Results From a New Survey of Hispanics in New Mexico Provides New Insights About the Affordable Care Act

A new poll of Latino/Hispanic adults in New Mexico funded by the National Institute of Health provides an opportunity to explore New Mexican Hispanics’ interactions with and attitudes toward health care reform.[1]  The poll, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy (RWJF-CHP) along with NMCARES-Health Disparities Center, and administered by Latino Decisions, queried 600 Latino/Hispanic adults living in New Mexico regarding their knowledge of the new health care law, exposure to outreach efforts, perception of their own health care as impacted by the law, and their actual experience with the state’s exchange program. Although this is the first poll of this kind conducted in New Mexico, the findings from this study can be compared to results from the recent Latino National Immigration and Health Policy Survey (2015), another survey from the collaboration between the RWJF-CHP and Latino Decisions.

The Hispanic population in New Mexico is vital to the eventual success of the ACA in New Mexico due to the overall size, youthfulness of this population and their lower rates of health coverage. The Hispanic makes up a larger share of New Mexico’s overall population (approximately 47%) than the Latino segment of any other state’s population. Furthermore, Hispanics were much less likely to be insured than non-Hispanics before the implementation of the ACA (23% lacked insurance in 2013). These two factors alone make analysis of how the ACA is impacting the Hispanic population in New Mexico timely and highly relevant. However, when you add the fact that the median age for the Hispanic population in New Mexico is 29 years of age compared to 47 for non-Hispanic whites the importance of this data is magnified. The ACA relies heavily on the young and presumed healthy segments of the population to enroll in health insurance to control costs for the rest of the population. For these reasons, continued analysis of this data could be helpful in the continued effort to increase Hispanic access to health insurance in the state where the Hispanic population is most critical to the success of the reform law.

Hispanic Access to Health Insurance Improves in New Mexico Through the ACA

Results from our survey provide strong evidence that the ACA is working among New Mexican Hispanics. According to the survey, only 8% of Hispanic adults in New Mexico lack health insurance. Considering our margin of error of 4%, these findings are consistent with the results from a 2015 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index Survey that found the overall un-insured rate for all New Mexicans at 13%. This is a major improvement from the 23% uninsured rate for New Mexican Latinos estimated by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2013 before the implementation of the reform law.  However, our data also indicates that 19% of Hispanics in New Mexico lacked insurance for at least one month during the past year. This additional measure of partial coverage is important as a lapse in coverage for part of the year can be devastating to a family if a household member experiences a major health event while uninsured.

It is clear that the decision of Governor Martinez to expand Medicaid in New Mexico has had a tremendous impact on Hispanic access to insurance. Given the state’s high poverty rates and low levels of access to health insurance before the passage of the ACA, Medicaid expansion has led to New Mexico being one of the leaders nationally in reduction of uninsured population. Medicaid expansion has also led to a significant decrease in the disparity in access to insurance between the Hispanic and non-Hispanic white population in New Mexico. The magnitude of this policy change is reflected in Medicaid growing by 50.29% from July-September 2013 to January 2015. The expansion of Medicaid has not only greatly decreased the number of uninsured New Mexicans, but there is evidence that it has saved money within the Medicaid budget and in areas outside of Medicaid as well.

Are Latinos in New Mexico Utilizing the Exchange to Sign up for Insurance?

As part of the ACA rollout, the Obama Administration and the state of New Mexico deployed targeted outreach efforts, including the implementation of healthcare.gov in English and Spanish as well as commercials advertising the program in both languages. The survey assessed whether these efforts led the Hispanic community in New Mexico to utilize the exchange to enroll in insurance. The survey also examined the experiences of those who did access NMHIX, New Mexico’s health insurance exchange. The survey provides some of the best information available regarding interactions with the marketplace in New Mexico, which is critical to understanding the overall performance of the ACA in New Mexico and, specifically, the experiences of the state’s Latinos as they interface with the ACA.

We found that 16% of survey respondents utilized the Be Well New Mexico tools (website or telephone number) during the past year to get more information about the health insurance options available through the ACA. Among this segment of the sample, 32% of respondents indicated that they were able to enroll easily, with 31% indicating that they ran into problems that prevented them from enrolling. Another 33% reported that they did not enroll due to other reasons, including the cost of the plans or because they did not qualify. The survey also asked respondents who used the Be Well New Mexico tools to state what the most important criteria was for them when evaluating the health insurance plans available. Nearly 60% of this sub-sample indicated cost was the most important factor impacting their decisions compared to 15% who reported the coverage options of the plan and 9% who said it was being able to stay with their current provider. Finally, and reinforcing the salience of cost to New Mexico’s Hispanic population, the most commonly identified barrier to enrollment identified by those who attempted to utilize the exchange but did not enroll was that the insurance plans were “too expensive.”

Hispanic Knowledge Levels Suggest Need for Continued and More Hispanic Focused Outreach

A major theme of the study was to determine how informed Hispanics in New Mexico are about the ACA as well as how to best reach this population with information about the law and the exchange moving forward. Overall, the results from this poll indicate that there will need to be not only continued outreach to the Latino community regarding the reform law, but information that more precisely targets this population. Although the majority of respondents (57%) indicated that they are “informed” about the Affordable Care Act, only 16% believe that they are “well informed.” This is fewer than the 20% who feel they are “not at all” informed. More telling, when asked to identify which statement better represents how they feel about the ACA, 63% believe that the law is “confusing and complicated” compared to only 30% who feel “pretty well informed.”

The survey asked respondents to identify any policy changes associated with the law.  Responses could be open-ended. We believe that these responses provide the best indicator of knowledge of the ACA available in our data. As you can see in the figure below, 75% of the sample could not identify any specific policy related to the ACA. The ACA policies that were most recognized by New Mexican Hispanics were: 11% of respondents identified Medicaid expansion, 8% of respondents identified extension of children’s coverage on their parents’ plan to age 26, and 9% understood that there could be a fine for remaining un-insured.

Finally, the survey also asked New Mexico’s Hispanic population if they had heard or read anything about the health insurance marketplace, often referred to as Be Well New Mexico. While 32% of the sample indicated that they had heard “some” (23%) or a “great deal” (9%), the modal category for this question indicated that they had heard “nothing at all” at 39%, with another 28% stating they had heard “not that much.” This is similar to an item that asked respondents how much they had heard about the expansion of Medicaid in New Mexico, with 38% of respondents indicating that they had heard “some” (27%) or a “great deal” (11%) about Medicaid expansion. This compared to 61% who reported that they had heard “nothing at all” (34%) or “not that much” (27%) about Medicaid expansion.

The Survey Provides Guidance on How Best to Engage Latinos in New Mexico About the ACA

Latinos in New Mexico also vary in their preference of terminology used when referring to the new health care law, with 38% of English dominant Hispanics preferring the “Affordable Care Act,” 30% “Obamacare,” and 8% preferring “Healthcare Reform Program.” There is similar variation among Spanish speakers in New Mexico, as 20% prefer “Reforma de Cuidado de Salud” compared to 20% who prefer “Ley de Cuidado de la Salud.”  Interestingly, the most popular term for Spanish speakers is “Obamacare,” with 30%, indicating that this term has traction for both English and Spanish speaking Latinos in New Mexico.

The survey also identified the individuals and organizations most trusted to deliver information about the ACA. The data indicates that the Latino community in New Mexico trusts “hospitals” (26%) and “doctors” (27%) as primary messengers; “health insurance companies” were identified by 17% of respondents and “neighborhood clinics” came in at 16%. Social networks will also be vital to outreach efforts, as 20% of respondents indicated that they trusted information received from “family” and “friends.” The survey also queried respondents about their preferred form of communication for information about the health care law. The most commonly identified forms of communication were “the Internet” with 32%, “Pamphlets and Mailers sent to your house” with 28%, and “Television” at 22%.

Perceptions of the ACA Among Latinos in New Mexico

Finally, we asked respondents to tell us whether they think their personal health care situation “will improve,” “stay the same,” or “get worse” under the ACA. As reflected in the figure below, we found that 73% of Latinos in the current survey believe their ability to “get and keep health insurance” will at least stay the same (46%) or get better (27%), This aligns with our primary finding that access to insurance has increased among Hispanics since 2013. When asked about the “quality of their health care,” 24% of Latinos think that quality will improve under the ACA, compared to 49% who said the quality of their care will stay the same.  Reinforcing what we learned from other survey questions regarding the costs of insurance, more respondents indicate that the “cost of health care for their family” will actually get worse (38%) than those who think it will get better (24%), while 49% believe it will stay the same.

Although we have found strong evidence that the ACA is increasing access to health insurance for Hispanics in New Mexico, cost appears to remain the most salient issue or obstacle for Latinos in obtaining health care in the state. Our next brief will focus more exclusively on this topic by drawing from additional survey content focused on how the rising costs of health care is negatively impacting the Hispanic population in New Mexico.

Survey Methodology

Latino Decisions surveyed a representative sample of 600 Hispanic/Latino adults in New Mexico between June 23 and July 14, 2015. Respondents were reached on a combination of both landline and mobile phones (n=500) as well as through email (n=100). Surveys were implemented to randomly selected phone numbers, conducted via live, person-to-person (i.e. not robocalls) phone calls, and email addresses for the web sample. Interviews were conducted in English (82%) or Spanish (18%), according to the respondent’s choice. All interviewers were fully bilingual. The survey was informed by participants in two focus groups conducted prior to the implementation of the survey. The survey carries a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

[1] Research reported in this publication was supported directly by the National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities of the Institutes of Health under Award Number P20MD009574. The content is solely the National responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Gabriel R. Sanchez is an associate professor of political science at the University of New Mexico, the executive director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM, and the director of research for Latino Decisions. Sam Howarth is a Senior Fellow of the RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM. Maria Livaudais is a PhD Candidate in Political Science and a UNM Center for Health Policy at UNM.

