How Obama’s Failures Will Depress Hispanic Voter Turnout
As we approach the 2012 election date, the media will spin facts and headlines furiously in order to protect their anointed one, Barack Obama. One of these has been that the GOP rhetoric on immigration is so enraging Hispanics, that they will turn out in droves to support the Democrats.
Media narratives have a way of being founded more on wish rather than on fact.
From the Modesto Bee:
As the fastest-growing population group in the United States over the past decade, Latinos seemed poised to have a huge impact on the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns.
Why then, political experts and demographers wondered, had the number of Latino voters declined significantly from 2009 to 2010? According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, the number of Hispanic registered voters fell from 11.6 million in 2008 — a presidential election year — to 10.9 million in 2010, when congressional races led the ballot in many states.
So voter registration dropped from 2008 to 2010 among Hispanics by 700,000 voters, which represents fully 6% of the voting bloc. If this rate continues onto 2012, Hispanic registration would have dropped by nearly 1.5 million voters, 12% of the voting bloc, and representing 3% of the total votes cast in 2012. That’s a significant decrease.
Even in California, my beloved homestate that is solidly in the grip of the socialist left, Hispanics shot up to 36.7% of the population, and yet the number of Hispanic voters dropped 9% from 2008 to 2010.
To the other prong of the narrative being spun by the media, I present the poll of Hispanic political attitudes by the Pew Research Center. They find that by a ratio of two to one, Latinos disapprove greatly with how Obama is dealing with illegal immigrants (59% versus 27%). Obama’s general approval rating among Hispanics has dropped from 58% in 2010 to 49%, only slightly above the rating in the general population.
