Latino Issues, Voters & GOP Presidential Candidate Positions

Few Latinos will cast ballots in tomorrow’s GOP primaries, which is the case in most states aside from Florida. All the same, Latinos have factored into the party nominating process as a subject of debate and policy positioning. Republican candidates have devoted quite a bit of time to issues disproportionately affecting Latinos, asserting their party and ideological bona fides on topics like official English language laws, immigration, Mexican border control, the DREAM Act, bilingual education and various identification laws. From the vantage point of most Latino voters, the Republican party champions positions opposite to their interests. So what are Latino interests? The best way to find out, is to ask them, which is the fundamental approach of survey methodology.

Contrary to the view that Latinos are too diverse to share a common politics, there are some issues where the group coalesces. There is substantial agreement across many distinct segments within the Latino population (generational cohort, state, national origin, party) on matters related to identity politics. Take the DREAM Act for example; the issue has broad appeal to the Latino electorate, but not so for any of the GOP presidential contenders. Ron Paul has voted against it already as a House member, while Romney and Santorum vowed to veto the bill given the opportunity. Gingrich prefers compulsory military service as the path to citizenship for those whose parents brought them into the country as children without authorization.

Do You Support the DREAM Act?

Latino Voter Responses by Nativity and National Origin Group

Latino Voter Responses by State and Party Identification

Latino Voter Responses by Income, Education and Age

(Source: Univision News/ABC/Latino Decisions January 2012)

The illustrations above show Latino voters in all demographic categories overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act. National origin, party identification and socioeconomic status do not differentiate opinions. Preferences range from “strongly support” to “somewhat support”; with the clear majority — over 50% — voicing strong support no matter their demographic profile.

Arizona SB 1070

All GOP candidates have voiced strong support for SB1070, sometimes in the name of states rights, and other times in terms of the policy content. During the CNN debate in Arizona last week, Mitt Romney said “Arizona is a model” for immigration policy and he would drop the Department of Justice suit against the state upon his election. Governor Jan Brewer, who gained a national following since she signed the bill into law, officially endorsed Romney over the weekend. Gingrich has expressed the same intent, saying the DOJ is preventing Arizona, Alabama, and South Carolina from helping the federal government enforce the law. [The United States Supreme Court will begin hearing Arizona v. United States two months from now, April 25th, and will likely rule on the matter long before the next inauguration.]

Do You Support Arizona SB 1070?

Percent Latino voters responding “strongly oppose” and “oppose” by state

(Source: Latino Decisions Election Eve Poll, November 2010)

Latino voters overwhelmingly oppose SB1070, no matter their state of residence. Distance from the state and immigrant experience have no bearing. US and foreign-born Latino voters in Arizona are equally concerned about the potential impact on Latino Americans.

How likely is it that Latino American citizens will be questioned by police?

Percent Arizona Latino voters answering “likely” and “very likely” by immigrant cohort

(Source: Latino Decisions Arizona Latino Voter Poll, May 2010)

At the CNN Arizona debate last week, the candidates accorded respect and deference to Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio. Santorum and Romney praised Arpaio’s work and law enforcement efforts. The auditorium audience applauded at the mention (and camera shot) of Sherriff Joe, and again to candidate references to his good work. But, these applause lines come at the expense of Latinos. Arpaio is currently under federal investigation for leading his law enforcement agency with “pervasive bias against Latinos.” When former candidate Rick Perry campaigned with Arpaio’s endorsement, GOP Latino groups called for Perry to withdraw his candidacy. In-group distinctions (even party preference) make little difference on issues pertinent to the larger ethnic group.

Count On It

Like any other voters, Latinos will choose candidates closest to their political preferences. Of course it makes sense that Latinos voters prefer not to be national scapegoats for American economic and social ills. The graphic below illustrates this point. In the 2010 midterm elections, Latino voters said anti-Latino sentiment was among the most important – if not the most important – factors influencing whether and for whom to vote. In essence, many Latinos showing up on Election Day to play defense for the team.

Does Anti-Latino Sentiment Influence Turnout and Vote Choice Decisions?

Percent of Latino Voters who said it was “the most” or “one of the most” important factors

(Source: Latino Decisions Election Eve Poll, November 2010)

The data show Latino voters in Republican, Democratic and swing states alike are motivated by group-specific concerns. Republicans cannot count on low Latino voter turnout as part of a winning strategy. Democrats cannot assume Latino support to lead them to victory either.

Despite diminished enthusiasm, millions of Latinos will vote in 2012. The Latino eligible electorate has grown by two million since 2008, and anti-Latino sentiment has increased in the eyes of Latino voters. Beyond whatever ethnic politics plays out in the presidential campaign, there are also competitive down ballot contests, Latino candidates, and combinations thereof with the potential to draw Latino voters to the polls. Candidates, issues, and party strength will vary across states and contests, but Latino voter distaste for rhetoric and policy detrimental to the group will remain constant. We can count on that.

Latino conservatives? GOP hopes misplaced

This article was originally published at USA Today

One of the Newt Gingrich campaign’s top 10 reasons for why Latinos should support him for president is that “he shares our conservative values.” Republican reasoning often goes like this: While the majority of Latinos do not agree with the GOP on fiscal or immigration matters, at least their faith and social conservatism will make them Republican-friendly.

The GOP, however, shouldn’t hold its breath. The idea that Latinos are social conservatives akin to white evangelicals is simply off-base. A recent poll by impreMedia and Latino Decisions of 500 registered Latino voters late last year found that religious beliefs would not have an impact on the vote of 53% of Latinos, while 17% indicate that it will have a little impact.

Latinos are not significantly more conservative than non-Latinos. In fact, when it comes to gay marriage, a November Univision-Latino Decisions poll found Latinos are more progressive that non-Latinos. Though 43% of Latino voters supported gay marriage, only 35% of general voters did.

The trend is similar on issues like abortion. Most Latinos identify as Catholic, yet their faith does not translate into an absolute rejection of abortion rights. The same Univision-Latino Decisions poll found 38% of Latinos are pro-choice, and Latinas are only slightly less likely than non-Hispanic women to support abortion.

In the upcoming presidential election, Latinos’ top concern is jobs and the economic recovery — just like other Americans. This makes sense, especially when the unemployment rate among Latinos in January was 10.5% compared with 8.3% for the general population. Immigration is Issue No. 2 among Latinos, yet other than Gingrich, no Republican presidential candidate supports immigration reform that provides a large-scale pathway to citizenship.

In the short term, the GOP can attract certain segments of the Latino electorate, including the more conservative Cuban-American population as well as Latinos whose families have been inAmericafor more than a generation or two.

Looking beyond this election, the Republican Party will have success with the growing Latino population with a broad and inclusive agenda, not one that puts all hope in a social conservatism that doesn’t even appeal to many Latino voters. Only then might that great migration to the GOP actually occur.

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is the Communications Director for Latino Decisions and Fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, at Austin. Connect with her at: drvmds@latinodecisions.com

The Sotomayor Nomination: Evidence of Panethnic Political Interest

Do Latinos share common political interests, or, does in-group variation produce oppositional intra-group politics that negate panethnic politics? President Barack Obama’s historic nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court provides a prime and rare opportunity to examine the political manifestations of Latino heterogeneity in a national setting. Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican heritage and New York roots are distinctive traits and ubiquitous features in media accounts of her nomination and confirmation hearings. Her background simultaneously links her with the panethnic Latino community, and differentiates her from those that reside outside the East Coast, have more recent immigrant ties, or different national origins.