Moral values not a defining issues for Latino voters

In November 2004 the New York Times proclaimed “Moral values cited as a defining issue of the election” and numerous anecdotal claims were made that President Bush benefited from a spate of same-sex marriage initiatives across the country that boosted turnout among church-going social conservatives.  As part of this supposed “moral values” wave, some even claimed that Bush made in-roads with Latinos who are often incorrectly described as “socially conservative.”  For example, the National Journal wrote that, “For Bush, the evangelical Latino community proved to be an ideal target constituency, because in pursuing it the GOP could push the hot-button issues of abortion and gay rights in ways that had been powerfully effective among white evangelicals.”  Examining the 2004 exit polls, scholarly research by Alvarez, Abrajano and Nagler (2008) does find that Latino voters who ranked “moral values” as their top concern – as 18% of Latinos did – were statistically less likely to vote for John Kerry after controlling for a host of other well-known factors.

Still, if 18% of Latinos said moral values was their top concern in 2004 – the year of moral values – that means that 82% cited some other issue as their top concern such as the economy, the war on terror, the war in Iraq, education, health care, and so on.  Fast-forwarding back to the 2012 election, we want to dig a little bit deeper into the moral values debate and the Latino vote, given the recent announcement by President Obama that he now supports marriage for same-sex couples, and the reaction questioning if this new position will help, or hurt Obama among Latino voters?

At least one new national poll concludes that Obama’s support for same sex marriage could hurt him in November.  Is this the case among Latinos? As part of the Latino Decisions-impreMedia tracking poll of Latino registered voters, we featured one entire installment on the topic of religion and moral values.  Because of the attention moral values received in past elections, and because religion could be a topic again with the first Mormon presidential candidate to win a party nomination, we asked Latino voters about their views on religion and politics.  We found that an overwhelming majority of Latino voters – 75% to be exact – said that politics was more about economic issues in their daily lives, than about moral issues such as same-sex marriage (gaining 14% agreement).

However this may not be so obvious.  Latinos are indeed a religious group.  According to our data, 46% of Latino registered voters attend church every week, while the American National Election Study estimates that just 23% of all Americans were weekly church-goers in 2008.  Further, 60% of Latino voters told us that religion provides “quite a bit” of guidance in their daily lives.  Among foreign-born, naturalized citizens, we found an even higher rate of church attendance and religiosity.  Yet despite this commitment to religion, a majority of Latino voters said that religion would have no impact on their vote in 2012.  Even among Latinos who attend church every week, 45% said it would have no impact on their vote compared to 32 who said it would have a big impact.

Further, one of the avenues through which religion and moral values often shapes or influences politics is through the pulpit.  Politicians often make direct appeals on Sunday, and pastors and preachers may continue to reinforce such themes in following weeks.  Yet we find Latino registered voters clearly reject this overt connection between religion and politics.  When asked if religious leaders should tell their members which candidates to support, 82% say no, and just 15% say yes.  Even among Latinos who describe themselves as born-again Christians, three-quarters do not want their pastors talking about politics. When asked if politicians with strong religious beliefs should rely on their beliefs to guide decisions in government, 72% of Latinos say no, and 19% say yes.  And on this question as well, two-thirds of Latino born-agains oppose religion guiding government officials.

If politics is no place for religion, then what is?  In our surveys over the past year we have seen a clear preference for specific policy issues impacting the Latino community.  Jobs, the economy, immigration, health care, and education have all rated as important issues.  Abortion, same-sex marriage, and other religious or moral values issues have not registered at all in terms of salience to Latino voters in 2012.

To get more specific, we asked what politics is all about and rotated two competing options.  As we note above, 75% of Latino voters say that politics is more about economic issues such as jobs, taxes, gas prices and minimum wage, and just 14% say that politics is more about moral issues such as abortion, family values, and same-sex marriage.  Across all meaningful demographics groups within the Latino electorate we find this same trend.  Weekly church-goers tell us by better than 5-to-1 that politics is not about moral issues.  Likewise, self-described born-agains, and for those who religion provides “a great deal” of personal guidance are convinced politics is more about economic policy issues than moral values.

Thus, when it comes to voting for, or against specific candidates, Latinos are unlikely to have moral values issues such as same sex marriage on their mind.  It does not seem Obama will lose any persuadable Latino voters over the issue of marriage, nor would Romney woo any Latinos over his stance that marriage is only between one man and one woman.  However, this does not mean that proponents or opponents of same sex marriage can forget about Latinos.  The data reviewed above indicates that Latinos will not bring their views on moral or religious issues to bear in candidate elections.  In ballot initiatives and referendum, all bets are off and we should look to opinion on each issue to see where Latinos stand.  Ballot initiatives are unique because they provide voters with an opportunity to forgo the candidates and vote directly on a policy issue.  Even if the issue ranks low on a voter’s list of salient topics, the ballot initiative gives that issue it’s own spotlight and salience, and asks the voter to make a decision on said issue.

In our next installment on Latinos, moral values, and the same sex marriage debate, we will look at Latino public opinion on marriage, previous votes on ballot initiatives, and discuss the need for Latino-targeted outreach when it comes to future initiative votes on the so-called “moral values” issues.

President Obama’s Latino kryptonite same-sex marriage?

This article was originally published at NBC LATINO

Barack Obama is untouchable, at least in the Latino electorate.  Two recent polls show his support among Latinos ranging from 70-80 percent.  However, these polls took place before the President stated that his views on same- sex marriage had evolved to where he now supports same-sex marriage.  And if the Republicans have it right, then the deep social conservatism of Latinos will be the undoing of the president.

Latinos are a religious bunch and overwhelmingly Catholic.  Close to two-thirds of Latinos state that religion provides quite a bit, to a great deal of guidance in their day-to-day living.  And for a majority of Latinos this guidance is attained through regular attendance at religious services – not just the occasional wedding, funeral, or baptism!  It is this level of religiosity that has led Republicans to await a great Latino migration into the socially conservative promise land of the GOP.  And today, this belief translates into a glimmer of hope for Romney that the mostly Catholic Latino electorate will unfriend the gay-friendly president and like Romney.

There is no doubt that Latinos are religiously devout.  But, the real question is what does that have to do with politics?  The answer is, very little.  According to a recent impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll 63 percent of Latino voters strongly disagree with religious leaders telling members which candidate to vote for.   The distaste for mixing politics and religion is actually higher among Latinos than the general electorate.  In the Latino electorate the view that politics is about moral issues such as marriage for same sex couples and abortion is in the micro-minority, fourteen percent.

Only a quarter of the Latino electorate believes same-sex couples should receive no legal recognition but over a majority believe they should.  In particular, 43 percent of Latino voters support same-sex marriage.  This level of support for marriage between same sex couples is almost double that of general electorate Republicans.  The math doesn’t add up; the views of Latinos on the social issue of same- sex marriage are inconsistent with the GOP.  The conventional wisdom that Latinos because of their religiosity are “Republicans who just don’t know it yet” is not consistent with Latino public opinion.

The President’s lead of 50-plus points over Romney will not shrink, let alone disappear in the wake of his same-sex marriage support.  That being said, the President must be attuned to the ideological diversity among the Latino electorate. While 6 out of ten Latinos believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society there are portions of the Latino electorate that feel uncomfortable with homosexuality and same-sex marriage.  In particular, foreign-born Latinos, those that are Spanish dominant, and older Latinos are the most likely to oppose same-sex marriage.  Going forward, the Obama campaign cannot disregard these concerns and allow for these groups to become disengaged. Instead, the campaign must draw on the strong belief of Latinos that politics and religion do not mix.

The president will face some difficulties with his new support of same-sex marriage.  Among the general electorate this may even translate into some voters saying over into the Romney camp.  But, among the Latino electorate, the issue of same-sex marriage isn’t the kryptonite that can blast the President’s superhero lead over Romney.

 

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

Identifying a Relationship Between Latino Representation in Congress and Trust in Government

By Ricardo Ramirez, Gabriel R. Sanchez, and Shannon Sanchez-Youngmann

Although all eyes will be focused squarely on the race for the white house this year, there are several important races taking place down the ticket that have important implications for the Latino electorate. There are several Latino non-incumbent candidates running for Congress in 2012, with many having legitimate chances to win. You add to this the many Latino incumbents who will be running to retain their seats, and this election could be pivotal for Latino representation in Congress. While future posts closer to the general election will focus on several of the individual races featuring prominent Latino candidates, we discuss the importance of Latino representation in Congress more broadly here. More specifically, drawing from a research paper presented at the recent Midwest Political Science Association meeting, this blog report explores the relationship between Latino representation in Congress and trust in the federal government. Our findings suggest that having more Latinos in Congress leads to positive benefits, including higher levels of trust in government. We believe that this increases the importance of these races, even if the presidential race ends up dominating media coverage and the attention of the public.

Does Descriptive Representation Impact Latino Political Attitudes?

