Posted on 11/11/2004 9:48:20 AM PST by Mike Fieschko
Election Day 2004 threw a bucket of cold water on Democratic hopes that America's changing demographics would necessarily improve their future prospects.Exit polls indicate the Bush campaign increased its share of the white vote even as it expanded its appeal to minorities, especially Hispanics.
And there were decisive Republican victories in the bubbling multiculture of Florida and in increasingly diverse Nevada, not to mention a narrow win in heavily Hispanic New Mexico.
Until Nov. 2, Democrats had viewed the nation's growing diversity as their ace in the hole: As America became less white, they reasoned, the party's fortunes would brighten as certainly as day follows night.
After all, high immigration and racial turnover had made California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey the bedrock of Blue America.
Republicans would face a dilemma, the Democrats believed: Either drive up their white numbers or make inroads with minorities and risk alienating one group or the other whichever way they turned.
But this year, exit polls suggest, President Bush scored big gains with whites and made stunning progress with Latinos, using a consistent message of conservative faith and values and patriotism in wartime.
According to the National Election Pool exit poll, Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, up nine points from 2000. The Los Angeles Times exit poll gave him 45 percent of the Hispanic vote. The two polls also showed Bush improving a point or two on his rock-bottom performance of 9 percent with black voters four years ago.
But with the exception of the loss in New Mexico, it does not appear the Democrats paid too dearly for their eroding margin with Latinos.
And it remains true that Democrats do a lot better with voters who are not white; their losses among white voters, analysts say, are what did them in this year.
"There was a little bit of a Hispanic shift and a great big whopping serving of white shift," said Ruy Teixeira, who studies polling and political behavior for the Century Foundation and The Emerging Democratic Majority.
Teixeira's preliminary analysis found Bush increasing his share of the white vote to 58 percent from 54 percent, with big gains among women and the working class, the latter once the cornerstone of the Democrats' New Deal coalition.
Between 2000 and 2004, the white share of the electorate declined from 81 percent to 77 percent as the black, Latino and "other" shares grew.
But whites were a greater proportion of voters in battleground states.
And their share of voters across America was 9 percentage points greater than their share of the nation's population.
It is what demographer William Frey of the University of Michigan and the Brookings Institution calls the "white voter advantage."
In years to come, Frey said, the white voter advantage will shrink, and the Latino vote especially will grow, through immigration and the coming of age of a generation of U.S.-born children of immigrants.
What this election signals is that Republicans are working hard to stay ahead of the demographic curve, and that they are now fighting on friendlier terrain.
Like whites but unlike blacks Hispanic voters tend to take on the color of their political environment, according to Columbia University political scientist Rodolfo de la Garza.
That helps explain why Bush won the Hispanic vote in the increasingly one-party South, and showed progress in the traditionally Republican Southwest.
Bush's national gains among Hispanics were in some measure primed by a 16-point surge to 59 percent in his home state of Texas.
Alvaro Cifuentes, who chairs the Democratic National Committee's Hispanic Caucus, said: "This constituency does not have a common history or theme to rally around; this is a community that's up for grabs," he said.
"It votes more on likability and trust than it does ideas."
Many Hispanics, Cifuentes said, simply liked Bush.
Depending on whose numbers you trust, Kerry did either a little better or a little worse with Hispanics in Florida than Vice President Al Gore did in 2000.
In Colorado, Democrats held Republicans to 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, though they benefited there from the Senate candidacy of Ken Salazar. (Salazar and Florida Republican Mel Martinez will be the Senate's first Hispanics in more than 25 years.)
In Arizona, Bush improved his Hispanic numbers nine points, to 43 percent, expanding his statewide margin to 11 percent from 6 percent.
In Nevada, Democrats pinned their hopes on a huge migration of new voters, especially from California.
Nevada now has a larger percentage of Hispanics than Florida, and a larger percentage of Asians than any state save Hawaii and California.
But Bush won Nevada again, by the same three-point margin as four years ago. In the process, he captured 39 percent of the Hispanic vote and narrowly carried Asians.
The toughest loss for the Democrats was New Mexico, which is 45 percent Hispanic and where Gov. Bill Richardson, who is Hispanic and has national ambitions, led the Kerry effort.
This time Bush won a very close election even though he got a slightly lower percentage of New Mexico's white vote than in 2000 by increasing his share of the Hispanic vote 12 points, to 44 percent.
That's because good, honest, hardworking people that don't believe in legalized extortion (AKA ~ taxes) vote Republican regardless of ethnicity.
Huh? They didn't win Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, or Florida. That seems like a pretty stiff price to me. Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado would have put Kerry over the top.
I hate to break it to these guys, but as the Census Bureau says, "Hispanics may be of any race". Many of them are white people of European descent from South America. They may speak Spanish, but that doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
There is no "Hispanic constituency." The term Hispanic was created out of whole cloth by Pres. Nixon's Census Bureau. Even if one thinks in terms of communities rather than individuals, it unites communities with no common interest other than Spanish last names.
The term "Asian" has a similar lineage and lack of empirical meaning.
So there are a lot of white European hispanics in the New Mexico electorate?
I find it amzing to see so many articles speaking of how the Democrat Party has to court the "white" vote, particularly "white males". Considering they have derided the white population, and males in particular, it's as though I've stepped into the twilight zone.
I have a better suggestion for the Dems. Rather than trying to divide the "white" vote, how about reaching out to the "American" voter? Stop dividing people by race. American values SHOULD be universal.
Of course they can't. Their success depends on "Divide and Conquer".
Good point.
As was this one:
"Like whites but unlike blacks Hispanic voters tend to take on the color of their political environment, according to Columbia University political scientist Rodolfo de la Garza.".
Principle trumps DNA.
Someone I admire very much, former Congressman Bill Redmond, has a wonderful ministry that is devoted to educating church leaders in the fundamentals of the historical duties of Christians in the public sphere.
His organization registered a minimum of 30,000 new evangelical voters in New Mexico (probably more like 60,000-70,000).
I give Bill and his folks the credit for putting NM in our column and embarrassing the slimy Clintonite Governor Bill Richardson.
Why is the USA the only country in the world that is totally obssessed with race, ethnicity, etc?
Even the "conservatives" have been so indoctrinated into the communist cause that they see nothing wrong with LABELING everyone and placing them into a slot.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is the only criteria mentioned by any other of what is left of the "FREE World" - what little of it that is left. The RNC even calls that FACISM --- so be it --- I AM A FASCIST!
What is wrong for loving and protecting ones family, ones country, ones GOD! ?
Only those who hate freedom can say anything bad of that.
You will find this to be of interest.
the progress with Latinos needs to be ongoing... we simply cannot wait for another four years to go by without addressing the Latino vote... it must be an ongoing campaign/outreach...
For a careful statistical review of this 44% figure, you would do well to check out this piece
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/041110_poll.htm
by Steve Sailer.
Delighted that Bush won, but not willing to buy the MSM's account of how and why,
Richard F.
Looking at heavily Hispanic counties in Texas (some more than 85% Hispanic, and that's the voters), Bush got about 6% more than last time overall, some more, some less, and I suspect in counties where Hispanics are thinner on the ground the swing was larger. High concentration minority precincts almost always understate the swing of that minority vote overall for obvious reasons: they are poorer and less assimilated, and may have a higher ethnic self identity and conscienceness. I guess that Bush got about 42% of the Hispanic vote nationwide, which means that indeed Bush was very successful in appealing to this group. That is a huge swing from his prior performance, which was itself rather good for a Republican. The vdare screed sinks into near incoherence frankly.
Cheers.
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