Using data from Google Insights for Search, Professor Joe Ura and I consider whether state-level interest in Sotomayor is associated with the size of the Latino and Puerto Rican populations. Our findings are presented in a forthcoming Political Communication article. If Latinos around the country respond cohesively to ethnic political cues, we should observe distinct trends in Google search patterns. And, if interest in ethnic politics is relegated to more specific group identities — like national origin — then Google search trends should illustrate those differences as well. We find search volume related to Sotomayor is highest in states with larger Latino populations — Puerto Rican and other Latino origin groups.

Google Searches for “Sotomayor” – Summer 2009

There is clearly more interest in Justice Sotomayor among all Latinos, relative to non-Latino whites, evidencing a distinctive panethnic trend. Additionally, the relative size of Puerto Rican population predicts interest in Sotomayor’s nomination above and beyond the positive effects predicted by panethnic Latino population. The map illustrates search volume for Sotomayor is highest in states with concentrated Puerto Rican populations (New York area, Illinois, and Florida, for example). Similarly, states with large Latino communities that are principally of Mexican descent, such as Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, also score highly on the Google Insights Index. These results point to the salience of ethnic cues in motivating political interest that can cut across in-group demographic differences.

To probe the relationship a bit more, we examine search trends for three different Supreme Court nominees in specific geographic regions. The table shows search patterns for Justices Alito, Roberts and Sotomayor (searches conducted one month before and after their respective nominations) in New York, Texas, and the Arizona-New Mexico region. Since there are few large cities in either Arizona or New Mexico, the two are considered one unit only for purposes of metro-level analysis. The Latino population is concentrated in specific areas within these states, so, if search volume is related to ethnicity, it should be observable in these cases.

Search by City in Four States Percent Latino Population in Parentheses

	Roberts	Alito	Sotomayor
New York
1.	Syracuse (6)	Albany (7)	New York City (27)
2.	Buffalo (8)	New York City (27)	Burlington (2)
3.	Rochester (14)		Albany (7)
4.	New York City (27)		Syracuse (6)
Texas
1.	Austin (35)	Austin (35)	Austin (35)
2.	Dallas-Ft Worth (38)	Dallas-Ft Worth (38)	El Paso (80)
3.	Houston (41)	Houston (41)	San Antonio (61)
Arizona and New Mexico
1.	Phoenix (41)	Phoenix (41)	Albuquerque (44)
2.			Tucson (42)
3.			Phoenix (41)

Latino Population Estimates Averaged 2005-2009, US Census Bureau, ACS.

In all three states, the trends are consistent: areas with large Latino populations demonstrate substantially more interest in Sotomayor compared to Roberts and Alito. New York City, home to the largest metropolitan Puerto Rican population in the United States ranks first for Sotomayor, but second for Alito and a distant fourth for Roberts. In Texas, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston register the highest search volume in the Roberts and Alito nominations. Yet Sotomayor’s search volume is driven by interest from residents in Austin, El Paso and San Antonio. Latinos comprise 80% of the El Paso and 61% of the San Antonio population. Texas Latinos are mostly Mexican origin (84%), illustrating the salience of Spanish surname and ethnic cues in mobilizing political interest. Finally, the Arizona-New Mexico metro areas reinforce these trends with the stark outcome that shows only the Phoenix area registered enough queries for both Alito and Roberts to meet the threshold for Google Insights to assign any score at all. In this same two-state region, Albuquerque, Tucson and Phoenix ranked first, second and third in Sotomayor searches, mirroring their regional rank order in percent Latino population.

Of course, it is possible that non-Latinos in El Paso and Albuquerque fueled online searches for Sotomayor in the same way that Latinos in Syracuse and Albany could be responsible for spikes in Alito and Roberts search trends; but we think not. While these data are merely descriptive in nature, they offer a consistent pattern that supports the reasonable and theoretically sound interpretation that Latinos were interested in the Sotomayor nomination in a manner that distinguished their interested from prior nominations, and that their interest in her nomination fueled higher numbers of web searches registered by Google Insights.

Judge Sotomayor’s Latina identity, evident in her surname and a ubiquitous feature of public biographies, cued panethnic interest among Latinos with seemingly less in common with the nominee, as evidenced in places like El Paso, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Specific Puerto Rican identity triggered the most pronounced attention to the event, indicative of the enduring salience and attachments to particularized national origin groups. The Sotomayor nomination may offer a preview of Latino identity politics in future national political contests: Latino candidates deriving elevated support from the panethnic Latino community and especially high levels of support from their national origin compatriots.

Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions Poll Accurately Predicted Florida Latino Vote for Romney

A poll conducted by Latino Decisions for Univision News and ABC News and released January 25, 2012 accurately predicted Mitt Romney would hold more than a 20-point lead among Latino Republicans in Florida, and exit polls released January 31, 2012 confirmed Romney bested Gingrich by more than 20 points.  Two other polls released on Monday January 30 by PPP and Insider Advantage both suggested that Gingrich actually led among Hispanics.

As Matthew Jaffe and Jordan Fabian wrote for ABC News on January 25, the Latino Decision poll showed Romney with a 26-point lead over Gingrich.  And, taking a look at the exit poll results posted January 31, Romney held a 25-point advantage over Gingrich on election day, 54 to 29.

The Latino Decisions/Univision/ABC poll interviewed 517 Latino registered voters in Florida via landline and cellphone, and reached respondents in both English and Spanish, at the discretion of the person interviewed. The sample design started from the point of view of gathering an accurate and representative sample of Latinos statewide, as opposed to a small sample of Latinos gathered as part of a larger statewide poll.

In 2010, Latino Decisions partnered with the Los Angeles Times to conduct a pre-election, and post-election survey in California, focusing specifically on the Latino oversample.  Following the election, USC Professor of Political Science Jane Junn noted the L.A. Times poll was the most accurate in California because it took the time to accurately, and bilingually interview Latino voters.  In states with a large Latino population – such as Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and other states likely to be very competitive in 2012 -  Nate Silver points out (see item #4 here) that pollsters must take extra care to accurately collect data among Latinos – the fastest growing segment of the electorate in just about every state.

The 3 Latino Electorates Within Florida and How they Differ

With all the newfound interest in the Latino vote in Florida almost all coverage has missed an interesting and very important nuance – there is not one single Latino electorate in Florida, but rather, at least three distinct blocs. In order to best understand Latino preferences in the Sunshine state on Tuesday, and more so in November, election observers – and the candidates – would be wise to hone in on the important differences between three key segments of the Latino vote in Florida.

A few days ago, Latino Decisions released a poll in partnership with Univision News and ABC which found Romney besting Gingrich in the Republican primary, and Obama head of both Republicans in a potential match-up in November. However a closer look at the data reveals important differences within the Florida Latino electorate. Most obvious, and well known, are the differences between the South Florida, Miami-Broward Latino population which is predominantly Cuban American, and the Central Florida, Orlando-Tampa population with a large Puerto Rican. Further, within the Cuban population, important differences exist between the older more conservative immigrant generation, and the somewhat younger and much more moderate U.S. born Cuban American electorate. Readers can find full results of our Florida survey here, with banner points for Cuban, Puerto Rican, Miami, Orlando, and other differences within the state.

Gingrich Latino Puzzle

This article was originally published at NBC Latino

Judging by the more than 400 “likes” on Newt Gingrich – Para Latinos Facebook, Newt Gingrich should do well with Latinos in the Florida primary this coming Tuesday. By contrast, Mitt Romney only has a dozen or so “likes” on his page.  But Facebook popularity does not win elections because according to the Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions poll released this week of Latino Florida voters Romney wins the popularity contest that really matters.

Less than a week before the primary, Mitt Romney’s favorability among Latinos in Florida is at 40%, comfortably ahead of Newt Gingrich’s 33% approval. More specifically, Romney’s favorables are not only higher but his unfavorables are lower than Gingrich’s. When these Latino voters were asked who they would vote for, Romney’s favorability ratings translated into solid vote intentions, 35%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 20%, Ron Paul at 6%, and Rick Santorum at 8%.

