans made has to be intensified if they are to become more competitive in higher-turnout presidential-election years.
One of Mitt Romney’s great failures in 2012 was that he won only 29 percent of Latino voters and a pathetic 27 percent among Asian voters — considerably down from the support George W. Bush had won from these groups in 2000 and 2004. This year, the GOP’s share of votes from these Americans improved. In the national exit poll for local House races, Democrats won 64 percent of Latino voters and also won Asian voters — but only with 52 percent. Among African Americans, Republican support ticked up slightly from Romney’s 6 percent of the vote to 10 percent. Native Americans, who make up 1 percent of the national electorate, favored Republicans by 52 to 43 percent.
Part of the Republican improvement can be traced to lower voter turnout, because younger Latinos and Asians simply don’t show up as much in non-presidential years. But black voter participation this year actually went up from the last midterm election, rising to 12 percent of the electorate, compared with 11 percent in 2010. The new GOP strength among non-black minorities was to some extent the product of aggressive outreach in minority communities by the Republican National Committee and various state parties. In Texas, GOP senator John Cornyn carried the Latino vote by a single percentage point, while Greg Abbott, who is married to a Latina, lost it by only ten points in the race for governor. Abbott carried the Asian-American vote 52 to 48 percent.
The most surprising successes for GOP candidates may have come in Kansas and Georgia. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas lost the Latino vote (6 percent of the total) by only three points. In Georgia, businessman David Perdue won 42 percent of the Latino vote, in part by arguing that he knew how to improve the economic climate. Republicans suffered a disappointment, though, next door in Florida, where incumbent GOP governor Rick Scott’s share of the Hispanic vote fell from 50 percent in 2010 to 38 percent this year. Scott won the election in both 2010 and 2014 by a single point, which makes demographic comparisons easy — and troubling for Republicans. Staunchly anti-Communist Cubans make up about one-third of Florida’s Hispanic community, with the rest largely Puerto Rican and Central American. But the Cuban percentage of the overall Latino vote has been shrinking, and Scott was a more polarizing figure this year as he ran for reelection.
Looking west, Tom Donelson of Americas PAC – which ran advertising efforts to boost minority support for GOP gubernatorial candidates Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Bruce Rauner in Illinois – says his own Election Day surveys show that both men won 38 percent of the Hispanic vote.
California Republicans surprised some observers in this election by mustering enough strength to block Democrats from winning a two-thirds supermajority in the State Senate and Assembly, thus giving their members in those bodies a voice in tax increases and budget matters. An analysis by KPCC Radio found that the accomplishment resulted partially from “the victories of two Republican candidates from Orange County — both women, both Asian American.”
Karthick Ramakrishnan, a University of California at Riverside political scientist, noted that Asian Americans haven’t traditionally been wedded to any one party. But there are signs in Califorina, he said, that they are becoming alienated from Democrats who want to restore the equivalent of a minority quota system for admission to the prestigious University of California; such de facto quotas are widely seen as giving advantages to blacks and Latinos at the expense of Asian students. “Just as the Asian-American vote moved toward the Democratic party over the last two decades, we may be seeing the beginning of a trend where they are moving back closer toward the Republican party,” Ramakrishnan told KPCC.
Congressman Ed Royce, a Republican who represents much of Orange County, is optimistic about the GOP’s ability to appeal to Asian Americans. “Asian populations here are hard-working, law-abiding, respectful of authority, and highly entrepreneurial,” he told me. “We can do very well with them if they understand that conservative values overlap with their traditions.”
Persuading minorities to abandon what in some cases are decades of allegiance to the Democratic party is a tall order. Republicans all too often approach voters only at election time, having failed to build lasting relationships in minority communities. But as this latest midterm shows, where Republicans did make legitimate and genuine outreach efforts, they began to gain votes from groups that some within the GOP had written off for good. Nothing is permanent in politics, unless you fatalistically believe that voters are a static commodity rather than people who can be appealed to on an individual basis.
— John Fund is national-affairs correspondent for NRO.
When looked at in this way, the move to bring millions of third-world immigrants into the American welfare state is obvious and inevitable.
The Asian American vote used to be more Republican that the white vote. Increasing awareness in the community about the outsized negative impact of racial quotas on them should eventually shift Asians back towards the GOP. Jews have traditionally not been affected as much by racial quotas, since they're lumped in with the massive white bucket, so they should continue being relatively liberal.
The bad guys are the party of victims and weirdos.