Scholars have been interested in the potential benefits associated with descriptive representation, or in other words, having diversity in political institutions, for some time. While many scholars have approached this from the standpoint of whether Latino elected officials provide better substantive representation than non-Latino representatives, others focus on more in-direct or symbolic benefits. For example, Pantoja and Segura (2003), in their study of Latino elected officials in California and Texas, find that feelings of political alienation significantly diminishes as descriptive representation increases for Latinos. Similarly, utilizing the Latino National Survey (2006), Sanchez and Morin (2011) find that Latino citizens represented by co-ethnic Mayors are less alienated from the political system than those without descriptive representation. In short, the literature in this area suggests that historically disadvantaged groups may derive a positive effect from seeing members of their own communities in positions of power and, in particular, bonds of trust between legislators and their constituents when there is racial/ethnic congruence.

Research Design and Results

Our analysis intends to contribute to this discussion by specifically focusing on whether having a Latino member of Congress has any relationship with trust in government levels among Latino registered voters. To examine this potential relationship, we use data from the 2008 Collaborative Multi-racial Political Study (CMPS).  This telephone survey—conducted between November 9, 2008 and January 5, 2009—is the first multiracial and multilingual survey of registered voters across multiple states and regions in a presidential election. The overall sample (n=4,563)  includes 1,577 completed surveys with Latino respondents.  Furthermore, the Latino sample of the CMPS has tremendous variation by nativity and language use, as 46% of the Latino sample for example chose to conduct the survey in Spanish, and 57% of the sample reports being born in the U.S. This is critical for our efforts of exploring internal variation within the tremendously diverse Latino population.

We matched the race of each respondent with the race of their member of Congress through a congressional district identifier within the data-set. This measure of descriptive representation is our primary explanatory variable, but we also control for a host of other factors in our analysis. For example, because partisan affiliation explains such a wide array of political behavior and voting behavior in particular, we include partisan congruence between the elected official and the respondent as an alternative explanation for variance in trust.

We begin our presentation of results with a brief discussion of the frequencies of our primary explanatory variables. Given that the CMPS sample provides coverage of a large segment of the US electorate, including 92% of all Latino registered voters, we are able to make some assessments regarding the relative descriptive representation levels of each population. We find that 34% of Latinos in our sample have a co-ethnic member of Congress, compared with 44% of African Americans in our sample. This background on the relative rates of descriptive representation are helpful, as they provide some context for our primary inquiry, whether being represented by a descriptive elected official leads to greater trust in government.

Our results indicate that being represented by a co-ethnic member of Congress leads to more positive views of government for Latino registered voters, even when other factors including party congruence are considered. To illustrate the substantive effects of descriptive representation at the congressional level, we conducted post-estimation analyses focused on showing the rise in trust in government with and without descriptive representation while other factors are held constant. As depicted in Figure 1 below, we see that the likelihood of trusting the federal government “most of the time” increases by 4.05% for Latinos. Conversely, trusting the federal government “never at all” decreases by 4.24% for Latinos as one moves from not having descriptive representation to having descriptive representation in Congress. Therefore, the presence of Latinos in Congress has a positive impact on how Latino voters view the federal government more broadly. This is an important finding, as trust in government is a political attitude that impacts political participation and other aspects of political behavior.

Conclusion

In summary, we find that there is a positive relationship between being represented by a co-ethnic member of Congress and trust in the federal government. This is an important finding, as trust in government is a political attitude that impacts political participation and other aspects of political behavior. This suggests that increases in Latino representation in Congress can have important normative consequences for the Latino community, a population whose political salience continues to grow. Consequently, it will be important to follow the prospects of Latino congressional candidates from both parties who can help to contribute to the diversification of the legislative branch of the federal government. Future blog posts will therefore shed some light on how well the parties are cultivating a solid pool of qualified Latino candidates for office and supporting those who are identified as being competitive.

Ricardo Ramirez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and an expert in Latino political behavior. Gabriel R. Sanchez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico and Research Director for Latino Decisions who has published several articles focused on Latino congressional behavior. Shannon Sanchez-Youngmann is a PhD candidate in Political Science and a Doctoral Fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico.

The commentary of this article reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Latino Decisions.  Latino Decisions and Pacific Market Research, LLC make no representations about the accuracy of the content of the article.

Taking a Closer Look at Latino Pan-ethnic Identity

A recent report released by the Pew Hispanic Center indicated that the pan-ethnic terms of Latino and Hispanic do not resonate well with the population that they are intended to define. More specifically, a majority (51%) say that they most often identify themselves by their family’s country of origin (Mexican/Mexican American for example) compared to just 24% who prefer a pan-ethnic label.  These numbers are helpful in determining the extent to which a pan-ethnic identity exists within the Latino/Hispanic population, but do not provide a comprehensive depiction of the complexities associated with Latino identity.

The purpose of this blog report is to provide a brief summary of the academic literature associated with Latino group identity, with a specific focus on the concept of linked fate, a politicized form of group identity. Finally, I explore the impact that the negative tone of immigration policy has had on Latino pan-ethnic identity. In short, although more Latinos prefer to use national origin to identify themselves, Latino pan-ethnic identity is highly relevant to the political behavior of the Latino population and will only increase in salience as long as the political debates surrounding immigration policy is perceived to be hostile to the Latino community among the Hispanic population.

The Complexities of Latino Identity

The Pew report finding that more Latinos prefer to identify with their national origin relative to the pan-ethnic terms of Latino or Hispanic is consistent with just about every survey of Latinos that has asked Latinos for their preference. However, it is important to note that Latinos have secondary and even tertiary identities that have political significance.  Therefore, the presence of pan-ethnic and national origin based identities are not mutually exclusive for Latinos, as individuals can identify through both national origin and pan-ethnic terms. There has also been research that shows Latino identity can vary based on social context and interactions. In short, Latinos may choose to use a pan-ethnic identification term to describe themselves in some situations, but national origin in others. Therefore, although national origin may be the more dominant form of identity for most Latinos, pan-ethnic identity is very much relevant for this community and pan-ethnic identity can have important political consequences.

Linked Fate as a Proxy for Latino Pan-Ethnic Identity

One way to more directly assess the importance of pan-ethnic identity to Latino political behavior is to explore the presence of specific forms of group identity known to have political relevance for communities of color. Linked fate, for example, is a particular form of group identity that has been offered as the key theoretical explanation for both the relative political homogeneity within the African American community and the persistence of this cohesiveness in political behavior over time. Individuals with a sense of linked or common fate perceive that their life chances are connected to the overall well being of their racial or ethnic group. Recent surveys have found that linked fate is also applicable to the Latino population. The Latino Decisions “100 Days” Survey found for example that 72% of Latinos believe that their “success depends on the success of other Latinos/Hispanics.” This is very similar to the 68% found in the Latino National Survey from 2006.

The Latino National Survey provides an interesting added dimension to analysis of linked fate, as respondents were asked to also indicate a sense of linked fate between their national-origin group and Latinos more broadly. In previous work I have explored this aspect of the survey and found that 77% of respondents believe than the fate of their national-origin group is tied to that of other Latinos, which suggests that the overwhelming majority of Latinos see a clear and highly substantive connection between their national-origin group and the larger pan-ethnic community.

Immigration and the Formation of Pan-ethnic Identity?

Given the high number of respondents in the Pew Survey who state that Hispanics in the US “have many different cultures”, some might question what the motivation is for common or linked fate. Among other possible factors, I believe that there is reason to believe that the aggressive state immigration laws being passed across the country, as well as the tense political climate surround immigration policy more broadly, have heightened a sense of Latino pan-ethnic identity. As has been well documented here, immigration policy has remained either the most salient or second-most salient policy issue (behind the economy) for Latino voters over the past two years. Furthermore, over half of the respondents to the Latino Decisions “2010 8 State Election Poll” indicated that immigration policy was one of the most important issues deciding their vote choice, over a third indicating it was the most important issue.

More to the point of this blog post, 53% of respondents in that poll indicated that an anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic sentiment across the country was important to their voting decision. If anything, this perception among the Latino electorate has only increased over time. In fact, a robust 76% of respondents to the June, 2011 ImpreMedia/Latino Decisions Tracking Poll believed “that an anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic environment exists today.”  These attitudes are likely driven by a genuine concern that immigration policies like those passed in Arizona and Alabama would have a negative impact on lives of all Latinos. Regardless of immigration status, Latinos realize that they may face discriminatory treatment due to being defined by their ethnicity. In essence, regardless of whether Americans of Latin-origin view themselves as Latino, non-Latinos may, and this external identification can have significant consequences. This high rate of perceived discrimination due to shared ethnicity is important, as scholars have found discrimination to be one the underlying contributors to pan-ethnic identity.

Given the personal relationship Latino voters have to immigration policy, it is not hard to understand how immigration policy could increase a sense of pan-ethnic identity among Latinos. Sylvia Manzano has provided strong evidence that the positions taken by GOP Presidential candidates, including Romney, are not in line with the attitudes of most Latino voters toward immigration. Furthermore, the stance of GOP candidates on immigration during the GOP debates, including expressed approval for Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio (who is being investigated for pervasive bias against Latinos) during the Arizona debate, was difficult to overlook for Latino voters.

With 27% of Latinos in the January, 2012 Univision/ABC/Latino Decisions National Poll stating that they felt the GOP is being “hostile” to Latinos, the Republican Party’s handling of immigration is contributing to a rise in Latino pan-ethnic identity. If Latino linked fate follows the same pattern as that found for African Americans, it would be ironic if a party hoping to make in-roads with the Latino electorate ends up solidifying Latino Democratic partisanship due to their stance on immigration.