Latino Decisions/Univision/ABC releases new poll on voters in Florida, and nationally

In partnership with Univision News and ABC News, Latino Decisions has released two new polls of the Latino electorate and the 2012 presidential contest. The polls interviewed 500 Latino registered voters nationally, and a second poll of 500 Latino registered voters in the state of Florida. Full results are posted here.

Latino Decisions asked vote choice among likely Republican primary voters, favorability ratings for all candidates as well as President Obama, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez and more, and general election match-ups between Obama-Romney; and Obama-Gingrich. Other topics covered issues such as the economy, immigration, health care, and perceptions of party outreach to Hispanics.

Additional results can be found on the Univision News website here

Tomorrow, Latino Decisions analysts will be posting more detailed and in-depth review and commentary on the poll results, and implications for 2012.

Conference Call to Focus on Florida as First Major Latino State

Latino Community Tele-Forum:  “The Latino Primary 2012”

Conference Call to Focus on Florida as First Major Latino State

MIAMI – The National Institute for Latino Policy will convene a national teleconference of Latino leaders from across the country next Monday, January 23, to host a Community Tele-Forum entitled “The Latino Primary 2012”   In the 2008 election, the wave of the massive Latino vote helped propel Barack Obama to victory.  With polls showing growing disappointment with President Obama among Latino voters, the upcoming primary in Florida, the first primary state with a major Latino population, raises the question, “Will Latinos vote Republican in 2012?

Held just one week before the Florida primary, The Latino Primary 2012 will allow invited experts and leaders to shed light on what to expect with first major voting contest involving the Latino vote.  “Florida represents the first contest of the Latino primary season, a stretch of state primaries involving significant Latino voting populations” said Angelo Falcón, President and Founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, the event’s sponsor.

The Latino Primary 2012 will help provide a range of analysis and discussion from scholars, political leaders, and community advocates to help navigate and understand what direction the wave of the Latino vote will take in 2012.

To view the full list of contests in the Latino Primary Season, see below.

WHAT

“The Latino Primary 2012”: Latino Community Tele-Forum analyzing the Latino Vote in 2012 Election on the eve of the Florida primary

WHO

Gary Segura, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; Co Founder and Principal, Latino Decisions.  Professor Segura will preview some new data on Latino voters in Florida and across the country.

Maria del Rosario Rodriguez, Co-Founder, Florida Immigrant Coalition

Arturo Carmona, Executive Director, Presente.org

Isabel Garcia, Executive Director, Derechos Humanos, Tucson, Arizona

Angelo Falcón, President and Founder, National Institute for Latino Policy

Other guests to be announced

WHEN

Monday, January 23, 2012

1pm Eastern  |  10 am Pacific

WHERE

Conference Call Dial In Number: 800-862-9098

Conference ID: LATINO

Program Title: Latino Primary 2012

2012 Primaries – Latino Primary Season

Jan. 31: Florida primary

Feb. 4: Nevada caucuses

Feb. 7: Colorado caucuses

Feb. 28: Arizona primary

March 3: Washington State caucuses

March 6: Super Tuesday — Georgia primary

March 18: Puerto Rico primary

March 20: Illinois primary

April 3: Texas primary

April 24: Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island primaries

May 8: North Carolina primary

May 15: Oregon primary

June 5: California, New Jersey, New Mexico primaries

June 26: Utah primary

Latino Voters Go Beyond Immigration

This article originally appeared in the January 30, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine

José Díaz-Balart, chief political analyst for Telemundo, had one important task during the September 7, 2011, Republican debate—to ask the candidates about immigration. Díaz-Balart asked his question, got his answer and was dismissed from the stage. The stereotype was fulfilled; a Latino asked one question and the one question was about immigration. With that box checked, the moderators and candidates were able to return to “non-Latino” issues.

The problem is, the issues that keep Latinos up at night—like double-digit unemployment rates, living at the poverty end of the wealth gap and having the highest high school dropout rates in the country—go well beyond immigration. Herein lies the challenge for President Obama. He must recast his connection with Latino voters beyond a narrow focus on immigration and engage Latinos as the multi-issue electorate they are.

Language Translation and Latino Health Outcomes

The issue of language translation has concerned survey researchers for some time. While much of this work has been conducted by scholars interested in making comparisons across nations with differences in language use, research focused on the United States has had to consider the potential bias associated with translation more recently. With large foreign-born populations, non-English language use is highly salient for scholars interested in comparisons between these populations and whites. We find that a large segment of Latino respondents, even those that are fully bilingual, prefer to conduct survey interviews in Spanish. For example, 61 percent of respondents to the Latino National Survey (2006), a major national telephone survey of 8,600 respondents, chose to conduct their interview in Spanish.  Given the high number of respondents who are interviewed in Spanish when bilingual interviewers are utilized, it is critical to have a handle on whether any bias is introduced in the translation process.

Searching for a National Latino Leader

A recent blog to the Latino Decisions page noted that Susana Martinez and Marco Rubio, both mentioned as possible Vice Presidential candidates, were largely unknown by Latino voters. While somewhat surprising, this seems to be in line with other surveys focused on Latino’s knowledge of Latino political leaders. For example, a 2010 poll by the Pew Hispanic Center asked 1,375 Latino adults to name the person they consider “the most important Latino leader in the country today”. A robust 64% of respondents said they “did not know”, and another ten percent of the sample responded that there “is none”. The most frequently cited Leader, at only 7%, was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotamayor.

This apparent lack of Latino political leadership comes after a period of unprecedented growth in political representation for Latinos. According to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials most recent directory of elected officials, the number of Latino elected officials increased by 53% from 3,734 in 1996 to 5,850 in 2011.  This rise in Latino political representation appears to be apparent at all levels of public office. Specifically, the number of Latinos represented in Congress has more than doubled from 12 legislators in the 101^st Congress (1989-1990) to a high of 28 Latino members of Congress in the 109^th (2005-2006). This rise in Latinos in Congress is apparent in figure one below. Here you can see a steady climb in the number of Latinos within Congress over time, especially in the House, with a high of 28 in the 109^th Congress. While the number of Latinos in Congress has dropped slightly over the past two election cycles, the 26 members serving in the 112^th Congress is much greater than the 19 who served a decade ago.

 

This rise in Latino representation is even more apparent at the state level. Since the 1970’s the percentage of Latinos in state legislatures across the U.S. has increased steadily. For example, from 1996 to 2010 there has been a 57% increase in the percentage of Latinos elected to state legislatures, with 245 Latinos represented in state legislatures across the nation. And as noted above, two Latinos are currently serving as Governors of their state: New Mexico’s Susana Martinez and Nevada’s Brian Sandoval. Finally, the election of Antonio Villaraigosa as mayor of Los Angeles symbolizes similar representation trends at this level. Major cities such as Denver, San Antonio, and Miami have elected Latino mayors, as well as several smaller cities such as Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Austin and El Paso. At least one of these mayors, San Antonio’s Julian Castro, has received major national attention, referenced by the New York Times as the “Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician”.

The rise in Latino representation in elected offices across all levels of government has definitely provided a strong and growing pool of potential national leaders. However, although there has clearly been a rise in Latino representation, the question remains as to whether Latinos, themselves, views these elected officials as leaders of their community. The results of the Pew survey appear to suggest that the diversity among Latinos in regard to partisanship, region, and nativity etc. may hinder their ability to rally around a national Latino leader. Although the Pew poll was conducted just prior to the election of Rubio and Martinez, the November, 2011 Latino Decisions poll provides the ability to explore this possibility.

