In the wake of the Vice President Biden victory in the South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary, the Democrats appeared posed to make the same miscalculation they did in 2016 with regard to the Hillary Clinton campaign prospects of the minority vote delivering her the Presidency.
In 2016 Democrats generated all kinds of excuses regarding the Clinton loss. Most are fully aware of the Russian hoax advanced by Congressional Democrats but that two year long political disaster was merely masking the reality that Democrats and the media that are aligned with them refuse to face.
Democrats have long depended upon the African-American vote and continue to use this voting block as a significant messaging component regarding elections. In all likelihood Vice President Joe Biden will likely be forced by the establishment to opt for an African American woman to be his running mate. This is of course is being foreshadowed already by the fact that Democratic media has been building the narrative around South Carolina's Jim Clyburn's endorsement.
The notion that Rep, Jim Clyborn's (D-SC-6) endorsement has even been linked to Biden winning the Virginia Democratic Primary. This notion is highly misplaced. Biden had been polling higher in Virginia than the others lone before the endorsement and in fact the development that pushed Biden over 50% in Virginia had more to do with the Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropping out just days before the Super Tuesday and endorsing Biden. Mayor Pete had been projected to take about a dozen delegates in Virginia before his withdrawal from the race who never polled highly with minorities. In fact, the support for Biden by minorities in Virginia was already baked into the polling for Biden weeks before Super Tuesday.
While the Democrats have been in a bitter primary race, Donald Trump has been growing and expanding his support especially with minorities. In 2016 Trump earned 8% of the African American vote which was greater than both John McCain and Mitt Romney Presidential runs. Trump has been reaching out for the minority vote over the last year and the reports and polling being advanced by the leftist media simply does not represent the reality on the ground. Recent rallies by the Trump campaign have witnessed growing number of minorities at a time when Politico has reported under performing with black voters.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/24/blackpac-poll-democrats-117243
The fact is the current metrics demonstrated that Trump is poised to double his 2016 percentage of support from minorities. Hillary Clinton while winning the overall minority vote percentage wise did not see the same number come to the polls as President Obama did in 2008 or 2012. There is no reason to expect that blacks will return to the polls in 2020 at the levels of 2008 or 2012 either and frankly very well may come in less than 2016.
The biggest issue facing the Democrats and one they are not even addressing with their campaign narratives is while they keep targeting a declining black voter block they are largely ignoring the growing Hispanic block. The Hispanic voter turnout has increased by one percent each and every election cycle since 2000. The block has increased three percent turnout since President Bush won in 2004. In 2016 the overall Hispanic turnout was 11% versus the black voter blocks 12%. The black voting block has been greater than the Hispanic one in every election since 2000 however this appears likely to change in 2020.
The Hispanic vote in 2020 will surpass that of the African-American voting block for the first time in American political history.
The Democrats are not even addressing this trend at all during their primary. In Texas on Super Tuesday some of these trends are revealed in truth that demonstrate some real division in the Democrat camp. 3 out of 5 black voters in Texas supported Biden while only 2 out 5 Hispanics supported Sanders which aided him in his victory by offsetting Sanders Hispanic support in the state. Biden won overwhelmingly in the older demographic while Sanders won the significant younger voting block. Biden only defeated Sanders by about three percent overall based largely on the black vote which represents just a fifth of the voting turnout in Texas. There has been very little outreach y Biden campaign as of yet in truth to Hispanics while the Trump campaign in Texas has been working for months on building a ground game there.
Trump earned 1.8 million votes in his primary which eclipsed the top six Democrats combined in the Democratic Primary and a large number of his supporters came from the growing Hispanic voting block in the Texas.
Consider some historic metrics over the past twenty years.
2000 the overall black vote was 10% of voter turnout while Hispanic was 7%
2004 the overall black vote was 11% of voter turnout while Hispanic was 8%
2008 the overall black vote was 13% of the voter turnout while Hispanic was 9%
2012 the overall black vote was 13% of the voter turnout while Hispanic was 10%
2016 the overall black vote declined to 12% while the Hispanic vote rose to 11%
I predict the black voter turnout in 2020 to decline to 11% overall whereas the Hispanic vote to continue its upward trend to 12%. The Hispanic block has also witnessed the larger new voter registration efforts ever undertaken by Republican campaigns before with dedicated programs in large Hispanic areas of the country.
The Trump campaign is also opening many targeted offices for the purposes of attracting more of the black vote than ever before for a Republican. Trump has delivered record employment for both voting blocks as well as major criminal justice reform. The community opportunity zones being implemented have been supported by many black leaders as well.
It is not inconceivable to see Trump earn somewhere between 13-15% of the overall black vote and raise his performance with the Hispanic vote to 35-38% from earning 28% in 2016 based on the current polling and approval ratings of the President.
Much of course will depend on whether Democrats nominate Vice President Biden or Bernie Sanders but it cannot be overstated that the fluidity in places like Texas and Florida is real. In 2004 President Bush earned 13% of the black vote and in Texas 16%. Bush also earned 14% of the black vote in North Carolina. If Trump secures that rate of support he will handily win all three of those states in 2020.
So for the Democrats to overly concentrate on and keep extending the narrative post Super Tuesday regarding the "black vote" it will once again be a total miscalculation by the Democrat National Committee which thus far has proved they are way behind the Trump campaign in 2020 in terms of activism and engagement.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research:
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016
No comments:
Post a Comment