Here at TMV we’ve gone on and on about how Independents and Moderates abandoned the GOP in droves this year and gave the election to the Democrats. Exit polls showed Independents going for the Democrats by a 57-39 margin. In 2004, it was 49-48 for Kerry. The swing was from 1 point to 18 points. The entire electorate swung to the Dems, but Indies did a huge margin. We are right to focus on moderates and Independents.
But another major voting bloc to shift was the Latino vote. In 2004, Kerry won Latinos 53-44. In 2006, the Dems won Latinos 69-30. It went from a 9 point spread to a 39 point spread. Yes, the Latino desertion of the GOP was greater than any other demographic group. It’s worth noting that Latinos were 8% of the electorate in both cases.
Why did this happen? A couple reasons. First, Bush has always had a lot of personal appeal to Latinos from his days as Governor of Texas. He wasn’t on the ballot, so pro-Bush Latinos had no reason to vote Republican. Second, Rove spent a great deal of effort to attract Latinos in 2004. He didn’t do as much on that front in 2006. Democrats, on the other hand, aggressively targeted Latinos.
But the third, and most important reason Latinos jumped to the Democrats was the nativist movement within the GOP. This is the Pete Wilson effect nationwide. Now the Democrats will vote for a guest-worker bill that Republicans will call “amnesty,” and Latinos will reward the Democrats for a generation.
While Independents may move back to the Republicans on a moment’s notice, Latinos are less likely to do so. Unless the GOP repairs the damage of the base-driven anti-immigration movement, Latinos (including cultural conservatives) will stick with the Democrats. I suspect the opposite will happen, as conservative Republicans blame their losses on failure to enact strict immigration reform. Read the conservative blogs and you won’t see much talk about the need for Bush-style guest-worker+path-to-citizenship immigration reform. The impending civil war within the GOP will likely further alienate Latinos, who will only increase as a portion of the electorate. Moreover, they will play a critical role in the battleground Western states. This, I believe, is the longest-term consequence of the 2006 election.