The November poll reveals sizable differences in favorability for Marco Rubio based on partisanship, with 56% of Latino Republicans indicating that they have either “very” or “somewhat” favorable impressions of the Senator, compared to only 19% among Latino Democrats. There was a more modest 10% point gap based on nativity, with foreign-born Latinos having higher favorability for Rubio. U.S.-born and English dominant Latinos were less knowledgeable of both candidates. Native-born Latinos were 13% more likely to have “never heard of” New Mexico’s Martinez, and 15% more likely to have “never heard of” Florida’s Rubio. This is consistent with the Pew Report, which also found familiarity with Latino leaders to be greater among the foreign-born. Finally, and not surprisingly, both familiarity and favorability for Rubio and Martinez is greater in their respective regions of the country. For example, 23% of Latinos in the Southwest had favorable impressions of Martinez in the November poll, compared to only 8% in New York. Similarly, 44% of Latinos in Florida are favorable towards their home-Senator Rubio, compared to 25% in the Southwest and 19% in New York.

While it is clear that variation within the Latino population will continue to provide challenges to contenders for the title of “national Latino leader”, there are many reasons for optimism. The rise in Latino descriptive representation will provide a natural pool of candidates for higher office, including a potential Vice President in the near future. Further, as the influence of the Latino electorate continues to grow, both parties will be motivated to recruit and develop Latino leaders in an effort to court Latino voters. Finally, the rapid and unexpected rise of President Obama to national prominence provides an example of just how quickly a “national leader” can rise to prominence. In closing, let us not forget that at one point, Hillary Clinton had higher favorability and greater familiarity ratings among African Americans than Barack Obama.

Gabriel R. Sanchez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico and Research Director for Latino Decisions.

Latina Moms in the 2012 Election

by Victoria DeFrancesco Soto

Soccer moms were the go to gals in the 1996 Presidential election.  Eight years later George W. Bush again looked to the ladies, zeroing in on security moms.  In the last presidential election  a hockey mom herself was put at the top of the ticket.  And leading up to the 2012 election Wal-Mart moms are the political date of choice.

The different “moms” of the last couple of elections have changed names, but they remain generally similar in terms of demographic characteristics – white, middle class, and suburban.  These moms vote and they are moved by tangible day-to-day concerns related to the well-being of their family.  Campaigns are smart to target these women, but would be unwise to do so to the exclusion of the growing population of mamás—Latina moms.

Latinas, like white, black, and Asian women have out-voted their male counterparts for 30 years. In the 2008 election 70.4 million women voted, close to 10 million more women than men.  In that same election 34.3% of eligible Latinas voted while only 29.1% of Latino men did.  This pattern is likely to continue into the 2012 election.  At the same time that this differential will persist, the raw number of Latinas (and Latinos) voting will climb as a result of the rapid population growth within the Latino community that has increased by two million new eligible Latino voters.

Mamás will be a particularly important electorate for President Obama.  While women across the board approve of the President at higher rates than men, the President’s approval is strongest among Latinas.   In the November 2011 Univision-Latino Decisions poll 31% of registered Latinas strongly approved of the President compared to 27% of registered non-Latinas.  This differential widened when the President was paired up against Mitt Romney.  In this hypothetical match-up 47% of non-Latinas stated they were most likely vote for President Obama and among Latinas that figure shot up to 69%.

While as a group Latinos continue to support President Obama at higher rates than whites, Latinas approve of the President more than their male counterparts.  In December 2011 an impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll asked registered Latinos how certain they were in their vote for President Obama or a Republican challenger.  Fifty-four percent of the respondents stated that they were certain to vote for the President.  However, the level of support was not equal among Latino men and women, with 56% of Latinas stating their certainty of support and 51% of Latino men doing the same.  In a follow up question that pitted the President against Mitt Romney, Latinas again indicated that they were more likely to vote for President Obama.

Moms inside and outside of the political arena are a force to be reckoned with, Latina moms not being the exception.  As the Latino population continues to grow the force of mamás will only increase.  If they are courted appropriately Latina moms will prove to be a lifeline to the President’s re-election bid.     However, Latinas, like Latinos in general are an electorate that will cross party lines if a candidate resonates with them.  Moving beyond the 2012 election, Republicans and Democrats alike will need to seek to make mamá happy.

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is the Communications Director for Latino Decisions and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Connect with her at: drvmds@latinodecisions.com

Latinos Rising: Consequences of the 2011 Nevada Redistricting

David F. Damore, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

What a difference a decade makes.  In 2001, despite constituting 20% of Nevada’s population, Latinos received little to no consideration in the state’s redistricting process.[i]  In 2011, representation of the state’s Latino community – now over 26% of Nevada’s population – was the main point of contention that caused Nevada’s reapportionment and redistricting to be completed in state court.[ii]  Throughout redistricting negotiations, Republicans cited the lack of a majority-minority Latino U.S. House district (Nevada was awarded its fourth House seat after the 2010 census) as grounds to oppose maps proposed by the majority Democrats.  Ultimately, because Republican Governor Brian Sandoval’s vetoed two sets of maps passed on party line votes and refused to call a special session to complete Nevada’s redistricting, Carson City District Judge Todd Russell took control of the process and appointed three special masters to complete Nevada’s 2011 redistricting.

Cynics accused the Republicans of using Latino representation as a fig-leaf for broader fears about the political implications of Nevada’s changing demographics.  Between 2000 and 2010, Nevada was the nation’s fastest growing state and is now one of the most urbanized and diverse states in the country – two important drivers of the Democratic vote in the Mountain West.  Specifically, nearly three out of four Nevadan’s reside in Clark County (Las Vegas) and the state’s minority population increased by10% with better than 45% of all Nevadans being classified as non-white by the 2010 U.S. Census.  Aided by a heavy investment in resources and political talent by Reid Inc. (the moniker of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader’s extensive political organization), Nevada Democrats took advantage of these demographic trends to flip the state from Republican leaning to Democratic leaning by decade’s end.  Figure 1, which summaries Democratic electoral strength using Ceaser and Saldin’s Major Party Index and voter registration figures between 2000 and 2010, captures the Democratic rise in Nevada during the prior decade.[iii]

Thus, regardless of the final contours of the maps, changes to the state’s political demography meant that the 2011 redistricting would favor the Democrats.  Instead of accepting this reality, Nevada Republicans clung to a tortured interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in hopes of extracting a more favorable outcome.  Specifically, by claiming that Nevada was required to draw one of its House seats as majority Latino, Republicans were at odds with the Shaw v. Reno (509 U.S. 630 ) holding, which allows race to be considered but not the primary factor (as the Republican proposed House map did) in drawing district boundaries.  Moreover, as Democrats and many allied Latinos noted, packing Latinos into a single U.S. House district would marginalize Latino influence in Nevada’s other three U.S. House districts and because white voters in Nevada do not vote as a block to deny Latinos representation of their preferred candidates as evidenced by the fact that Latino candidates won a number of state legislative seats, the attorney generalship, and the governorship in 2010 without such accommodations, race-based redistricting in Nevada is unnecessary.

By forcing redistricting into the courts, Nevada Republicans miscalculated and ended up with a less favorable outcome than if they had accepted either of the Democratic plans passed during the legislative session.  To be sure, regardless of who drew the maps, the manner in which Nevada’s population is distributed ensured that the outcome for Nevada’s four U.S. House districts would be two safe Democratic seats, one Republican leaning district, and one swing district.  However, in realizing this outcome, the special masters opted not to create a majority Latino House district.  Still, as indicated by the data presented in Table 1, which summarizes the demographic and partisan composition of Nevada’s four U.S. House districts, Latinos constitute 43% of Nevada’s 1^st House District and Latinos of voting age are nearly 37% of the district’s population.  Moreover, except for the Republican leaning district (Nevada’s 2^nd), the Latino population is larger than the Latino voting age population in the other three U.S. House districts suggesting that the demographic transformation of Nevada’s electorate will continue in the coming decade.  Given the extensive mobilization of Nevada’s Latino community by the Democrats since 2004, these trends are particularly troubling for Nevada Republicans who only in the last month hired a Latino outreach coordinator.

