The Democrats Hispanic problem

 A.B. Stoddard:

These days the Democratic Party is like a sad addict whose life has fallen apart, with too much to resolve and repair all at once. Sure, the aching hip and broken relationships can be put off for another day, but the lost job, wrecked car, and empty bank account require immediate attention. President Biden and the Democrats are — simultaneously — working to stave off the failure of his economic agenda, control a once-again rampaging pandemic, mitigate the effects of the worst inflation since 1982, and rescue democracy from new laws that permit the GOP to nullify the next election, all before they likely lose both chambers of Congress next year.

There are too many liabilities to count. But there is one new and glaring problem that has nothing to do with bickering factions in Congress, and cannot be explained away by global trends or the potency of election conspiracies and propaganda. A distinct group of their supporters is leaving them. Many Hispanic voters, long a reliable part of the Democratic coalition, have walked away. It is not — yet — a majority of them, but the numbers are dramatic. Biden won 750,000 fewer Hispanic voters in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 — in an Electoral College victory he nearly lost by fewer than 45,000 votes in three states. Donald Trump improved his margin with these voters by eight percentage points in four years, according to an analysis by the Democratic firm Catalist — a larger swing than any among white, black or Asian voters.

It gets worse. Biden’s approval ratings are awful across the board, but his support has eroded more among Hispanic voters than with any other racial group. A Pew/Marist poll from December showed his approve/disapprove numbers with Hispanic voters were 33/65, a net -32, while they were 40/56 with whites, a net of -16.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed Hispanic voters splitting their support between both parties, with just 37% of them backing Democrats in the House of Representatives if the midterm elections were held today, compared to the 60% they gave Democrats last November. Republicans would also garner 37% if the election were today. While Biden won 63% of Hispanic voters in 2020, this poll showed they would split their support in a 2024 rematch, with 44% for Biden and 43% for Trump.

Hispanic men are more supportive of Republicans than Hispanic women, and following the 2020 election some Democrats dismissed this as a temporary loss, an attraction to Trump’s strongman persona. But Democrats are wrong to delude themselves with such a fiction. The data shows Hispanic voters not only rejected the left’s embrace of socialism, but that they prioritized the issue of jobs and the economy over all else, even if they were critical of Trump’s stand on immigration and the border wall. Their focus remained the same a year later — Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin won the Hispanic vote when he defeated Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, and Hispanic voters strongly disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. The WSJ poll findings showed that a negative outlook on the economy was seven points higher among Hispanic voters than it was for voters overall.

So it isn’t surprising that, like most other voters, Hispanics do not see the American Rescue Plan as good policy, let alone the boon Democrats thought Americans would now be thanking them for. And like many voters, Hispanics too blame rising inflation on the Democrats’ spending bills.
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Biden's open borders policy is also unpopular with Texas Hispanics on the border.  Other Texas Hispanics are unhappy with Biden's energy policies which are costing them jobs.  Hispanics also increased their incomes more under Trump's economic policies.