Democrats Need A Latino Vote Autopsy

The decade long slide of Latino voters isn't going to stop with a few consultants and pollsters being fired. Democrats need a complete overhaul in how they understand and approach Latino voters.

AFP

After the 2012 election Republicans were lost. It was an election they completely believed they were going to win, and up until midnight on election night were holding out hope that their polling, data, and ground game were going to come through.

Of course, none of that happened.

But in a moment of post-election sanity, they decided to conduct a thorough review of why the party lost a race that their polling and data gurus told them they were going to win. Ultimately, the now famous RNC “autopsy” of 2012 correctly concluded that the Republican Party needed to broaden its ethnic and racial composition if it would be able to retain its status as a competitive party.

The autopsy was summarily dismissed by the Republican base voter and thus began the demise of establishment Republicans whom have been summarily replaced with the nativist populism Republicans led by Donald Trump. But while Democrats chortled at the Republican fumbles, a peculiar thing happened - The Republican Party became more diverse under Donald Trump.

Ironically, Democrats have been hemorrhaging Latino voters since that same year. The high water mark for Democratic Latino voters occurred during the Obama years when the former President reached impressive levels of support in the low to mid-70s. Days that now seem long ago and quaint.

So, I’ll be the first to say it: The Democrats need a top-to-bottom Latino Voter Autopsy. Complete transparency and no stones untouched. Turn ‘em all over. This is a decades-long slide and it’s speeding up. If a complete overhaul isn’t made soon, further disaster awaits. 5 million new Latino voters will be voting in November 2028 and if serious shifts aren’t made Democrats face being a marginalized, out-of-touch, regional party that is increasingly wealthy, white, and isolated from America’s largest ethnic minority.

Everything has changed and Democrats find themselves hemorrhaging Latino voters. Yes, there are a few voices shouting that Latinos can’t be blamed for Harris’ loss and they are right. But too many of the voices in the Democratic Party knew this problem was bigger than was being portrayed. Too often there was the dismissiveness of the shift as “a return to the normal levels of Latino support for Republicans”. That’s nonsense. Any serious student of Latino voters knows that today’s Latino voters are completely unlike the Latinos who voted for George W Bush in 2004 (I know because I was there) and Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Today’s Latino voter is fundamentally different than the Latino voter we’ve come to know over the past thirty years and therein lies the challenge for Democrats.

The Democratic Party suffers from organizational paralysis unwilling to challenge its basic precepts of Latino voters. In many ways, Democrats are stuck in a 1990’s paradigm of immigration reform and the idea that all Latinos are immigrants. The campaign’s insistence that Trump was polling in the low 30s was breathtaking in how far it missed the mark. Truly stunning to think that polling data that far off was being used in a modern Presidential campaign.

And it wasn’t the first time. The same phenomenon played out in 2016, 2020, 2022, and now 2024. How many more times does this have to happen?

Despite publicly announcing four historically early investments in Latino advertising campaigns, Biden watched his numbers get worse with each investment. For all the times you heard “We aren’t investing enough or early enough” it’s clear as day that this alone doesn’t solve the problem - it’s time we dispel that myth.

As my good friend and co-host of The Latino Vote podcast Chuck Rocha pointed out on a recent episode, Democrats outspent Republicans by a factor of 10:1 on Spanish mediums. That’s an avalanche of spending advantage and Democrats performed 5-7 points WORSE!

The greatest mistake Democrats could make is to believe this is a Biden or Harris problem. It’s far more longstanding and pervasive than that. Again, this started after the 2012 election.

It’s long past the time when this can somehow be resolved if they would only spend more money “talking to or investing in the community” which is consultant speak for put my firm or non-profit on the payroll.

Polling and research is probably the biggest problem. Biden and Harris pollsters were telling us that the Latino support levels for Trump were in the low 30s. This is malpractice - it's not just that the campaign operated off of such obviously flawed numbers, it's that there’s a culture that allows these pollsters to continue leading Democratic candidates in the wrong direction. Never mind that it was obvious to literally every other pollster, reporter, and political professional in the country that Trump's numbers with Latino voters were growing.

Republicans were dramatically outspent. Republicans shut down their outreach offices in many Hispanic communities. Republicans focused on economic pocketbook issues and not immigration issues. Their successes have been dramatic.

They also were advantaged in ways Democrats were not. Republicans have never had a strong Latino infrastructure. Ironically, the lack of Latino political consultants and pollsters helped because they didn't have to change their strategy to speak to the needs of the fastest-growing segment of Latino voters - English-dominant third and fourth-generation voters. Sometimes having no obstacles and history in your way can be a competitive advantage - no relationships to spoil, titles or contracts to hand out, no upset people who aren't getting an invitation to the White House Christmas Party.

Republicans walked into this starting from scratch after the Obama years. Democrats have built a hierarchy of consultants and activists vested in maintaining the status quo. It is an out-of-touch institution that requires a million oxes to gore to change its approach. But change they must.

It’s time for Democrats to start over. Wipe out the old assumptions, like Kamala Harris did, and adapt a strategy to reach Latino voters where they're at. Ten years is enough to course correct, especially when Latino support has gotten progressively worse in every election.

It’s time for more than just a post-mortem.

It’s time for an autopsy.