Equally problematic for Nevada Republicans are the special masters’ state legislative maps.  Because of growth patterns during the prior decade, southern Nevada was assured of gaining a state senate seat and two assembly seats (48 of 63 seats in the Nevada Legislature are now located in southern Nevada).  Thus, the main issue was which seats would be moved from northern Nevada to the Democratic stronghold of Clark County.  In both of their plans the Democrats proposed moving seats located in and around Washoe County (Reno) to southern Nevada and preserving two stand alone rural state senate districts.  Instead, the special masters created one stand alone rural senate district and moved the other rural state senate seat to southern Nevada.  Moreover, the senate seat in Washoe County that the Democrats had originally proposed to move south was drawn with a Republican registration advantage of less than 1%.

More generally, as the data in Table 2 suggest, for Nevada Republicans to gain the majority in either chamber of the Nevada Legislature in the coming decade will require that Republican candidates consistently win an overwhelming share of the nonpartisan vote (16% of the electorate).  In the state senate, 12 seats have a Democratic voter registration advantage in excess of 5% as compared to only five such seats for the GOP.  And in only one of the four competitive senate district do Republicans have a registration advantage greater than 1%.  The GOP’s prospects are even less favorable in the Assembly where the Democrats now have 25 seats with registration advantages in excess of 5%.  In contrast, there are only eight seats that favor the Republicans and nine seats where neither party enjoys a registration advantage greater than 5%   Lastly, Latinos should be able to continue to increase their ranks in the Nevada Legislature in the coming decade from their present eight given that over a third of all state legislative districts have Latino populations in excess of 30%.

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End Notes

[i] Despite constituting 20% of the population in 2000, after the 2002 midterm election, Hispanics held just 5 % of seats in the state legislature.  For an extended discussion of Nevada’s 2011 redistricting, see David F. Damore, “The 2011 Nevada Redistricting and Perpetuation of the Status Quo,” American Review of Politics (Summer 2006): 149–68

[ii] Population and demographic data cited here come from the U.S. Census Bureau, “State and County Quick Facts,” August 2011 (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html) and U.S. Census, “American Fact Finder,” August 2011 (http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml).

[iii] The Major Party Index combines a party’s electoral support in the most recent presidential, gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House contests and the share of the seats that the party controls in both chambers of the state legislature; see, James W. Ceaser and Robert P. Saldin, “A New Measure of Party Strength,” Political Research Quarterly (June 2005): 245–56.

David F. Damore is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and an expert in Nevada politics.

When We All Become the Immigration Police

By Helen B. Marrow, TuftsUniversity

In July 2011, Governor of Alabama Robert Bentley signed into law a sweeping new anti-immigration bill.  Hailed by Republican lawmakers as the “harshest” in the country, House Bill 56 went far beyondArizona’s Senate Bill 1070, which had made national headlines in 2010.

But on September 28, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Blackburn blocked the first six provisions in the bill, including ones that made it a state crime for unauthorized immigrants to apply for or solicit work, made it unlawful to conceal, harbor, shield, or transport unauthorized immigrants, and prohibited unauthorized immigrant students from attending public colleges.  Two of the most controversial of the remaining provisions were later enjoined by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit – one that required public schools to track the immigration status of students, and the other that allowed the state to charge someone who fails to produce proof of legal status with a misdemeanor criminal offense.

But the appellate court left in place the remaining provisions.  The ninth provision – unofficially referred to as the “papers please” clause, because it allows state and local police to inquire into the immigration status of anyone stopped or arrested if an officer has a “reasonable” suspicion” that the person is unauthorized – remains controversial because an injunction against its counterpart in Arizona’s SB 1070 was previously upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and is now heading to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The tenth and eleventh provisions – the former denying unauthorized immigrations access to the courts to enforce contracts, and the latter making it a felony for unauthorized immigrants to enter or attempt to enter into business transactions with state or local governments – are even more controversial.  They effectively expand the range of what is considered “illegal” behavior, not just by unauthorized immigrants by alsoU.S.citizens, into new territory.

As Joan Friedland (2011) notes, according to the tenth provision (Section 27), an unauthorized immigrant can enter into a contract but have no legal means to enforce it – if, for instance, an employer fails to pay for work accomplished or overtime completed, or if a landlord fails to keep a rental property in working condition. Likewise, aU.S. citizen landlord can enter into a contract with an unauthorized immigrant but have no legal means to enforce it – if, for instance, the immigrant fails to pay rent or adhere to the provisions of a lease.

According to the eleventh provision (Section 30), an unauthorized immigrant can neither enter nor even attempt to enter into business transactions with state or local governments.  And while U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Blackburn defined a “business transaction” more narrowly to include only licensing and commercial activities, the provision itself defines it more broadly – as “any transaction between a person and the state or a political subdivision of the state”.  Indeed, some local governments have already applied the law to all dealings with state and local government entities, and others have decided that the law limits their provision of public services such as utilities.  The town of Allgood, Alabama has interpreted HB 56 to require all water customers to provide an Alabama’s driver’s license or an Alabama picture ID in order to keep their current water service.  Jefferson County, Alabama has also interpreted the law to require proof of lawful presence for registering a mobile home, including for obtaining the decal proof of payment of property tax.  This provision is so controversial that just this week U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson temporarily enjoined its enforcement regarding mobile home owners, arguing that it violates the Fair Housing Act (Hoy 2011).

Whatever happens to the legal fates of Arizona SB 1070 and Alabama HB 56, they highlight a dangerous new trend of what I call bureaucratic and civil cross-deputization.

What do I mean by this?  On its own, “cross-deputization” is the official term used to describe what is happening under law enforcement provisions like the ninth one in HB 56, when state and local police become authorized to engage in activities related to federal immigration enforcement. For much of the last two centuries, state and local policing has been considered as separate from our federal immigration regime. But beginning in 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) added Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act, vertically integrating the project of immigration enforcement.  Section 287(g) authorized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enter into memoranda of agreement with state and local law enforcement agencies to train selected state and local officers to perform certain functions of immigration officers, at their own cost and under the supervision of federal ICE officers. Functions include searching selected federal databases and conducting interviews to assist in identifying those individuals who are in the country illegally.

Thus, under 287(g) memoranda of agreement, an increasing number of state and local law enforcement officers have become cross-deputized as federal immigration agents:  they now have direct access to ICE databases and can act in the stead of ICE agencies by processing aliens for removal, which goes beyond their previous ability to communicate indirectly with ICE regarding the immigration status of individuals, or to otherwise cooperate indirectly with ICE in identification and removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States.  Moreover, the 287(g) program is just one of 14 covered by the umbrella of ICE’s Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security.  In fact, a new ICE Secure Communities plan, which is intended to take advantage of the “full interoperability” of the federal government’s biometric identification systems to identify and remove “criminal illegal aliens”, is projected to be made available to all of the nation’s 1,200 state and federal prisons and 3,100 local jails by the end of 2013 (Rodríguez et al. 2010). Under this plan, state and local law enforcement officers will become even more strongly cross-deputized with the powers of federal immigration agents:  they will be able to check all detainees’ fingerprints, and thereby their immigration status and prior immigration violations, against FBI and DHS records as part of routine booking processes.