Gabriel R. Sanchez is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico and Research Director for Latino Decisions who has published several articles focused on Latino group identity.

Latino Issue Priorities Linked to Presidential, Congressional Approval and Certainty of Voting

By Ali A. Valenzuela, Assistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University

Will President Obama lose Latino voters in the 2012 election because of his administration’s immigration enforcement regime and lack of progress on comprehensive policy change? After failing to deliver on his campaign promises in this contentious policy area, President Obama has taken a hit in Latino approval of his job performance, but the president’s diminished numbers are much better than those of Congress. Figure 1 shows Latino voter approval of the president’s and Congress’s job performance in 2009, 2010 and 2011, as well as the percentage of Latino voters who identify as Democrats and indicate certainty of voting in those years.[1]

Figure 1. Latino Approval, Democratic Identification, and Likelihood of Voting

During each of the first three years of Barack Obama’s presidency, trends in Latino voter Presidential and Congressional approval, certainty of voting, and Democratic Party identification are closely linked to issue priorities and attitudes towards immigration reform. Latino voters who identify immigration reform as a top issue priority in 2011 are more certain to vote in the next election (2012) and more likely to identify as Democrats than comparably situated Latinos who identify other issues as their top priority. In contrast, Latinos who identify immigration reform as a top issue priority are no more or less likely than those who identify other issues as their top priority to approve of the job performance of the president and Congress.

These findings from 2011 represent a substantial weakening, since 2009, of the link between immigration reform and presidential or Congressional approval among Latino voters. Back in 2009, Latino voters who identified immigration reform as a top issue priority were significantly more likely than comparably situated Latinos, who identified other issues as their top priority, to approve of the President’s and Congress’s job performance. Trends from 2009 to 2011 also suggest that the issue of immigration reform has politicized Latinos into significantly greater certainty of voting, even as rates of Democratic Party identification have remained stable. This may be due to increased negative rhetoric emanating from the Republican primary contests, where all Republican challengers to President Obama have rejected proposals that include any possibility of citizenship. On this contentious issue, progressive Latinos have few alternatives to the Democratic Party, and this has resulted in robust party attachments despite weakening support for both the president and Congress.

Issue Priorities

Those who follow trends in Latino politics already know that Latinos consistently identify jobs and the economy, education and health care among their top issue concerns, tracking closely the priorities of other Americans. When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at the top of the national policy agenda, these issues also registered among the top concerns of Latinos. In an article published in The Nation, Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, Ph.D., Director of Communications for Latino Decisions, argued that President Obama must appeal to Latino voters by persuading them on issues of jobs, economic recovery and educational investments. Latinos are a “multi-issue electorate,” she writes, and Obama “must recast his connection with Latino voters beyond a narrow focus on immigration.” Yet the issue of immigration policy is deeply important to Latino voters, often because of personal or family ties to the immigration experience.

Witness Latino opinion from November, 2011, when a Univision/Latino Decisions poll showed that 59% of Latino voters would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate with an economic plan that they supported, if that candidate talked about undocumented immigration as a crime.[2] On the other hand, 75% of Latino voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate with an economic plan that they supported, if that candidate also talked about undocumented immigration as a matter of assimilation.[3] Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., contributor to Latino Decisions, unpacks these results in greater detail by examining partisan differences among Latinos and the general population. Overall, Latino voters are more likely to support candidates of either party who talk about undocumented immigration in a humane way that emphasizes immigrant accommodation by American society.

To better understand the importance of immigration reform compared to other policy areas among Latino voters over time, we can examine the issue priority question that is asked in most political polls. Although there is variation in question wording that limits some comparisons, respondents are usually asked to choose what they think is the most important issue of the day. This provides a gauge of how Latinos prioritize immigration reform relative to other policy areas; changes in the distribution of responses over time suggest how issue priorities may be shifting. With three years of data from Latino Decisions, we can examine year-to-year trends in issue priorities during President Obama’s first term in office and assess whether these trends also vary by nativity (foreign- and U.S.-born), partisanship (Democratic and Republican) or national ancestry (Cuban, Mexican and Puerto Rican).

The figures below show percentages of Latino registered voters who identify select issues (Figure 2) and immigration reform (Figures 3-5) as their top issue priority in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In May 2009, the top issue question asked Latino voters what they “think is the most important issue that President Obama and the new Congress should address during 2009,” while in October 2010 the question asked, “if the election for U.S. Congress were being held today, what general issues would be most important to you in deciding who to vote for?” The change in wording shifted the emphasis of the issue priority question from general concerns to specific concerns about vote choice. In 2011, the top issue question again focused attention on vote choice: “when it comes to deciding if you will vote, and who to vote for, what issues are the most important in how you evaluate the candidates and your decision to vote?”

Figure 2 shows that, overall, Latino issue priorities have remained fairly stable during three years of the Obama presidency. The most important issue area for Latino voters is jobs, unemployment and the economy, although this drops off substantially from a high of 61% in 2009, at the height of the economic crisis, to a low of 38% in 2010, before rising again to 47% in 2011. Immigration reform as a top issue priority hovers between 11 and 15% of Latino voters, larger percentages in all three years than those who identify health care or education as a top issue priority. The change in question wording from a “general top issue” in 2009, to the more specific “top issue for vote” wording in 2010 and 2011 may have artificially inflated the “other issues” category in these later years. This is because Latino voters may have other reasons in mind when deciding whether and for whom to cast a vote than when asked, generally, about their top issue concerns.

Figure 2. Latino Issue Priorities

Examining next only those Latino voters who identify immigration reform as their top issue priority, we see in Figure 3 that foreign-born Latinos are consistently more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to identify this policy area as their top issue (statistical tests show these differences are significant with 99% confidence in 2009 and 2010, and with 90% confidence in 2011). Figure 4 shows that Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to identify immigration reform as their top issue (significant difference with 99% confidence in 2009), but these differences are smaller than those between native- and foreign-born Latinos in all three years. In terms of national ancestry (See Figure 5), Mexican-origin Latinos (compared to those of Cuban or Puerto Rican ancestry) are the most likely to identify immigration reform as a top issue, with the greatest differences between Mexican and Puerto Rican Latinos (significant with 95% confidence in 2009 and 90% confidence in 2010).

Figure 3. Immigration Reform is Top Issue Priority, by Latino Nativity

Figure 4. Immigration Reform is Top Issue Priority, by Latino Party Identification

Figure 5. Immigration Reform is Top Issue Priority, by Latino National Ancestry

Using Latino Issue Priorities to Predict Approval, Democratic Identification and Likelihood of Voting

Trends in Latino issue priorities do not tell us how these priorities might correlate with presidential or Congressional approval, party identification or the likelihood of turning out to vote, nor how these relationships may have changed over the past three years. One way to paint a clearer picture of this process is to use statistical analysis to regress approval, Democratic identity and the likelihood of voting, separately, on issue priorities in all three years. Estimates from such regression models reveal the probability that comparably situated Latino voters, with particular issue priorities, approve of the job president Obama and Congress are doing, identify as a Democrat, and indicate certainty in voting. In other words, the models allow us to examine the correlation between these outcomes and issue priorities while simultaneously controlling for socioeconomic and other factors such as national origin and nativity that we have already seen are systematically related to which issues Latino voters select as their top priority.[4]

All of the models are specified with indicator variables for Latinos who identify immigration reform, education, health care, the economy, and the Iraq war as their top issue, with all other issue priorities serving as the omitted comparison category. Any significant coefficient on an issue priority means that compared to all other issues not included in the model, the significant issue is correlated with presidential or Congressional approval, Democratic Party identification, or the likelihood of voting. I do not claim a causal relationship between these outcomes and issue priorities, but a significant and positive relationship suggests that Latino voters who select this issue as their top priority are more likely to approve of the job President Obama or Congress is doing, more likely to identify as a Democrat, or more likely to say that they are certain to vote (in the 2010 and 2011 surveys) or that they voted previously (in the 2009 survey).

Instead of showing several tables of hard-to-interpret numbers, the results from this analysis are presented graphically in Figure 6. The figure shows several pieces of information together in order to ease comparisons across years. The bar chart is simply a copy of Figure 1, showing the percentage of Latino voters (on the left-hand axis) who approve of President Obama’s job performance (red bars), identify as a Democrat (blue bars), respond affirmatively to questions on past vote (in 2009) or certainty of future vote (in 2010 and 2011 surveys; green bars), and approve of Congress’s job performance (orange bars). The data show a significant 15 percentage-point decline in presidential approval from 2009 to 2011, although no difference between 2010 and 2011. There is a 10 percentage-point decline in the likelihood of voting between 2009 and 2010, with a small uptick in 2011, although this is not a significant increase. By contrast, Democratic Party identification remains fairly stable among Latino voters over the past three years, and Congressional approval drops dramatically among Latino voters, declining by 41 percentage-points from 2009 to 2011.

Figure 6. Predicting Latino Approval, Democratic Identification and Likelihood of Voting

Overlaid on the bar charts are solid colored lines that show results derived from the regression models of presidential approval (red line with red squares), Democratic Party identification (blue line with blue triangles), self-reported vote or certainty of voting (green line with green circles) and Congressional approval (orange line with orange diamonds). Recall that these dependent variables are regressed on issue priority indicators and individual control variables. The points on the solid lines represent changes in predicted probability (on the right-hand axis) of the dependent variables, calculated for each year separately.

