Trump won the highest share of non-white electorate vote of any Republican in 60 years, while moderate Democrats lost support and seats. Despite Joe Biden’s expected narrow win, Democrats face a disconcerting problem from declining minority and Latino support that can only be regained through the proven-effective economic populism of the likes of Bernie Sanders. According to the Edison Research exit poll, Trump garnered 32% of the Latino vote, 31% of the Asian vote, and 12% of the Black vote. While pundits may blame stereotypical voting motivators like “machismo,” or conservative social policies, they’re not rooted in reality. Polling consistently shows that Latinos’ primary voting concerns are jobs and the economy. This downward trending support for Democrats points to a lack of attention to Latino voting concerns from the Biden campaign and a corporatist Democratic platform that doesn’t resonate with working-class people of all backgrounds. Biden ran a sufficient, but mostly opposition-campaign that ignored Latino voters—the largest nonwhite voting block (32 million) according to political insiders. As voters of color grow as a share of the electorate, the Democratic party must address their economic policy concerns through effective outreach, while fighting fake news. When Latinos list the economy and jobs as their primary issues, maybe it’s time to consider economic populism like Bernie (who fared better than Biden among them) did.
According to the exit poll, Trump just won the highest share of non-white support of any Republican in 60 years. He did better with every gender and race except white men (5 point decline.) He gained 2% with white women, 4% with black men, 4% with black women, 3% with Latino men, and 3% with Latino women, and 5% with ‘other.’ Although exit polls are not empirical fact, these voting estimates fall in line with 2016 results. AP VoteCast calculates that Trump won 8% of the Black vote (a 2 percentage-point gain on his 2016 numbers.)
While this harrowing support came as a shock to many on Tuesday, as birther-in-chief Trump has repeatedly attacked minorities with hateful racist actions and sided with white supremacists, 29% of Hispanics have identified as Republican for the last two decades. If we’re to ever finally flip states like Texas with sizable and rapidly growing Hispanic voting blocs, it’s crucial that we actually court their vote with economic policy substance and messaging. While also fighting fake news that endlessly pushed lies like Biden calling African-Americans “super-predators” to that demographic. This year also saw an increase in Spanish-language social media disinformation aimed at Democrats.
Latinos for Trump
Latinos support for Trump isn’t surprising but the causes (messaging and faux populism) must be examined if we’re to ever flip states like Texas. Florida Hispanics’ 47% Trump support seems like a lost-cause, but when 40% of Hispanics in Texas vote for the man who directly characterized their immigrant population as rapists and drug traffickers who “bring crime,” it points to a Democratic failure that must be addressed. This 40% figure is higher than the 32% national Hispanic support Trump won.
Democrats Lack Economic Policies and Outreach
Democrats have complacently resigned to the myth that Latinos are all Democratic — and have continued losing support through a lack of economic populism and outreach by moving to the corporatist right. All while Biden ignored Latino voters in the 2020 presidential election. They’ve abandoned their New Deal-style platform that gave birth to the middle-class. The solution is returning to a working-class party — for the working class. Bernie Sanders’ primary success among Latinos has proven that populism works — talking jobs, the economy, and addressing working-class needs works.
Joe Biden won the primary in-spite of his efforts to gain Latino voters. Over 20 Latino political insiders said they saw zero plan from Biden to gain Hispanic voters and there’s little evidence the campaign is devoting resources to mobilize the Latino vote.“I do not think that the Biden campaign thinks that Latinos are part of their path to victory,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, the former digital organizing director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “If you don’t think Latinos are part of your path to victory, then you do what they’re doing.” “Right now I can’t tell what their strategy is with the Latino community. I just don’t see it,” said one Latino lawmaker who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
Moreover, centrism is to blame for declining minority support. The only seats that Democrats lost this election were centrists. No progressives lost their seats. And sticking to centrist, corporatist politics would deliver catastrophic losses in 2022 for Democrats.
