By Dave Andrusko
When all is seemingly said and done about the 2022 midterms, we won’t, in fact, be done. Not by a long shot.
From the Democrats perspective, there are several potentially massive problems, including (according to Ruy Teixeira) “Democrats’ Hispanic Problem: The Sequel—Still Not Fixed”
Teixeira, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, has written article after article warning Democrats that Hispanics are moving in the direction of the Republican Party. (That is part and parcel of the Democrats’ problem with working class men and women of all races.)
In his “Democrats’ Hispanic Problem: The Sequel—Still Not Fixed,” Teixeira begins by quoting a Democrat chortling over the outcome of November 8. He says, “The great thing about having your strategy being proven correct is that you don’t have to rethink your strategy.” To which Teixeira responds tongue in cheek, “God forbid anyone should do any rethinking. That would never do.”
Then the weaknesses.
The fact remains, however, that while they held the Senate (and may possibly pick up a seat), they lost the House, as well as the nationwide popular vote by 3-4 points. That’s a swing of 7-8 points toward the Republicans compared to Biden’s 4 point national advantage in 2020. The Senate map for the Democrats in 2024 looks absolutely terrifying: Democrats will have to hold seats in a wide range of red and purple states—Arizona, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and West Virginia. The Republican seats that will be up are all in solid GOP states, with the possible exceptions of Texas and Florida (and we saw what just happened there). Plus there’s no guarantee that the 2024 Democratic nominee—likely Biden—will get to run again against the Democrats’ preferred opponent, Trump. It could be someone much tougher to take down.
Add to this, problems “lurking” beneath the surface.” Teixeira says
One such problem is the Democrats’ Hispanic voter problem. In 2020, Democrats’ advantage among Hispanic voters declined nationwide by 16 points relative to 2016. Democrats’ had hoped to stop the bleeding in 2022. Did they?
The answer?
It does not appear so. Prior to the election, the AEI demographics tracker, which averages poll subgroup results, found the Democratic Congressional margin among Hispanic voters consistently 7-9 points below its 2020 level and 17-19 points below its 2018 level. Results from AP/NORC VoteCast indicate that the drop in the 2022 election was actually larger than that foreshadowed by the pre-election data. These data show Democrats carrying Hispanics nationwide by just 56-39 in 2022, a 12 point decline in margin relative to 2020 (18 points relative to 2018). For what it’s worth, the less-reliable network exit polls, show an identical decline in Hispanic support between 2020 and 2022.
Teixeira digs deeper. For example, “Democrats appeared to have done particularly poorly among Hispanic men in 2022. In the VoteCast data, Democrats carried this group by a scant 6 points (51-45).” The Hispanic working class? “Compared to 2018, Democratic Hispanic working class support is down 20 margin points, more than double the decline among Hispanic college voters (9 points).”
It’s an extremely detailed but very readable explanation of why Democrats could well face hard times ahead. Please take a few minutes and read it.