Positive probabilities (above 0% on the right-hand axis) indicate an improvement in the likelihood of a dependent variable (Pres. Approval, Dem Party ID, Voted / Will Vote or Cong. Approval) resulting from changing a Latino voter’s top issue priority from all other issues to immigration reform, while holding individual characteristics constant.Negative changes in probability (below 0% on the right-hand axis) indicate the opposite: switching a Latino voter’s issue priority from all other issues to immigration reform decreases the likelihood of the dependent variable. Differences in the change in probability from year-to-year indicate weakening or strengthening of the relationship between immigration reform as a top issue priority and the dependent variable.

Two of the four regression plots show clear reversals in the relationship between selecting immigration reform as a top issue priority and the dependent variables: likelihood of voting and Congressional approval. In 2009, Latinos who identified immigration reform as their top issue priority were, relative to those who selected all other issues, about 6% less likely to say they had voted in the 2008 election, suggesting that this issue was not politically salient or that Latinos who identified this issue were less motivated to vote than other Latinos. By contrast, in October 2011, Latinos who identified immigration reform as their top issue priority were 7% more likely to say they are certain to vote in the 2012 presidential contest. As a political issue, immigration reform today is motivating Latino voters to the polls to an extent that it did not back in 2008.

The opposite pattern holds for Congressional approval. Latinos in 2009 who identified immigration reform as their top issue priority were about 10% more likely to approve of the job Congress was doing, while by October 2011, Latinos who identified immigration reform as their top issue priority are almost 3% less likely to approve of the job Congress is doing. This reversal over three years, a decline of 13% in the predicted probability of approving Congress among Latinos who identify immigration reform as a top issue, is clear evidence of the toll that Congressional inaction has done to Latino approval of the institution.

Regression plots of presidential approval and Democratic Party identification are more nuanced. In 2009, Latino voters who identified immigration reform as their top issue priority were almost 16% more likely to approve of the job President Obama was doing, but this declined to a low of 7% in 2010, before rising slightly to 9.5% in 2011. Over three years of his presidency, Barack Obama not only took a hit in the percentage of Latino voters who approve of his job performance (15 percentage-point drop), but those Latinos who identify immigration reform as a top issue priority are, by 2011, 6.5 percentage-points less likely to approve of his job performance than they were in 2009, even after controlling for important socio-demographic characteristics.

Although Democratic Party identification among Latino voters is similar in 2011 to what it was in 2009, the relationship between issue priorities and partisan identification fluctuates over the past three years of Barack Obama’s presidency. In 2009, Latino voters who identified immigration reform as a top issue priority were almost 21% more likely to identify as Democrats. This relationship declines to only 12% in 2010, before rising again to 19% in 2011. It may be that the looming presidential election, and the negative rhetoric on immigration reform coming from Republican candidates, has increased the salience and appeal of the Democratic Party on this important issue.

The same pattern of results from the regression analysis is evident from simple cross tabulations among Latino voters who identify immigration reform as their top issue priority. That is, even without any controls, among Latinos who identify immigration reform as a top issue, Congressional approval drops dramatically (48 percentage-point drop), past voting or certainty of future voting increases substantially (20 percentage-point increase), presidential approval declines (16 percentage-point drop, with the larger decline of 12 points between 2009 and 2010), and Democratic Party identification holds steady (only a 4 percentage-point decline). However, because of systematic differences in the characteristics of Latino voters who identify immigration reform as a top issue, we can have greater confidence in these trends by using regression models that control for individual characteristics.

Conclusion

Presidential politics, inaction on immigration reform, and increased action on immigration enforcement over the course of President Obama’s first three years in office have contributed to worsening attitudes towards the president and Congress among the Latino electorate. While Latino voter issue priorities have remained fairly stable over this time period, the relationships between issue priorities and presidential and Congressional approval, party identification, and the certainty of voting have moved considerably. Among Latino voters, the significant drop in presidential and Congressional approval since 2009 can be explained in part by issue priorities.

In October 2011, Latino voters who identified immigration reform as a top issue priority are substantially less likely to support the president and Congress compared to Latino voters who identified immigration reform as a top issue priority in May 2009. Additionally, support for the Democratic Party among these Latino voters is soft, fluctuating with the dynamics of the electoral cycle and, perhaps, waiting for genuine action on immigration reform before stabilizing from election-to-election. Importantly, immigration reform as an issue priority in 2011 appears to have politicized Latinos into significantly greater certainty of voting than it did in 2008. This may be a silver lining in the strict enforcement regime of the Obama administration since, even if his job approval is diminished among Latino voters since 2009, there appears to be little decline in the likelihood of Latino Democratic identification. In this case, the overheated and highly negative rhetoric of the Republican presidential candidates may be driving a newly invigorated Latino electorate back into President Obama’s corner for the 2012 general election contest.

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Footnotes

[1]Latino Decisions collected opinion data from registered Latino voters, living in at least 20 states, using bilingual telephone interviews conducted in May 2009, October 2010 and October 2011. These data are broadly representative of the U.S. Latino registered voter population; all reported results account for complex sampling designs of the surveys and use national probability weights in order to adjust the samples to match state-level population characteristics. This research was conducted with financial support from Stanford and Princeton universities.

[2] The question asked Latino voters, “Let’s say one of the candidates had a plan to improve the economy that you supported, and on the immigration issue the candidate said, quote: ‘illegal immigrants are a threat to America who have committed a crime, we can never support amnesty for illegals.’ Would that statement make you more likely to support the candidate, less likely to support the candidate, or would you not care what they said about immigration if you agreed with their plan for the economy?”

[3] Assimilation version: “Let’s say one of the candidates had a plan to improve the economy that you supported, and on the immigration issue the candidate said, quote: ‘America is a nation of immigrants, we need to treat immigrants with respect and dignity and help them assimilate into America instead of attacking them.’ Would that statement…”

[4] For all models, logistic regression is used with national probability weights and robust standard errors. The following controls are included in the models: age, gender, income, education, nativity, generation, and national origin; homeownership is included in models using 2009 and 2011 data.

Ali A. Valenzuela is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University and can be reached at: aavalenz@Princeton.EDU

The commentary of this article reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Latino Decisions.  Latino Decisions and Pacific Market Research, LLC make no representations about the accuracy of the content of the article.

Projecting Latino Electoral Influence in 2012: What Percent of the Latino Vote Candidates Need to Win Each State

Matt A. Barreto, Ph.D. and Gary M. Segura, Ph.D., Latino Decisions

We get asked the question about “Latino influence” from the press weekly—some weeks, daily.  Answering the question is easy if you just make it up, and a fair number of people earn a good living doing so.  But our goal has always been to offer electoral analysis rooted in data, that is objective, and verifiable.

In this effort, we offer not a definitive projection about Latino influence in the 2012 but a way to project that influence and the key factors shaping that estimation.  With the support of the America’s Voice Education Fund, we develop a framework where we can identify critical values of Democratic or Republican vote shares among Latinos that would effectively deliver a state to the respective candidates.  In so doing, we draw on historical vote and turnout data to develop estimates. [ Download slide deck | Watch webinar presentation ]

We begin with three obvious but important premises:

• Presidential elections are won state by state, so any projections in 2012 must be state specific;
• Latino influence in a state is most clearly identified when the Latino margin exceeds the final vote margin—this can occur regardless of the population size—in very close elections, even a small Latino electorate might make the difference, such as Indiana in 2008.
• The likelihood of Latino vote being determinative is dependent on the share of the eventual turnout comprised by Latino voters, the share made up of non-Latino ethnic blocks, and the two-party vote of each.

We cannot know for certain the value of each of those three key measures.  Electoral cycles can differ radically, as anyone who compares 2010 with 2006 and 2008 can readily attest.  But we aren’t completely at sea, either.  We have data regarding vote choice, turnout, and demographic change that can structure our thinking.  Moreover, we can make a range of projections rather than a point estimate and still be instructive.

Using the history of two-party vote by group within each state is a start.  Using high and low estimates of Democratic (or Republican) support for each group, we can estimate a range of possible outcomes in this regard.  Likewise, we can estimate the share of the electorate composed of Latinos and non-Latinos based on the last several elections and population projections for the jurisdiction.  Rolling both of those estimates forward will allow us to project the range of possible outcomes and the critical values for Latinos in determining outcomes.  As the election season progresses, new and better information regarding the state of play within and across demographic groups will allow us to tweak assumptions and, over the course of time, narrow the range of projections and more clearly identify critical Latino vote shares.

Thinking about the National Electorate

We begin with a national projection as an illustration.  The national electorate is illustrated in Figure 1:

Source: Bowler, Shaun and Gary M. Segura, 2011, ‘The Future is Ours’: Minority Politics, Political Behavior and the Multiracial Era of American Politics. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Figure 1 starts in 2008 with the outcome between Barack Obama and John McCain.  In order to predict a range of possible outcomes, we created two lines.  The blue line represents the coalition that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency.  For each year, the expected vote total is equal to the projected electorate share for each group times the same two-party vote distribution found in the 2008 exit polls for that group, and then summed across groups.  Electorate share is driven by population projections from the Census Bureau.  Turnout in each group is held constant at 2008 levels.

While we might have estimated even rosier scenarios for Democrats (for example, assume that Latino turnout grows over time), we erred on the side of caution.  The blue line, then, represents a reasonable upper bound on the possible Democratic vote share.

