Super Duper Latino Vote is No One's Big Enchilada
New America Media, News Analysis, Roberto Lovato, Posted: Feb 06, 2008
Editor’s Note: The closely-contested Super Duper Tuesday primaries didn't yield any clear winner for the Democrats. But it proved one thing - Latino voters did not march monolithically into the voting booths to vote on racial lines. Instead, the Latino vote segmented along other vectors, the most interesting of which is regional, says NAM contributor Roberto Lovato.
Asked on Super Duper Tuesday to choose between a black candidate and a white candidate, Latinos chose both -- and neither.
"The candidates need to understand where Latinos stand," says Smithe Celestrin, 31, standing outside Public School 24 in Brooklyn’s diverse working class neighborhood of Sunset Park. Celestrin, a dark-skinned Puerto Rican-French-Chinese digital advertising manager, says her main issues are the war, the economy and immigration. “This is our country and we will have our say in it.”
In a Democratic contest in which the issue of race has played a definitive role, racially fluid and ambiguous Latinos like Celestrin delivered a loud and historic message to the candidates and pundits and to the country as a whole: the black-white electorate of yesteryear is dead.
Preliminary results of the most intense primary in recent memory indicate that predictions of a monolithic Latino "firewall" for Clinton have fallen short. The candidates split key Latino-heavy states in different parts of the country. Clinton won states like New York, California and New Jersey while Obama won states like Colorado and Illinois.
Exit poll results also demolished widely-held notions that Latinos are unwilling to support a black candidate. Obama succeeded in cutting Clinton's 4-to-1 Latino advantage (68 percent to 17 percent according to a CNN poll conducted last week) to 3-2 last night. And in almost every Latino-heavy state that voted on Super Tuesday, Obama received more than the 26 percent of the Latino vote he got in Nevada just two weeks ago.
Analysis of Latino voting patterns indicates that Latinos did not, as predicted, march monolithically into the voting booths to vote according to the candidate’s skin color. Instead, the Latino vote segmented along other vectors, the most interesting of which is the regional vector.
In what appears to be the development of a Latino voter regionalism, the vote varied depending on what part of the country (and in some cases what part of a state) the vote was cast. For example, while Clinton secured 74 percent of the Latino vote in her home state of New York, available data also indicates that Obama won 59 percent of the 30- to 44-year-olds, the largest age bloc, in his home state of Illinois' Latino electorate.
Obama won important Latino votes -- and delegates -- in Colorado, Arizona and other states where Clinton was expected to overwhelm him. With the support of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and other members of the Latino political machine nurtured by her husband, the former president, Clinton won more than 60 percent of the Latino electorate in states like New Jersey and New York. And regardless of the final tallies in California, the Latino electorate has already proven to be a powerful, new and greatly misunderstood segment of a multi-hued electorate of the United States.
"Candidates are spending tens of millions of dollars trying to capture the attention of Latino voters, mostly in the Spanish-language media," said Maria Teresa Petersen, the executive director of Voto Latino, a nonpartisan voter registration organization that also uses technology and pop culture to promote the political participation of new Latino voters. "But what the campaigns haven't figured out is that 79 percent of the 18 million eligible Latino voters consume media in English," said Petersen.
Analysts like Petersen, whose organization registered more than 7,500 young voters this past January, agree that the youthfulness of the Latino vote guarantees that this vote will continue to see great flux. "Exactly 50 percent of the 18 million voters eligible to vote are under 50 years old. And this is a generation growing up in the era of anti-immigrant politics. This is why they marched and this is why they are voting. Immigration is more than an issue. It's a great catalyst. The candidate who understands this will win the Latino vote in the future, including the near future."
As the highly contested Democratic primary rages beyond Super Duper Tuesday states, Latinos will continue to play critical roles, especially in tight races, according to Antonio Gonzalez, the president of the California-based William C. Velasquez Institute.
"The big enchilada will be Texas, followed by mid-sized states where Latinos are about 5 percent of the vote, states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and Washington," said Gonzalez. "It's going to continue to be very interesting," said a smiling Gonzalez. "On the one hand," he added, "Latinos are clearly trending towards Obama who overcame a 27 point difference nationally. But, on the other hand, Clinton still won several states with (Latino) margins of more than 50 percent."
If Clinton’s Latino advantage holds and if the trend, especially among young Latinos, favoring Obama continues, understanding the fluidity of the very racially and ethnically diverse Latino electorate will be mission critical to success well into November's general election.
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User Comments
legalatina on Feb 07, 2008 at 09:44:15 said:
Lovato at least finally admitted what La RAZA doesn't, that is, that there is no such thing as a monolithic "LAtino" vote on any issue....Latinos diverse politically, racially, linguistically, ethnically, culturally, and socially. Most of us have gone beyond the identity-politics and pandering by the likes of Hillary and Obama and McCain. There are millions of Latinos that can independently assess a candidate according to the issues that are important to the voter, his/her family and this nation without regard to what the ethno-centrist organizations and media are trying to push.
We are more than enchiladas, some of us prefer mondongo, ceviche, or empanadas de verde or even a good 'ol burger and a coke.
Alan on Feb 06, 2008 at 11:52:08 said:
I wished Mr Lovato would get his facts straight and not be guided by just his emotions. All the main stream media including CNN, NPR, San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Chronicle have stated Clinton won the Latino vote by a 2 to 1 margin.It was the combined Latino, Asian, and Women voters in California that helped her win. You are entitled to your opinions Mr Lovato, but you are not entitled to your own facts. This is from someone who is neutral on either candidate.
Google for \"NPR\" and \"Clinton Overwhelmingly Wins Latino Vote\" or \"How Clinton Won California\" in the San Francisco Chronicle. --------------------
From San Jose Mercury (mercurynews.com)
Underscoring the state-by-state differences in Tuesday\'s races, Obama won California\'s whites, while Clinton had leads of nearly 20 percentage points among whites in more conservative Georgia and Missouri.
Bruce Cain (director of the Institute of Governmental Studies) said the California results showed the emergence of a coalition of Latino and Asian voters, who made up an estimated 37 percent of the California electorate, and backed Clinton overwhelmingly. Obama had most of the African-American vote, and even won the white vote, but that was not enough to win.
Bella on Feb 06, 2008 at 07:03:48 said:
Could we please get this article more widely distributed? I am hearing the most disgusting ill-informed drivel from the major networks and talking heads. I have repeatedly heard that Latinos are not voting for Obama because of \"Black-Brown\" tensions. This is crap. Latinos are voting for Clinton because she is a known quality and the Clintons launched an aggressive Latino campaign. Latinos are voting for Obama because he is a known quality and while his Latino targeted efforts were lackluster, he is finally listening to the advisors that he does this at his peril and the results have been telling as he closes the gap. Latinos are varied and sophisticated voters who vote their interests. The only group voting on obvious racial lines are not Hispanics.
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