How did we lose the Asian-American vote? They seem to be ready made for the Republican vote!
White voters stayed away from Romney
The GOP hasn't exactly been doing very much to stop the third world influx. The most recent GOP Presidential nominees and the most recent GOP President all favored amnesty and liberal immigration policies.
Erosion of monolithic support among African Americans, many of whom are crypto-conservatives
We've heard talk about how blacks are "natural conservatives" who will return to their Republican roots for decades now, but voting patterns don't seem to match the reality of 95% of the black vote going to Obama in both elections. Blacks may be conservative on some social issues, but they'll overwhelmingly vote for the party of affirmative action, racial quotas, and the welfare state.
Let me guess - the remedy for this is more GOP support for amnesty, right?
The reason Romney lost the election wasn't because he didn't pander enough to minorities. It was because he didn't offer the conservative base enough reasons to go out and vote for him.
I really wish that someone would kill this "redemptive Hispanic vote" trope that's taken hold among the GOP establishment and instead focus on reality: holding onto a conservative base that opposes amnesty and supports immigration restrictions, i.e. giving enough reason for existing GOP voters to actually turn out and vote for you rather than chasing a largely non-existent "minority" base.
The RINOView perspective
Thanks for the chart!
My experience with Koreans is the exact opposite. I’ve also noticed (my experience) that Southeast Asians are way more liberal than Koreans, Chinese, Japanese. There’s a big cultural divide between Northern & Southern Asians.
Sick of the identity politics. How about we elect the best person, the person who upholds conservative principles and respects the Constitution?
The media bias is very strong, Asian media and stuff are very biased too.
It was pretty close this time though, 50-49 on Tuesday
I agree completely.
However, if A-A support for Democrats falls even from 95% to 85%, it could make a big difference.
Don't forget: the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union looked as hard as a rock right up until it collapsed, revealing that there was nothing behind the façade.
My experience with Koreans is the exact opposite. I’ve also noticed (my experience) that Southeast Asians are way more liberal than Koreans, Chinese, Japanese. There’s a big cultural divide between Northern & Southern Asians.’
The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have been here a lot longer than the southeast Asians. They have established small businesses and generally speak good English. Also, the Japanese community is more anti Democrat due to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the camps that the Democrats sent them to.
Hopefully the southeast Asians, as they become more educated and leave their little Asian ghettos will become more Republican.
A better idea—the republican party should do conservative things.
if this draws in more minorities, great, if it doesn’t then that’s the way it goes.
I wish everyone, everyone would shut up about race. I don’t care about it. I do not want to vote or be calculated as something to do with my skin color or religion. And I want to treat others the way I want to be treated.
Why is nobody chasing them?
OTOH, the eligible Hispanic vote is 10% and they cast 8.5% of all votes in 2012. Less than the 12% cast by Blacks.
TOGETHER they constitute less than 1/3 of the White vote.
The more Democrats pander for Black and Hispanic votes, the more Whites will vote GOP.
This is not an issue.
Politically, there is no such creature as a "Hispanic" except for those already indoctrinated hyphenated Americans that have already drank the koolaid. As noted in the article, Cubans have very different concerns than Mexicans. What is this "Asian" they are chasing? A South Korean has an entirely different cultural background, education level, and motivation from the average Laotian...or maybe we "Asian" is really a term for "Chinese"...then again, are these Taiwanese or escapees from Hong Kong? Not even similar people except in the lefts political racial term.
These group definitions can only work as race baiting political terms at least in part because the very definition of who these people are changes. There are often shift for a host of reasons as to who is coming here and why. I doubt crafting a message appealing to Japanese engineers is particularly useful, there aren't enough Japanese to go around in Japan let alone here. So craft it to appeal to mainland Chinese farmers...Oops, the political situation shifts and now we are awash in South Koreans.
Stop with the stupidity. Fire any political adviser on the Right even talking in these terms.
Principals that are the core of Conservatism will appeal immigrants regardless of that persons origin. Get the conservative message out and stop losing at the lefts rigged game.
I've noticed the same thing. Koreans and Japanese tend to be affluent and successful, well-educated, and fluent in English by the first or second generation. Southeast Asians (especially Hmong) are much more likely to live in slums and collect welfare checks and food stamps. So they're more likely to vote for Democrats, for the same reason as blacks and Mexicans.
I've always been saying the same thing. What does a Cuban businessman in Miami have in common with a Mexican migrant farm laborer in southern California, or with some cholo in east LA?
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