The red line represents the coalition that propelled the massive GOP gains in 2010. For each year, the expected vote total is equal to the projected electorate share for each group times the same two-party vote distribution found in the 2010 House exit polls for that group, and then summed across groups.  Turnout in each group is held constant at 2010 levels.  Again, we might have assumed even better outcomes for the GOP, but their smashing success in 2010 seems like a reasonable lower bound for Democratic vote share in future elections.

The purple line in the center is the mean of the lower and upper bounds.[1]  As is plain, the GOP faces an increasingly difficult socio-demographic reality.  Even if they hold the 60% share of the non-Hispanic white vote and hold Democratic performance among Latinos to just 60%, the lights go out for them by 2036.  More realistically, things get tough very soon.  Merely splitting the difference between the good Democratic year of 2008 and the good Republican year of 2010 yields Democratic majorities from this point forward.

Most importantly, in 2012, if Republicans hold their white, Asian and “other” shares at their highly successful 2010 levels, Latinos and African Americans alone could still give Democrats a 50.3% share of the national popular vote if they simply vote just as they did in 2008.

Again, we are able to project these ranges based on some relatively simple assumptions regarding turnout, population growth, and vote choice.  Importantly, they are assumptions, but generally reasonable with respect to likely electoral swings.

State-level Projections

As we mentioned, of course, presidential elections are not won by popular vote and the real action—and the place where the Latino vote is more likely to shape outcomes—is in the individual states.  In this first round of estimations, we have focused on 16 states where Latinos could significantly influence who wins a statewide election.  Certainly other possibilities exist, and some may argue that states such as New York or Texas are not that competitive, but we caution the reader to not take too narrow of a view of competitiveness of the presidential candidates.  In each of the states here, there are many examples of close elections for statewide office, and we offer one example for each state, though many more abound.

Each of the states was selected because it was critical on at least one of four key dimensions: (1) the presidential election will be close, that is, the state is perceived to be a “battleground;” (2) the state has an interesting or important U.S. Senate, gubernatorial or other statewide election of interest, including important ballot initiatives; (3) the Latino electorate is large; or (4) the state has an emerging and potentially decisive Latino electorate in a part of the country where Latinos are not generally understood to be electorally important.

In the next several sections, we will walk through each state’s electoral circumstances and illustrate graphically, conditions under which the Latino vote can be decisive.  In forecasting where and when Latinos may be influential there are three key variables to take into consideration, all of which may fluctuate on election day.  These variables are: (1) what percentage of the electorate is Latino; (2) the Dem-Rep partisan vote among non-Latinos; (3) the Dem-Rep partisan vote among Latinos.  Ideally, analysts would be able to take into account, in real time, the best estimates for each of the above three variables and adjust their expectations and models accordingly. In coming weeks we will unveil a dynamic tool for users to change estimates and see how the outcomes also change.  Because the election is still 7 months away, we used fixed values for the above three variables for now, but fully expect these could change as election day approaches and voter sentiment changes.

The key question that journalists, election pundits and campaign consultants have been asking is what percent of the Latino vote Mitt Romney needs to win to be competitive.  In 2004 when George W. Bush was re-elected most data suggested he was able to increase his vote share among Latinos, perhaps to as high as 40%.  In 2008, Republican John McCain won an estimated 31% of the Latino vote nationally and states such as New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida all swung Democrat.  All four of these states with a notable Latino population voted Republican in 2004, and with a larger Latino electorate in 2008, and one that voted more heavily Democratic, all four states flipped from Bush to Obama in 2008.  While the 40% Republican vote figure that is often cited by followers of Latino politics is certainly credible, it is a national benchmark that fails to take into account the intricacies of each state.

Here, we present one effort to account for the differences in the Latino and non-Latino population in a variety of states to determine at what point, the Latino vote can single-handedly cause a state to flip from Republican to Democrat – or vice versa – from Democrat to Republican.  As we note above, in doing this we estimate the percentage of all votes that will be cast by Latinos, as well as take into the historical range of the two-party vote won by Republicans among non-Latinos, and then provide a sliding scale of the potential two-party vote among Latinos. Note that non-Latinos include Whites, Blacks, Asian Americans and any other non-Hispanic groups.  While the White vote is often more heavily Republican, when Blacks and Asians are included, the non-Latino vote, while still Republican leaning, is typically in the range of 51-55% Republican, depending on the state.

In each graph, we start by fixing the share of all voters who are Latino, based on historical Latino turnout patterns, growth projections, and 2010 census data on the number of eligible Latino voters in each state.  Given that Latinos will represent a fixed percentage of all voters – say 11% in a state like Colorado – we can predict whether the state will vote Republican or Democrat, if we have a good guess on how non-Latinos are leaning (which we will know from the aggregate of pre-election polls) and how Latinos are leaning (which we will know from Latino Decisions pre-election polls).  Keep in mind, we fully expect our models of Latino influence to vary over summer and fall 2012 as polling data on Latinos and non-Latinos comes into sharper focus, or shifts.  The model we offer here is adaptable and over the course of the 2012 election we will continually update our projections.

Consider the Colorado example in the graph below.  If Latinos account for 11% of all votes cast on election, and we set the non-Latino vote in Colorado at 52% Republican, represented by the solid black diagonal line, we can estimate the overall Republican vote won based on different possible outcomes among Latinos.  For example, if Latinos were to vote 0% Republican, and non-Latinos voted 52% Republican, the overall outcome would be 46.3% of the vote going to the Republican, which is the starting point on the far left hand side of the graph for the solid black line.  Each grey starred-line represents one additional point higher or lower in Republican vote share among non-Latinos.  So if non-Latinos voted 53% Republican we should follow the grey starred-line above the solid black, and if they voted 51% Republican we can follow the grey stars one row below the solid black line.  Returning again to the solid black line, we are most interested in where this crosses the 50% threshold represented by the purple line in the middle of the graph.  Of course, all outcomes above 50% indicate that the Republican candidate would win the state.  In this specific instance, the Colorado data tell us that if the Republican candidate wins 36% of the Latino vote, and 52% of the non-Latino vote, they would win the state.  If they can do 1 percent better among non-Latinos, and carry 53% of the non-Latino vote, the grey starred-line just above indicates they would need 29% of the Latino vote to surpass 50% statewide.  And on the other end, if the non-Latino vote is very, very close, and the Republican carries just 51% of non-Latinos, he or she would need to win almost 44% of the Latino vote to win the state of Colorado.

In addition the non-Latino and Latino GOP vote shares varying, the percent of all voters who are Latino on election day may be higher or lower than 11%.  If the Latino vote is 12% of all voters in Colorado then the Republican candidate would need to win even more Latino votes than the 36% estimate above, in fact they would likely need 37% of the Latino vote, given 52% of the non-Latino vote.  These additional simulations are easy to project with a few calculations, and in coming weeks, we will release an online tool for users to set these various parameters themselves.

Moving to other states, we can continue to estimate the percent of the Latino vote necessary for a Republican candidate to carry, to win the state.  For example, in Nevada where Latinos are slightly more of the electorate at 13%, a Republican would need to win 37% of the Latino vote, and 52% of the non-Latino vote in order to win statewide.  In a state such as New Mexico with a very large Latino population, estimated to be 36% of all voters, a Republican candidate needs to win 42% of the Latino vote to win, assuming they do well and win as high as 55% among non-Latinos, which historically had been the case.

If a state’s non-Latinos are evenly divided, or perhaps just barely lean Republican such as in California, the Latino vote is all the more important.  While California often looks favorable to Democratic candidates from a distance, upon closer inspection this Democratic edge has rested almost entirely in the hands of Latino voters in recent years.  If a Republican secures 51% of the combined non-Latino vote in California, they would need to win 47% of the Latino vote to win statewide.  If they can do better among non-Latinos, and win perhaps 53% there, they would still need 40% among Latinos to win statewide.  Because Latinos trended heavily Democrat in 2010 in California, what was actually a very close election among all non-Latinos resulted in safe wins for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer.  In contrast when Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected in 2006 he won an estimated 39% of the Latino vote.

In some states like Florida, where the non-Latino vote seemingly rests squarely at a 50-50 distribution, the Latino vote is extremely influential at an estimated 16% of the electorate.  Unlike other states, the Latino vote in Florida is much more divided and has demonstrated swings in different elections.  While Bush won an estimated 56% of the Latino vote in Florida in 2004 on his way to victory, Obama carried 57% of Latinos in 2008 in winning the state, and in 2010 Marco Rubio won 62% among Latinos.  Looking to our model, when a Republican candidate wins 51% of the non-Latino vote in Florida, they would need to win 45% of the Latino vote to win statewide.  However, if they fall under 50% and win 49% of the non-Latino vote, they can still win Florida if they win 56% among Latinos.  Historically the Latino vote has been the deciding factor in Florida elections.  In 2004 when Mel Martinez was elected to the U.S. Senate he lost among non-Latinos, but his 60% vote share among Latinos gave him an overall win by 1 percent.