So while a bloc of Latinos has always voted conservative — 37% in 1984, 27% in 2012 — their conservatism is not fueled primarily by social issues but by economic messaging. Turning states like Texas blue can be done, Beto O’Rourke only lost by a narrow two points of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Democrats just need a policy platform shift towards progressive economic policies and a serious turnaround in messaging.
Latinos’ Political Philosophy
Ignoring the policy concerns of 18% of the U.S. population and 32 million voters is a sound way to guarantee even more congressional losses in 2022. Latinos’ primary voting concern is not immigration or elusive “unity,” but rather, jobs and the economy — it ranks first at 23% in a Unidos US Electorate Survey. There can be no equality or unity without economic justice — it’s what directly affects the livelihoods of hard-working families. Democrats have abandoned this messaging in favor of the oligarchy’s corporate interests and obfuscated that with platitudes.
Latinos also ranked healthcare as a primary issue — concerned that it’s too expensive and unaffordable. These two policy concerns they cited that the ideal candidate would address hold up nationally, in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, and Texas — all heavily populated Latino states. Nationally and in these states they also cited student loans and college cost concerns, social security cuts, and housing affordability in addition to concerns over Trump’s treatment of immigrants.
A democratic platform that cares about Latinos — the largest voting bloc — supports free college, Medicare for All, and economic justice in general. Democrats don’t push for the (faux) populism that Trump did in 2016.
Bernie Sanders’ Economic Populism Wins Among Latinos
Economic populism is the reason Bernie Sanders fared much better among Latinos than Biden. got less minority support than Hillary who had less than Obama. The reason Trump did better with people of color is that he improved support through simple economics and jobs class language. While Democrats focused on a pure opposition campaign that lacks class language.
Bernie Sanders won landslide levels of Latino support — 53% in Nevada — three times as much as Joe Biden who got 17%. He also won 49% in California, compared to Biden’s 19%. This is because he hired Latino activists that actually knew how to deliver economic justice message through outreach like Belén Sisa, his Latino Press Secretary.
Bernie Sanders actually offered substantive solutions to Latinos instead of just offering platitudes about unity and brushing the entire voting bloc’s concerns as being about immigration alone.
National Progressive Policy Support
It’s no surprise then that Sanders was voted the most popular politician in America per a Fox News poll. There’s a reason he has a higher approval rating than any Democrat or Republican on the hill. It’s not just his unwavering morals, pseudonym as the “Amendment King,” or corporate-interest free record. It’s an obfuscated fact that the majority of the country supports progressive policies and the majority of the electorate identifies as independents.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social Security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58% support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.
The Democratic party once cared about these working-class issues — John F. Kennedy once advocated for Medicare For All and Eisenhower’s top tax bracket was 90% when the middle-class was booming.
Bernie didn’t patronize Latinos with empty platitudes, or Despacito, or by sprinkling Spanish words here and there. He listened to the concerns that after working-class people and offered substantive solutions centered around free education, universal healthcare, higher wages, and more.
Neo-liberalism lost in 2016 after years of democratic establishment politics failed to deliver hope and change. Working-class whites who previously voted for Obama were fed up with establishment politics and an unresponsive plutocracy so they voted for the only general election candidate who wasn’t bought by Wall Street and promised to remedy working-class struggles. Who else had a populist, working-class message and wasn’t lying about it? Sanders who made economic inequality the platform of his campaign would have obliterated Trump. But he won, and the country lost thanks to democrat hubris.
Left-wing policies are where the numbers are at. Hillary failed to draw Obama voters and experienced the downfalls of low-voter turnout that come with a centrist, establishment, purely opposition campaign. She won 55% of the vote compared to Obama’s 69% in 2012, seeing a decrease in support from black, Latino, young voters, and non-college whites. She lost the rust-belt Bernie had won the primary in, lost the millennial vote Bernie gained more votes. Both Trump and her combined, and garnered only 28% of the non-college white vote that Obama had previously won 40% of in 2012.
To avoid even more major losses, Democrats must turn to progressive policies supported by the majority of Americans instead of platitudes and pandering.
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