Nonetheless, the ninth provision of Alabama HB’s 56 is just one of many.   Looking at HB 56’s provisions in their entirety, and comparing them to those in anti-immigrant provisions and bills passed in other states and localities nationwide, suggests a broader trend toward cross-deputization afoot.  This trend involves not only law enforcement officers, who are indeed uniquely authorized among public workers to employ the state’s coercive power.  It also involves a range of the kinds of other “street-level bureaucrats” – such teachers, school and university administrators, healthcare providers, social welfare workers, court officials, and municipal service providers.

For example, it is school teachers and university administrators who find themselves on the front line of immigration policing when local ordinances prohibit unauthorized immigrant students from attending public colleges, or when state bills require public schools to track the immigration status of their students (which, by the way, is not just for “fiscal analysis” purposes only, but rather for an ultimate purpose of trying to prove that their enrollment is an economic burden on U.S. students and taxpayers, so that Plyler v. Doe can be re-challenged in court).  Likewise, it is healthcare providers who find themselves on the front line of immigration policing when local ordinances – like the one passed by Alamance County Commissioners in North Carolina in 2008 – prohibit them from offering nonemergency services to all unauthorized immigrants. And it is court personnel and municipal service providers, respectively, who find themselves on the front line of immigration policing when state bills such as Alabama HB 56 deny courts the ability to enforce contracts involving unauthorized immigrants, or turn business transactions between unauthorized immigrants and state or local government entities into a felony.

In fact, on the ground level it is precisely these kinds of street-level bureaucrats who are resisting politicians’ efforts to cross-deputize their work and roles vis-à-vis immigrants. Sure, some welcome and enforce such efforts.  But by and large, my research in rural North Carolina finds that street-level bureaucrats are more likely to resist bureaucratic cross-deputization than to embrace it.  We can see elements of this resistance elsewhere in the country, too.  Alabama school superintendents and principals issued public service announcements and hosted community forums following the two court rulings around HB 56, in order to try and reassure anxious parents that they and their children would not be reported to immigration officials for having unauthorized status if the kids attended school (Chishti and Bergeron 2011).  In 2006, the Police Chiefs of major U.S. cities issued a set of public recommendations regarding local police involvement in federal immigration policing, arguing that they should focus their efforts on the service-oriented mission of community policing rather than on the regulatory-oriented mission of immigration enforcement (MCC 2006). And healthcare professionals inNorth Carolina fought againstAlamanceCounty’s restrictions, emphasizing the confidentiality of medical records as a central tenet of health care providers’ code of ethics, and the importance of serving unauthorized immigrants to improving total community health.

For many of these street-level bureaucrats, the professional mission of improving a community’s health and well-being encourages service provision, not regulation.  Similarly, the definition of their client bases often extends to all residents in the “local community”, regardless of citizenship or legal status.  For others, sheer discomfort over the complex moral dilemmas raised by having to carry out the job of immigration enforcement becomes too strong.

But it isn’t just street-level bureaucrats, as the public arms of the state, who have become implicated in this new trend toward cross-deputization.  The first five provisions of HB 56 actually targeted employers, including private ones, as well as all state residents, regardless of their occupations.  In this sense, the trend toward cross-deputization evident in HB 56 is not just bureaucratic but also civil.  In other words, I argue that it is intended to turn all members of the surrounding civil society, not just local and state law enforcement officers or other public bureaucrats, into the immigration police.  Perhaps this is why HB 56’s fifth provision – that which made it unlawful to conceal, harbor, shield, or transport unauthorized immigrants – strikes so many of us as problematic, and why it garnered so much opposition, especially from religious leaders (who, not coincidentally, consider “harboring” and “shielding” their flocks from harm to be a positive part of their personal and professional calling).  Often the very civilians who support immigration enforcement in the abstract, as political scientist Antje Ellerman has shown inGermany, struggle much more visibly when they have to become physical witness to it.

Recovering some historical memory would be extremely helpful to combating this trend.  Before the mid-1970s, sociologist Cybelle Fox shows us that unauthorized immigrants were not automatically rendered ineligible for federally-funded public health insurance and social welfare programs.  Before 1986, sociologist Douglas Massey and his colleagues remind us that it was not illegal for employers, whether private or public, to hire unauthorized immigrants.  And before the 1990s and 2000s (by most state laws) and 2005 (via the REAL ID Act of 2005), it was not illegal to issue driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants.

We have come a long way, then, in making life hell not only for unauthorized immigrants, but also for ourselves – as the collective range of employers, street-level bureaucrats, and everyday citizens who must now bear witness to immigrants’ struggles in the face of ever-restrictive policies like Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56.  Bureaucratic and civil cross-deputization is dangerous not only because it puts unauthorized immigrants at risk of destitute poverty, family dissolution, and political disenfranchisement.  It also puts the rest of us on the verge of becoming active “police agents” in a country that increasingly resembles a police state to immigrants and their families.

This is not a hopeful vision.  We would do well to have a serious discussion about the host of ethical and pragmatic questions this trend raises before we continue moving down this path.

Helen B. Marrow, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Latin American Studies at Tufts University. She is winner of the 2008 Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association and author of New Destination Dreaming:  Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South (Stanford University Press, 2011)

Where do Republicans Go From Here?: Latino Outreach in a New Era of Politics

By Stephen A. Nuño, Northern Arizona University

The greatest cliché in politics today as it relates to Latinos is the notion that Latinos are Republicans; they just don’t know it yet.  Perhaps this was once true, but over the last few weeks and with this weeks findings from Latino Decisions’ most recent poll, the notion that Latinos can be Republican or that religiosity can be used as a bridge to recruit Latinos without significant changes in how the GOP approaches Latino voters seems to have been effectively dismantled.

In his American Conservative article, “Republicans and the End of White America”, Ron Unz states that the Republican Party can only be characterized as the “white Party” and past attempts by the GOP to restrict immigration into the country had more to do with mobilizing white angst against the growing number of migrants than it did about sound social and economic policy. This was a similar strategy used by the Republican Party in the South as power structures that were once dominated by whites gave way to Black political inclusion. This was a pragmatic attempt to make short-term gains at the expense of long-term benefits. Unz writes that “while the politics of polarization might be demonized in liberal intellectual circles, it served to elect vast numbers of Republicans to high and low office alike”. This is a remarkable statement. Even if many well-intentioned whites were lured by the rhetoric of egalitarianism, which provided a thin veil of liberalism to cover the obviously racially motivated results, it validates what Latinos have known all along.

Perhaps this is why the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and other organizations, started by anti-immigrant activist John Tanton, who have long maintained at least some rhetorical space between legal and illegal immigrants are no longer committed to that distinction. FAIR and other anti-immigrant groups, which Republican representatives have long used as a legitimate source for research on immigration, has been running television ads arguing that legal immigration now must be stopped. Mark Krikorian, a descendant of Armenian immigrants, argues that both legal and illegal immigration needs to be curtailed in his book, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.

This has created a continuous rift between the GOP and Latinos. It was thirty years ago that Ronald Reagan ran a concerted effort to recruit Latinos into the GOP, but that was dismantled throughout the anti-immigrant spasm orchestrated by Pete Wilson in the 1990’s.  President George W. Bush and Karl Rove have been wholly committed to integrating Hispanics into the GOP but the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 and the ensuing war on terror that evoked a nativist response effectively shut that possibility out.

Gary Segura of Latino Decisions has convincingly illustrated that Latinos are decidedly not Republicans, despite the cliché.  Segura’s argument is also consistent with past research by Cortina and de la Garza in which they conclude that Latinos are not Republican and know it. The question now, however, is where do the Republicans go from here?  Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.  It took three decades to create this division and it will take as long to repair it.