Elsewhere, where the Latino vote is smaller, it still has the potential to be influential if the election is close, as was the case in states like Indiana and North Carolina in 2008.  In 2012 states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington, and North Carolina all promise to have very close elections for President, Governor, U.S. Senate.  If the non-Latino vote leans Republican by the slightest margin, say 50.5% then they would need to win at least 35% of the Latino vote when Latinos are 3% of the electorate.  If Latinos are 4% of the electorate the Republican needs to win 39% among Latinos to win statewide, and when Latinos are 5% of the electorate in a close state the Republican must win 41% among Latinos to win.  Examining this from the Democratic perspective, Latino turnout will be crucial in these states where Latino voters are just 3-5%.  If the President does well and wins 70% of the Latino vote, he can lose the non-Latino vote 49.3% to 50.7%, and still win statewide when Latinos are 5% of the electorate.  However if Latinos are just 3% of the electorate in the same scenario, even if the President wins 70% of the Latino vote he would lose the state.  Thus, even beyond the obvious states like New Mexico and Florida, the Latino vote can still prove very influential in less obvious states because the non-Latino vote is so evenly divided, and the Latino voting eligible population has been growing rapidly over the past decade.

To watch the webinar, click play:

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[1] Greater detail regarding the development of this model is found in Bowler and Segura (2011).

GOP losing the Latina mom vote and much more

This article was originally published at NBC LATINO

Less is more for the Republican Party when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. Conservative Republican women may fully support the strategy of curtailing such healthcare access but the rest of the female electorate does not take kindly to such an approach.  Neither do Latinas.  Ninety-five percent of Latinas believe women should have easy access to contraception.  The GOP’s culture war is not only alienating Latinas, but in turn, they are also alienating the families that are politically guided by mama.

In Latino households it is not uncommon to have the grandparents, parents, kids, and even grandkids all under the same roof.  And amidst this potential familial chaos the Latina mom brings order to it all as the nucleus of the family.  So if mom can bring order to chaos on the family front, why not on the political front?   Well, focus group research has actually found this to be the case, that Latina moms are a key political organizational force within their households and communities.  In the current political context that means Latinas are not only opposing limitations to women’s healthcare access but also mobilizing the rest of the family against it.

At the national level the Republican Party has entrenched itself against the President’s healthcare reform mandate calling for the provision of free birth control.  At the state level, Republicans have been putting forward measures to chip away at a women’s access to healthcare principally through funding cuts to Planned Parenthood.  Routine gynecological exams, breast cancer screenings, and general health and wellness checks that were once provided by Planned Parenthood at low cost are now scarce.

At first sight it would seem that Latinos would be supportive of such measures because of the overwhelming rates of Catholicism, but that’s not true.  While Latinos are indeed very Catholic, their faith does not tend to influence their political views.   An impreMedia-Latino Decisions survey from late last year showed that for 57 percent of Latinos religion would have no impact at all on their vote in the 2012 election.

The separation between religion and politics explains why the conventional wisdom that Latinos are social conservatives is unfounded.  According to the Latino National Survey, the most recent comprehensive study of Latino political attitudes, 80 percent of Latinos either agree or strongly agree that women should have easy access to contraception.  Conservative Latinos, Catholic Latinos, Foreign born Latinos, any way you slice the Latino community, the vast majority supports greater access to contraception.

Latinas have the highest birth rates and their families are in the lowest income brackets.  These demographic and financial realities make the provision of low cost family planning critical to Latinos.  For Latinos affordable women’s healthcare has short and long-term benefits.  In the short-term, scarce resources that would be used for family planning can be used for more immediate needs such as obtaining nutritious food and medicines for the family.  And in the long-term, family planning will allow Latino parents to make greater and more substantial investments in the educational future of their children.

For Latinas part of providing a future for their children and their family is seeing a political landscape that allows for this wellbeing.  In the lead up to the 2012 presidential election the GOP continues to provide the Latino community reasons to mobilize against its policies.  In the realm of women’s health, the Republican Party has once again come down on the wrong side of Latino policy preferences.  More specifically, the strong preference of Latinas for easy access to contraception has been ignored.  The culture war will only provide an effective mobilizing cause for the Latina herself but also for the family troops she leads.

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 Supreme Court, Health Care Reform, and Latinos

By Jillian Medeiros, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of New Mexico

This week the Supreme Court has been debating the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, passed by President Obama’s administration.  The purpose of this blog report is to discuss the specifics of what the Court is deciding, as well as the implications their decision has for Latinos.

The main issue being debated in the Supreme Court is the constitutionality of the individual mandate.  This part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will require that everyone purchase health care in 2014, or pay a tax penalty that is about $2,085 per family or 2.5% of your household income (whichever is greater). Proponents of the ACA argue that Congress is within its rights under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to compel Americans to buy health insurance.  Supporters of the health care reform bill argue that the courts have ruled that Congress can regulate interstate economic activity, that health care transactions are a substantial part of the U.S. economy, and that the mandate is within Congress’ power to tax.  However, critics of the ACA argue that the government can’t force citizens to engage in economic activity, in short that the government can’t force citizens to buy private goods and services (in this case health care).

The second factor that the Supreme Court will debate is that if the mandate is declared un-constitutional, should other parts of the ACA survive? The main provisions of the Affordable Care Act that will be affected by this is that it will be difficult to require insurance companies to take people with pre-existing conditions  and to limit their premiums if the risk pool is smaller due to the lack of the individual mandate.  The mandate allows the risk pool to be large, and consequently the costs for the insurance companies should decrease.  However, if the mandate is stripped from the bill, the risk pool will shrink, costs will go up, and it will be increasingly difficult for insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.  In short, without the mandate, the heart of the ACA will be unlikely to survive.  Finally, the Supreme Court will debate if the expansion of Medicaid to all low-income people in 2014 (adding about 16 million new people to Medicaid in 2014) is an unconstitutional federal government coercion of the states.

What does this mean for Latinos?   Where do they fit into the debate?

Latinos lack health insurance at the highest rates of any minority group.  In 2010, 30.7 percent of the Hispanic population was not covered by health insurance, compared to 11.7 percent of the non-Hispanic White population.   The ACA is projected to expand insurance to 9 million Latinos.  Since insurance is the primary access barrier to health care for Latinos, the new health care reform bill is especially critical for the Latino community. The significance of the ACA has not been lost on Latinos, since a majority of Latinos feel that the health care reform bill should stand as law and NOT be repealed. In fact, since Latino Decisions started collecting data in October 2011, on average 51% of Latinos have supported the ACA.  Also, the percentage of Latinos who want to repeal health care reform has consistently been low; around 29% (See Figure 1).  Thus, as the Supreme Court decides the fate of the health care reform bill, a majority of Latinos would like to see that the bill be left to stand as law.

Furthermore, a poll conducted by Latino Decisions in October 2011, found that overall Latinos are very supportive of specific provisions of the ACA.  For example, 85% and 75% of Latinos feel that we should keep tax credits for small businesses so they can give their employees insurance, and keep the law that closes the Medicare drug “doughnut hole” respectively.  Furthermore, 63% of Latinos feel that we should keep the law that will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition, and 80% of Latinos feel that we should keep the law that provides financial help to low and moderate income Americans to help the purchase coverage (see Figure 2 Below)

Interestingly, however, when asked specifically about the mandate, a greater number of Latinos do oppose the mandate at 59%. However, as reflected in the tables below this is still lower than the general population, in which 66% opposed the mandate.  Since a majority of Latinos do support keeping the law that prohibits insurance companies denying people based on pre-existing conditions, perhaps it is not clear to Latinos that getting rid of the mandate might cause this provision to crumble as well.  Also, since the opposition to the ACA has been so focused on opposing the mandate, it could be that this media attention is driving these negative feelings toward the mandate not just for Latinos, but the general population as well (See Figures 3 and 4).

Overall, it is clear that Latinos support the ACA.  Over time they have felt the law should stand as law (Figure 1), with support of the law reaching a high in January of 2012, with 57% of Latinos feeling that the health care reform bill should stand as law.  Latinos also overwhelmingly support major provisions of the law, including support for low income Americans and access for people with pre-existing conditions.  In addition, compared to the general population, fewer Latinos feel that the mandate should be repealed.  The Affordable Care Act, in its entirety, is critical to the Latino population, and the significance of health care reform is clear to the Latino community.  As a population that disproportionately lacks health insurance, 9 million Latinos will gain insurance under the law due to the mandate and the expansion of Medicaid.  Moreover, health care costs are a major concern of Latinos.  A Latino Decisions poll found that 45% of Latinos favor health care reform because they feel costs are out of control, and there is a need to make health care more affordable. (Latino Decisions Oct. 2009).

Currently the Supreme Court is debating the constitutionality of the mandate.  However, much more is at stake here.  The mandate is critical to keeping health costs low, and expanding health insurance to Latinos. Given that Latinos, like most Americans, are not supportive of the mandate, there is a need to better educate the population on how vital the mandate is to the overall law. Latinos are currently the largest minority group in the U.S. and are continuing to grow.  Their health disparities will only continue to impact our nation in a negative manner if they are ignored.  Thus, the Supreme Court is not just debating a constitutionality issue; they are debating the health of the nation.

Jillian Medeiros, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She can be reached at: jamedeir@unm.edu.

The commentary of this article reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Latino Decisions.  Latino Decisions and Pacific Market Research, LLC make no representations about the accuracy of the content of the article.

When Good Polling Goes Bad…

Today, a newly released poll from the McClatchy/Marist Poll team reveals a shocking turn-around in the Presidential race among Latinos.  Governor Romney is found to lead the President by 11 points among Latino voters, and by 18 points if the fantasy of a Jeb Bush VP nomination accompanies Romney on the ticket.  Moreover, the Republicans are found to lead the Democrats in a generic Congressional ballot by 19 points among Latinos!

