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Just as follow on, and in the spirit that everything related to Trump is culture war:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/politics/trump-voters-of-color-analysis/
Pull quotes:
This fact should be the smoking gun that we're not talking about the same thing that we used to with the term "racism". The american public pretends to believe that Trump was more racist than Wallace.
This is political realignment from the inside. It's slow, it could reverse or it could continue. I believe very strongly that the political coalitions are going to change composition quite a bit in the coming decade. I don't know what the issues will be, but the separation between the working class (see our discussion in last week's thread) and the middle class is becoming big enough to win elections on. The question is which party will get which side, and in what quantities.
As a point for discussion, if (and it's a big "if) the Republicans fully take up the flag of the working class, would that make them the left-leaning party?
I don't think that returning to historic trends can really be counted as a realignment. Looking at the black vote since 1932 gives us these numbers:
1932: 77%
1936: 28%
1940: 32%
1944: 32%
1948: 23%
1952: 24%
1956: 39%
1960: 32%
1964: 6%
1968: 15%
1972: 13%
1976: 17%
1980: 14%
1984: 9%
1988: 11%
1992: 10%
1996: 12%
2000: 9%
2004: 11%
2008: 4%
2012: 6%
2016: 8%
2020: 12%
Blacks largely turned to Democrats during the New Deal; they had largely been wary of them before due to the historic association with the Republicans and concern that national leaders were too beholden to the racist Southerners who comprised their base. The next big drop was in 1964, when Goldwater specifically opposed civil rights legislation while Johnson explicitly supported it. Then it recovered to a stable equilibrium on either side of 10%. before dropping again in 2008. This was due less to anything McCain or the Republicans did, though, than to the presence of Barack Obama in the race. With Obama out in 2012, Trump was bound to get a larger share of the black vote, though it took until 2020 for the numbers to recover to near the historic average. Similarly, looking at the Hispanic vote since 1976 we get:
1976: 18%
1980: 37%
1984: 34%
1988: 30%
1992: 25%
1996: 21%
2000: 35%
2004: 44%
2008: 31%
2012: 27%
2016: 28%
2020: 32%
Here it's even worse since the party isn't getting huge swings so much as staying consistent over time. The big news was that in the 2022 midterms Republicans got 39% of the vote, which would be a sizeable increase (though still not the record). But that overlooks that looking at midterm results is more than a bit misleading since not all states vote in major midterm elections. There are obviously House races everywhere, but these races aren't big enough to get a decent sample size for exit polling, a lot of them involve candidates running unopposed, and redistricting makes direct comparisons difficult, so where they do exist they're usually excluded from comprehensive numbers. Only five states with a population greater than 8% Hispanic had gubernatorial elections, and only 4 had Senate elections. And the gubernatorial races are already suspect because they often don't really tell you anything about how a state feels nationally—Vermont, Maryland, and Massachusetts all have Republican governors, and Kansas, Louisiana, and Kentucky all have Democratic governors, and none of those states are even swing states, let alone identified with the party of their respective governors. Anyway, FWIW, DeSantis got 58% of the Hispanic vote in Florida, but from there it drops off a cliff, with Republicans getting 47% in Arizona, 40% in Texas, 37% in Nevada, and 25% in Pennsylvania. The Senate, which is probably a more accurate signifier, looks a little worse, with Republicans getting 55% in Florida, 40% in Arizona, 33% in Nevada, and 31% in Pennsylvania.
But there's something missing from this breakdown. Actually, quite a few things. California had no elections that counted, and it has the largest Hispanic population in the country. Ditto New York, the number four state, as well as number 5 Illinois, number 7 New Jersey, and number 8 Colorado. The Hispanic uptick is dominated by massive numbers in Florida and above average numbers in Texas. Arizona held its own as well, but it's only a recent addition to the swing state club, and the numbers in Pennsylvania and Nevada, neither particularly blue, are about in line with 2020. I think it's a bit premature to say that there's a relalignment going on among Hispanic voters. There's certainly somewhat of an uptick in GOP support, but 2020 wasn't really an abberation from historic averages, and 2022's uptick was limited to certain places that may not be representative of the country as a whole, and one year does not make a trend. I'd want to see more consistent growth before coming to any conclusions.
That is a generally upwards trend in the Hispanic GOP vote, though. There was a spike with bush, which dropped off a Cliff with McCain and Romney, and trump brought it back to near bush levels.
I feel like a lot of people have forgotten that Bush spoke Spanish and actually did a few campaign events "en espanol", that shit was big deal back in '95 and 2000.
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