New focus groups of Latinos in swing states

The good news, the bad news and a possible roadmap for the next 60 days

There aren’t many political consultants in the country who have conducted more focus groups of Latino voters for both Democratic and Republican campaigns than I have over the past thirty years. That handful of people are certainly out there somewhere but I haven’t come across them yet. I mention that only to state that while there’s a value to focus group research - I can tell you that as a political campaign professional it’s extremely limited.

Focus groups are not scientifically valid beyond the limited audience of those being interviewed and the ‘findings’ (which are very subjective in and of themselves) cannot be extrapolated to a broader set of voters. That’s just science.

But science be damned, the politically addicted need to have their fix so we’ve taken a limited refining tool for messaging and turned it into a cottage industry. For those of you addicted, feel free to treat my ‘scientific admonitions’ the way a pack a day smoker reads the cancer warning labels on a pack of Marlboro’s.

With that in mind - smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Rich Thau, a focus group researcher who I respect and got to know during my work with The Lincoln Project, has been talking to swing voters in battleground states for many years. He’s been particularly helpful to me during the Trump years as I’ve worked on various campaigns to better understand Trumps appeal.

Thau’s work is regularly featured on national news platforms so I naturally paid close attention when he emailed me some findings on Latino voters that hadn’t made up their mind between Trump and Harris. These are the Hispanic version of the storied ‘double haters’ and I took notice largely because while there’s been a lot of spin lately about a Latino ‘reset’ with voters - Harris’ numbers remain at a historically weak level of support for a Democrat at this point in the election.

Harris has shored up most of her base with Latinos and beyond. But the base of Latinos is shrinking for Democrats, that much is clear, and presumably not debatable since its Democratic operatives touting Harris Latino numbers as if they were some cause for a celebratory feast.

So after getting Rich’s email I did what any normal person does on a Saturday night. I watched focus groups of undecided Latino voters in battleground states until the bars closed.

Take a look and let’s discuss shall we?

Interesting right?

The first thing you might notice is how deeply disengaged these voters are. These are not folks watching cable news shows, watching twitter fights and unfortunately not subscribing to The Great Transformation newsletter…yet. Resist the temptation to think ‘these voters are stupid’. I assure you they are not. They may not be as consumed with politics as many of us are but they are keenly aware of what matters in their own lives.

The second thing to keep in mind is how little these voters know about Kamala Harris - this is both good news and bad news. The good news is that while she’s a blank canvas to many voters, it may also be the case that conventional wisdom has been far too optimistic about what that means. Yes, she has the chance to articulate a vision for where she wants to take the country. Yes she has the chance to switch positions on key issues to make her more viable in battleground states, most notably immigration and fracking. Yes, she has the chance to establish a much greater contrast to old, feeble and senile Donald Trump than Biden could have ever possibly been able to.

But lets be clear eyed and sober about the fact that that also means the blank canvas she represents can also be painted on by Trump and his campaign. Harris numbers currently point to a consolidation of the base Democratic vote, plus some Harris curious voters (particularly among independent female voters). This is a good thing. Not a bad thing. Not a great thing. Not a surge. Its a consolidation - no more at this point.

One of the main concerns raised about switching candidates this late in the game was that not all of the change that comes with a new candidate is upside.

In fact, if history is a guide, there’s a lot more potential downside to a new blank canvas candidate then there is upside. We’ll see if that assumption holds true over the next 60 days or so but, even on this point, the focus groups are telling us something: There is a hesitancy among these lower information non-white voters that can easily be turned into negativity. Voters are naturally skeptical of politicians and are far more likely to believe bad things about them than the good things they are telling us.

The best example of this is the Latina from Georgia who declares she is strongly supportive of abortion rights and is essentially a one-issue voter on reproductive rights but is voting for…Donald Trump? That’s right. She’s voting for Donald Trump and the key finding is understanding why she is saying she’s likely to vote for Trump.

The social unrest that consumed the nation in the wake of the George Floyd murder. In political parlance I can help you interpret that to mean: Law and Order.

For those of you that have been following me for some time I have been warning that the border crisis is significant because if Democrats, regardless of the nominee, lose the battle on this issue, it has the potential to undermine the entire campaign.

Further, I warned that the border security and law and order issues would be the best defense against Democratic abortion rights attacks and that Republicans would use law and order to prevent further loss among women. Suburban women are more easily frightened by the possibility of an ‘illegal brown man’ accosting them than losing their rights to reproductive freedom than we’d like to admit. Here you are seeing an undecided Hispanic woman in battleground state, Georgia, saying exactly that - a strongly pro-choice single issue voter is voting for Trump because he is the candidate of Law and Order.

I cant make this any clearer than this voter stated it in her own words.

Less importantly but still notable is the younger Latina who switched from Donald Trump to….Cornel West?? Researcher Rich Tau expertly presses her on how she could be making that ideological leap and after a bit of hemming and hawing she coughs up the reason…she grew up in California, now works in law enforcement and has ‘personal knowledge and education about how damaging Kamala Harris’ policies were as Attorney General in California.’

Again, the point is not to argue with these voters. It is to listen and understand where they are at and then develop your campaign messaging appropriately. While I would argue this woman wasn’t truly an undecided voter to begin with (and this is another of the many methodological flaws with focus groups) we can not, should not, dismiss the saliency of the law enforcement, law and order, border security frame.

Kamala Harris and her campaign certainly aren’t. This is good news because she is far more vulnerable here than most of her supporters think. She can overcome it. They are taking the appropriate measures to defend against it, but this focus group does illustrate just how difficult that task is going to be.

Here’s a link to the NBC news coverage of the focus group story.