To say the least, these numbers are a radical departure from recent Latino Decisions findings and those of a recent Fox News Latino Poll, which found the President leading Governor Romney by 42 and 56 points, respectively.  Either the President has suffered the most catastrophic short-term collapse of support within an electoral group in US history, or something is very wrong in the poll….

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Access to Photo-ID in Texas

By Gabriel R. Sanchez, Stephen A. Nuño, and Matt A. Barreto

Last week the Department of Justice blocked the Texas photo-identification law that requires voters in the state to show a state issued photo-ID to vote, stating that the state of Texas failed to demonstrate that the law is not discriminatory by design against Hispanic voters. This follows a similar move in December by the Justice Department to block South Carolina’s new photo-ID law on the grounds that it disproportionately impacted African American voters. The intense legal debate surrounding these laws has only escalated as we approach the 2012 election, as critics contend that these laws will have a negative impact on the turnout of Democratic voters.

The Texas case is based on the requirement of the Voting Rights Act that jurisdictions that have a history of suppressing minority voting, such as Texas, must provide evidence that any changes to voting rules would not have a disproportionate effect on minority voters. This is an important difference from the Crawford v. Marion County Election Board decision of the Supreme Court which upheld the stringent photo identification policy for voters of Indiana, but did not involve the higher standards of the Voting Rights Act.

In May of 2011 we posted a blog to Latino Decisions focused on the question of …

Evolution and Un-Intelligent Design: Why Latinos are Ahead of Barack Obama on Marriage Equality

On October 27, 2010, President Barack Obama famously said that his opinion on marriage equality for same-sex couples was “evolving.”  As Joe Sudbay pointed out recently at the Huffington Post, it’s been 500 days.

It was an odd thing to say at the time.  Having already reversed his position once (between the time he entered politics and the time he began running for President), activists for LGBT organizations interpreted this as coded language, a hint that he was on their side and would eventually say so.

As Darwin noted, evolution is a painfully slow process.  On February 23, Jonathan Capehart (Washington Post) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) got into a contentious give-and-take on Morning Joe on MSNBC.  When confronted with Christie’s (and many Republicans’) favorite dodge, that he and the president agreed on the issue by favoring civil unions but not full equality, Capehart again repeated the “evolving” line.  To a person, everyone on the Morning Joe set laughed out loud.  Liberal and conservative, it didn’t matter.  It was hilarious to everyone.

That’s because the “evolving” dodge is so transparently vacuous and political.  No one reading this (and certainly no one on the set of Morning Joe that day) seriously believes that the President has spent 18 months in almost constant, torturous reflection on the matter.  No, rather, the president’s position is a matter of (un) intelligent design.  It is an artifice, entirely constructed for the purpose of evasion.  Everyone on that MSNBC set—and most political observers with IQ’s greater than a rock’s—assume, rightly I think, that one of two conditions is true.  Either the president does not support marriage equality, but is afraid to say so for the risk of alienating the support of gays and lesbians, young people, and social liberals; OR the president does support marriage equality but has made a political calculation that it’s an electorally costly position.

All of which begs the question of when evolution will reach its fruition.  When will the new species homo support-us emerge at the White House?

I won’t pretend to have privileged knowledge of the president’s mind on this (or anything for that matter). I cannot know what he truly believes.  But I believe this contrived position is unintelligent because it is an inevitable train-wreck in the making. Jim Messina, David Axelrod, and the others managing the president’s bid for reelection must surely know that he is going to be asked about it this fall, more than likely in the course of a nationally televised debate, if he doesn’t “evolve” sooner.  He will answer in one of three ways.  He can say he opposes marriage equality, in which case all the dodging for the last two years with the “evolving” nonsense will have been for naught.  This is very unlikely.  He can say he is in favor—making big news on a social issue days or weeks before the election.  This, too, is unlikely.  Or he can still be evolving—again eliciting laughter and disbelief.  None of these seems like a winning strategy.

A fourth option, one that could capitalize on the political upside and minimize the political downside of support, would be to finish the evolutionary process soon. In fact, in the context of a raging culture war in which the right appears increasingly intolerant and out of touch with the mainstream, now would be a perfect time to act.

The calculation, here, is between the level of enthusiasm and support the President would receive for reaching the last stage of his “evolution,” weighed against the costs.  Some have suggested that marriage equality is arguably not the electoral risk it once was.  Polls on this matter have suggested significant movement on the issue.   The chair of the Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, wants marriage equality in the platform.  Since marriage equality or a ban on same sex marriage will be on the ballot in five states this year—all states the president won in 2008 and hopes to again in 2012—a good argument can be made for getting out in front on this issue, rather than “leading” from behind, in order to make sure the net effect is positive on the president’s reelection chances.

Opponents of marriage equality are well-financed and powerful.  But for President Obama, fretting about movement conservatives, evangelical voters, and the National Organization for Marriage is silly, of course, since they are unlikely to support the president no matter his views on marriage and have already concluded that he is not on their side on this issue.  Rather, cost considerations should be focused only swing electorates, and on groups from which the president draws significant support.  Latinos are one such group.  Could support for marriage equality hurt the president among Latino voters?

Hardly.  For starters, Latinos are far more liberal on marriage equality than stereotypes might suggest.  In our November, 2011, benchmark poll for Univision News, we found a plurality of Latinos supporting marriage equality—43%, and another 13% supporting civil unions.  Opposition to government recognition of lesbian and gay relationships was only about a quarter, at 26%.  The remainder were unsure.

 

These numbers are not a slam-dunk.  Some messaging to Latino voters is required by proponents of marriage equality.  But neither do they portend any ominous news for the Obama campaign.  More recently, in California, the Field Poll found outright majority support for marriage equality among Latinos in California, at 53%.

Moreover, Latino Decisions has never found social issues—abortion, marriage equality and the like—ever polling more than 2% when registered Latino voters are asked about which issues matter most when they vote.  The history of Latino support for Democrats, despite more conservative views on abortion rights, illustrates how little impact such views have on the group’s voting behavior.

The president and his advisors are, no doubt, considering carefully how much evolution is optimal for his reelection.  If he chooses to continue espousing this somewhat embarrassing dodge, he does so at the risk of looking foolish or being placed on the spot during the fall campaign.  However, there is no evidence that embracing marriage equality will cost him votes among the important Latino voting bloc.

Gary Segura is Principal and Co-Founder of Latino Decisions.

The Contraception Debate and Latino Voter Opinion

Conventional wisdom suggests Latinos, and men in particular, have strong preferences for traditional gender roles. Similarly, one might expect recent immigrants to hold significantly more conservative views about women’s social roles relative to their American-born counterparts. In a recent Politics and Gender article, Celeste Montoya, Christina Bejarano and I examine these suppositions. We find neither to be true; Latinos and Latinas overwhelmingly share egalitarian attitudes about gender equality. Opinion differences occur, but they are quite small. Perhaps most importantly, we find no instance where men and women are on opposite sides of the issues we studied.

Attitudes about gender roles were measured using four items from the 2006 Latino National Survey (LNS), which is the most comprehensive study of Latino political attitudes to date: 1) Men and women should get equal pay when they are in the same job; 2) Women should have easy access to birth control/contraception; 3) Mothers should be more responsible for caring for their children than fathers; and 4) Men are better qualified to be political leaders than women . The article has far more analysis and empirical testing (controlling for different in-group differences) than a blog post allows, but the general patterns are illustrated below. All data are reported in percentages and the sample size is 8,634. Opinions between men and women who are US and foreign born are clearly quite similar on all four issues tested.

Regardless of nativity, the vast majority of Latinos and and Latinas strongly agree women should earn equal pay and have easy access to contraception.

Latinas and Latinos who are U.S. born and foreign born disagree at similar rates, again over 50%, with the idea that mothers should bear more responsibility for child care relative to fathers.

The majority of Latinos and Latinas also disagree with the sentiment that men are more qualified for political leadership.  It is noticeable that immigrant men register less progressive attitudes on these last two questions. Still, over 50% disagree with the statements and the majority view should not be discounted either.

Access to Contraception – No Controversy Here

The current national debate about women’s access to contraception warrants a more nuanced consideration of Latina and Latino voter opinions on the issue. Using the LNS, which includes 8,600 respondents representative of the national Latino population (margin of error+1.05%), it is possible to parse out sub-groups in the Latino electorate to further gauge opinion. Asked whether women should have easy access to birth control and contraception, Latino voters in all demographic categories agree this should be the case. This is not a controversial issue for the Latino electorate; the illustration below includes only registered voters (N=3,927).

Over 80% of Latinos in all cases agree or strongly agree on this point. Over 60% of Latino conservatives, men, U.S. born, Catholics, born again Christians, liberals, women, and immigrants strongly agree women should have easy access to birth control. Strategic political positioning against access to birth control will not yield Latino votes.

Other blog posts here have noted there can be sharp differences between different Latino groups, but sometimes, ethnic identity links group opinion. The evidence presented here shows there are other instances still, where Latino voters are surprisingly nothing like we’ve heard from political pundits. As we move through election season, we will continue to hear about Latino values. Representing Latino voters accurately requires knowledge of their opinions. Instead of relying on outdated and often unverified popular narratives, it is important to know how Latinos themselves define their  values, priorities and policy preferences.

Dr. Sylvia Manzano is Senior Project Manager for Latino Decisions, she can be reached at: sylvia.manzano@latinodecisions.com

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.