Aside from the obvious implications Republican recruitment has for representative democracy, research does show that the gap between the GOP and Latinos can be bridged.  However, it will take a concerted effort to do so.  Whether or not the GOP wants to commit to representing the fastest growing segment of the population by appealing to their interests is still an open question, but the research has shown that Latinos will respond if Republicans reach out to them.

In my academic article, “Latino Mobilization and Vote Choice in the 2000 Presidential Election”, I show that Hispanic recruits can have a positive impact on influencing the vote of other Latinos in favor of the GOP. In other research with Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions, we have seen a similar impact on how Latinos view partisan policies. In addition to the impact that Latino recruits have on other Latinos, Matt Barreto has shown that Latino candidates can have a similarly positive impact on Latino participation. In short, Republican efforts to bring Latinos into the fold could have the effect of bringing Latino voters into the Party.

With this in mind, Latino Decisions’ latest poll asks Hispanics if Marco Rubio, a Cuban American Republican Senator from Florida, was nominated by the GOP for Vice-President, would it have any effect on their likelihood of voting Republican.  While this had little impact on Democrats, it did have a larger impact on Independents, with 26% saying they are more likely to vote Republican.  About 30% of Hispanics between the age of 18 and 35 said so as well, perhaps because they are still too young or not yet politically conscious of the harsh rhetoric coming from the GOP over the last 30 years.

The areas for advancement have been so deteriorated by GOP rhetoric that it will take a concerted effort to make inroads, which would not only be beneficial in democratic terms, but the research has shown over and again that the country as a whole would like some sensible approach to immigration.  A more sensible approach would also seem more compelling since it has a positive impact on the electability of the candidate as well.  It would be worth the effort to finally take this issue off the table and move forward onto other issues, such as education, small business development, and fixing the economy, all issues that rank high among Latinos and non-Latinos alike.

It’s still difficult to tell how Latinos would react if the GOP systematically reached out to them. While the research shows its possible, Latinos think the GOP seems uninterested in changing old habits.  In the same survey by Latino Decisions, Hispanics were asked if the Republican Party is doing a good job of reaching out to Latinos. As reflected in the figure below, not even half of Latino Republicans say the GOP is doing a good job, and many more Latino Republicans think the GOP is either being hostile or doesn’t care too much about Latinos. Yet, less than half of Independents think the Democrats are doing a good job, as well. These are opportunities the GOP can hardly afford to squander.

While it’s easy to be melancholic about the future of the GOP’s relationship with Hispanics, candidates such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have integrated Latinos into their campaigns and their administration.  Gingrich has long employed Sylvia Garcia, his outreach director, to run his Hispanic website and Rick Perry appointed another Hispanic to an important commission in Texas earlier this year.  It’s clear that efforts to reach out to Hispanics reap positive results, as the Democrats have shown, and maybe that’s why Newt Gingrich recently hired Marco Rubio’s campaign chief to be his Florida Director. Rather than collecting endorsements, Newt seems to be putting his money where his mouth is. Perhaps its time the GOP did as well.

Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University and a regular contributor to Latino Decisions. His research focuses on partisan outreach to Hispanic voters.

Latinos not very enthusiastic about the 2012 election

By Pilar Marrero – Pilar.marrero@laopinion.com  | 2011-12-12

Click here to download slide-deck presentation from today’s webinar

Click here to view the results from the December impreMedia/Latino Decisions poll

LOS ANGELES, CA. – The lively primary campaign for the Republican nomination, which has been in the news for months, has not generated interest among the majority of Latino voters—whose enthusiasm for participating in the 2012 presidential election has plummeted in recent months. In fact, when asked specifically how enthusiastic they are about voting, there is a decreasing trend: Only 44% of Latino voters said they are very enthusiastic about participating in next year’s U.S. presidential election, compared with 47% in October and 50% in August.

“It seems like this is in part because there’s only competition on the Republican side, but it also means Latinos in general aren’t very interested and don’t feel included in the Republicans’ conversation,” said Matt Barreto, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and advisor for Latino Decisions, a polling organization.

The poll’s Latino Republicans are more enthusiastic, for obvious reasons: 57% said they are very interested in participating. However, Latino Republicans or Latinos who are sure about or interested in voting for the GOP’s candidates in the election have never surpassed 20% in this poll.  For example, in the most recent poll, only 9% said they are certain to vote for a Republican candidate, while a total of 17% said they are certain or could vote for a Republican.

“None of the Republican candidates has awakened the interest of Latinos,” said Gabriel Sánchez, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico. “As far as Obama, his approval among Latinos has remained stable. Perhaps we’re not as enamored with him as before, but in reality what the poll showed is that his philosophy is more consistent with that of Latino voters than what they are  hearing from the GOP.” Nevertheless, this is not good news either for the re-election of President Obama, who needs an enthusiastic turnout from his base to be able to win what looks like a close race once the GOP chooses its candidate.

The impreMedia/Latino Decisions poll began measuring the election preferences of Latino voters in February of this year. It has been measuring their enthusiasm for voting in next year’s presidential election and their potential support for President Obama and a Republican rival. In six separate polls, Latino voters’ tendency to identify with the Democrats and President Obama’s approval rating among the majority of Latinos—except for Latino Republicans—have fluctuated somewhat, but have generally remained above 60%. Nevertheless, the voting intentions and enthusiasm of Latinos, which are crucial for Barack Obama’s re-election in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and even Arizona, which is now said to be up for grabs, are not as positive for the president as could be expected. “On the Democratic side, there’s no competition or much discussion. In 2008, as we remember, there was a lot of enthusiasm around the race, particularly between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” said Barreto.

Only 54% of Latino voters said they are certain to vote for Obama. And only 31% of Latino independents have said the same. This number has increased from 38% recorded in August and 49% in October, but it is still relatively modest: The president will probably need a supermajority (more than 75%) of the Latino vote to counteract a loss of support among other segments of the population.  “This lack of interest can be corrected later on, but for now it’s like a vacuum that can later be dangerous for the president,” said Barreto.

As far as the issues of interest for this group of voters, they have also remained the same during the past 10 months: the economy and jobs have been competing for first place with the issue of immigration reform among the majority of Latinos. The most recent poll showed a technical tie between the most important issues: 43% thought the economy and jobs are most important and 42% thought it was immigration reform. Latino Republicans are the exception; for 48% of them, the economy and jobs are the most important, while immigration reform matters most to 24%.

Barreto said, “We’re asking Latinos which is the issue they think the president and Congress should address or give priority to. Immigration and the economy have consistently been in the top two spots for almost a year.” “If Obama’s campaign is going to ignore the immigration issue and focus only on the economy, they may not be as persuasive for Latinos,” said Barreto. “If they only campaign on the economy, there’s not much to sell to Latinos, whose situation is very difficult.”

Latino Decisions/impreMedia webinar results now posted online

***RESULTS NOW POSTED BELOW***

When: Monday, December 12, 2011

What: impreMedia and Latino Decisions will be conducting a press webinar to report the results from their December national tracking poll on Latinos which focused on the role of religion and social values in the 2012 election, Latino views on Mormonism, as well as Marco Rubio as a potential VP candidate, and enthusiasm about voting in the 2012 election. Full survey results posted under ‘Recent Polls’

Slides: Click here to download slide-deck presentation

Who: Matt Barreto, Principal for Latino Decisions
Gabe Sanchez, Director of Research for Latino Decisions
Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, Director of Communications for Latino Decisions
Jacquelynn Carrera, Marketing Manager for impreMedia

Their religion does not affect Latinos’ vote

By Pilar Marrero – Pilar.marrero@laopinion.com  | 2011-12-8

Full Results From December Poll Posted Here

LOS ANGELES, CA. – Because of the conservative philosophy of Latinos in the U.S. regarding family and religion, in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan said: “Hispanics are Republicans. They just don’t know it yet.” Today’s Republicans are still repeating this as if it were a sacrament. Nevertheless, a new poll of Latino voters by impreMedia and Latino Decisions revealed that when it comes to voting, the majority (53%) of these citizens said their own religion does not have much influence on which candidate they choose, while 40% said it does.

