NYT/Siena: With Weakness Among Hispanic Voters, Biden Trails in Texas

[Awsi Dooger]

32. Big picture generalities overwhelm specifics

Hispanics always tilt toward the presidential incumbent. Issues mean very little. I posted years ago that if Trump were re-elected in 2020 it would be due to increased Hispanic support, because of that incumbency aspect.

Again:

Clinton 61% Hispanic support 1992, 73% 1996
Bush 35% 2000, 44% 2004
Obama 67% 2008, 71% 2012

Note that Obama's national margin virtually was cut in half from 2008 to 2012, yet it rose among Hispanics. That's how powerful this trend is.

Somehow Democratic operations totally whiffed the historical big picture, and assumed there was no chance Hispanics would drift toward Trump. Therefore they took the demographic totally for granted until September of this year. In fact, we didn't allow Beto to speak at the convention and had almost no Hispanic input at the convention. Contrast to the GOP, which featured a Cuban businessman from Miami on stage the first night of its convention, ranting against socialism.

Now we're bringing in Bloomberg and others while desperately patching in the final two months. That can only rescue partially.

As I posted a few days ago, just because we had lots of margin for error given Trump's low approval rating, doesn't mean errors were not being made. It is laughable to look at these guys' titles as paid campaign professionals and somehow assign all knowledge and competence.