Although the numbers appear balanced, they become clearer when broken down: Only 23% said their religion has a “big impact,” while 17% said the candidate’s religion has a “small” impact. The only exception is among Latinos who are part of the GOP, since 47% said their religion does have a big impact on their election choices.

“It’s always been said that Latinos have a conflict between their religion and their political tendencies. That they’re usually more progressive on economic policy but conservative on social issues,” said Matt Barreto, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and advisor to Latino Decisions.

However, Barreto said the poll reflects no such conflict: “Religion and social and moral values are not among their priorities when they make their political and election calculations.”

The poll confirmed that Latino voters place little or no importance on traditional moral issues when voting: 75% think the economy, jobs and taxes are much more important in politics. Only 14% said moral or social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage or family values are more important.

Ironically, this is true for many categories of Latino voters, including Democrats, Republicans and independents; U.S. born and naturalized citizens; various socioeconomic levels; those who attend church weekly and those who are “born again.” Economic issues rule.

On the other hand, there are moral issues on which Latinos agree, and which can incidentally have an impact on their political stance—and immigration is one of them. “In this poll, there’s a clear moral attitude of support regarding churches and religious leaders helping undocumented immigrants even if it’s in conflict with the law,” said Ricardo Ramírez, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame. “For them, helping the undocumented is a moral issue and could even be a religious one.”

A majority (66%) of Latino voters think churches should support the undocumented even if it challenges laws, and only 21% think they should not help them. Naturalized Latino citizens tend to have stronger positions on this: 75% said the church should help. Among U.S. born Latinos, this support is lower, at 58%. But even 66% of Republican Latinos and 66% of independents have this opinion. In general, these voters tend to want their churches and election politics to remain very separate: overwhelming majorities of these voters think no religious leader, minister or rabbi should tell them which candidate to vote for.

The President’s Religion and Mormons

When asked about the religions of President Obama and one of his main Republican rivals, Mitt Romney, many of these voters had no idea which religion either one of them belongs to: 48% said they did not know the president’s religion and 58% said the same about Romney. “At this point, Latinos don’t seem to be very interested in the religion of these candidates,” said Barreto.

Interestingly, 12% of Latinos said Obama is a Muslim, and only 25% correctly said Romney is a Mormon or belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Something else the poll revealed is that Latino voters have a very vague idea of what Mormonism is. This issue will probably be relevant during the general election if Romney is the GOP’s candidate, although this is yet to be determined. Of respondents, 58% are not familiar with Mormonism, 13% are very familiar and 27% are somewhat familiar.  About 40% said, incorrectly, that Mormonism is not a Christian religion and only 31% said that it is—while 27% said they do not know.

Although religion does not seem to have a positive effect on Latinos’ vote, it is not clear whether it might have a negative effect on Latino Republican or independent voters.

“Apparently, Mormonism is not defined in the minds of these voters. This could be good or bad for the Republican candidate if it’s Romney, because this issue will surely come up in the race,” said Michael Jones-Correa, a professor of government at Cornell University. “If there’s more definition of what the Mormon religion is, it could be more beneficial or detrimental for Romney; it depends.”

Latino Decisions and impreMedia to release new poll on Religion and Politics

Latino Decisions and impreMedia will be releasing data from a new survey focused on the Latino electorate’s attitudes regarding the role of religion in politics on Thursday, December 8, 2011. The December survey is the sixth and final monthly tracking poll in 2011. impreMedia is the leading Hispanic News and Information Company in the U.S. in Online and Print. impreMedia’s multi-platform offerings range from Online to Video, Social Media, Mobile, Audio, Newspapers and Magazines, including the www.impre.com portal. 25.5% of all U.S. Hispanic adults use an impreMedia network product. Its leading publications include La Opinión in Los Angeles and El Diario in New York.

 The Latino Decisions Tracking Poll was launched in 2010 during the midterm election and is the only on-going political tracking poll of Latino registered voters in the nation. In partnership with impreMedia, the poll focused on Latino voters’ assessment of the new Congress, the President and the most important issues leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

 Religion has been a major factor during the Republican primary election, as it was during the 2008 presidential race. Given the contention by some that the conservative attitudes of the Latino population toward social issues could lead to greater success in Latino outreach for the GOP, it is an ideal time to assess the attitudes of Latinos toward religion and politics.

An extensive list of religion and politics questions were fielded, and among the results to be released on Thursday are:

_When thinking about who to vote for in next year’s election, how much will your religious beliefs shape your vote? Would you say they will have a big impact, a small impact, or no effect at all on who you will vote for?

_ How important is it that a candidate shares your same religious beliefs in deciding whether or not you will vote for them? Would you say that a candidate’s belief will have a big impact, a small impact, or no effect on who you will vote for?

_How familiar would you say you are with the religious beliefs of the Mormon faith, also called the “Latter-Day Saints Church”? Would you say you are very familiar, somewhat familiar, not very familiar, or not at all familiar with Mormonism?

_How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement: It is a good thing when religious leaders–priests, ministers, preachers, and rabbis–tell their members which candidate they should vote for.

_Now we would like to know your reaction to different statements. After I read each pair of statements, please tell me which comes closest to your way of thinking. Okay, the first two statements are:

1) Politics is more about economic issues such as jobs, taxes, gas prices, and the minimum wage. OR

2) Politics is more about moral issues such as abortion, family values, and same-sex marriage.

Okay, the next two statements are:

1) Churches or religious leaders should provide assistance to undocumented immigrants even if providing such help is against the law in some states. OR.

 2) Churches have a responsibility to follow the law, so they should not provide assistance to undocumented immigrants.

Can the Internet be a Door to Increased Latin@ and African American Participation?

By Jessica Lavariega Monforti & Jose Marichal

Could the key to increasing civic engagement among Latinos and African Americans be computer classes?   A growing body of research is linking Internet use, particularly social network use, and increased social capital and civic engagement.  A new report from the MaCarthur foundation finds that Facebook use is correlated with increased interest in and participation in politics. Scholars like Northwestern Sociologist Esther Hargatti speak eloquently about the information gap between rich and poor online.  This gap is less about access to technology and more about developing the skills to harness the technology for political and social gain.  The ability to do information searches, send text messages, tweet, share content and other on-line skills is a central element in becoming what Evegny Morozov calls a “digital renegade” rather than a “digital captive.”

The key to using the Web in democracy-enhancing ways is acquiring digital skills.  While this concept has been measured in lots of ways, the presence of digital skills can be measured by the level of autonomy the user has, the number of access points a user has to get online, the amount of experience a user has with different types of online tools, etc.

While the transformation of political life through the Web has not proceeded apace, events like Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 U.S. presidential election highlight the power of the Internet and particularly social networking sites as a mobilizing and fund-raising tool.

Latinos might be particularly disposed to use the Web in ways that cultivate the development of digital skills.  Because Latinos are younger than the population as a whole, they are more likely to be digital natives that can use the Web to accomplish democracy-enhancing tasks like texting, social networking and uploading content. In addition, a 2008 study by Forrester Research found that forty percent of Latinos used the Web for content creation and sharing (blog, upload video and photos, create web-pages, etc.).  By comparison, only 12 percent on non-Latinos used the Internet for these purposes. Finally, as reflected in the table below, a study conducted last year by the Pew Center found that Latinos were more than three times as likely as whites to use Twitter (19% for Latinos to 5% for whites).