A recent Wall Street Journal poll reports that the 2022 U.S. House Democrats—on the watch of Democratic incumbent U.S president Joe Biden—are underperforming in the polls with Hispanic voters.
This report—its link: Biden, Democrats Lose Ground on Key Issues, WSJ Poll Finds—says not only are Democrats underperforming in these polls but are actually losing to the Republicans Hispanics nationwide. (Previously, as noted by Wall Street Journal, the 2022 U.S. House Democrats were leading with Hispanics by +9 percentage points. Which is also not sustainable for the U.S. House Democratic Party with a post-2020 majority of 222 seats, a mere +4 seats above the outright majority 218.)
In 2020, which was a Democratic pickup of the presidency for Joe Biden, who unseated then-Republican incumbent U.S. president Donald Trump, and with that came a Democratic majority pickup for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. House was: Democratic 50.81% vs. Republican 47.69%. The Democrats won by a percentage-points margin of +3.12.
In U.S. presidential elections, the U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. President and U.S. House tend to be at a similar level. In 2020, the Democrats won them by +4.45 and +3.12 percentage points—a margins spread of 1.33 percentage points. In 2004, which was re-election for then-Republican incumbent George W. Bush, the GOP won them by +2.46 and +2.64 percentage points—a spread of 0.18 percentage points. Since 2000, the party which won the U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. House also prevailed for U.S. President. (The last two Republican presidential pickup winners—2000 George W. Bush and 2016 Donald Trump—prevailed without winning the U.S. Popular Vote while their party won for U.S. House.)
I decided to look at past, comparable election cycles. Some information is hard to come by. Exit polls in 2020 focused more on U.S. President. And I wanted to see the 2010 midterm elections exit polls, for U.S. House, but did not find enough information quickly available. (I was getting this set late at night. And 2010 was the such midterm elections cycle with a Democratic U.S. president, specifically Barack Obama, and a Democratic U.S. House which flipped Republican.)
According to CNN’s Exit Polls for the midterm elections of 2018, when the Democrats flipped the U.S. House while Republican Donald Trump was president, Hispanics were 11 percent the size of the vote nationwide. They gave the Democrats 69% to the 29% for the Republicans. So, the Democrats carried Hispanics by +40 percentage points.
The 2018 outcome was: Democratic 53.41% vs. Republican 44.85%. The Democrats won the U.S. Popular Vote, for U.S. House, by a percentage-points margin of +8.56. From that 53.41 percent, Hispanics’s votes accounted for 7.59 percent nationally for the 2018 Democrats.
With that 2018 outcome in mind, the last midterm election cycle prior to this current year 2022, given that historically the White House opposition party is the one which tends to win overall net gains, these kinds of numbers—whether Democrats moderately lead or trail Republicans with Hispanics—are bad news for Team Blue. They more than likely have to receive at least 60 percent of the vote nationally from Hispanics. Meaning, carry them by at least +21 percentage points nationwide. (Part of this depends on the size of the vote nationally cast by Hispanics.) In the end, the 2022 Democrats may manage to carry Hispanics. But, they would probably receive no better than in the mid- to upper-50s percentile range. A roughly 15-point margin. That will not do for Team Blue.
Given that I am not supportive of the Democratic Party, certainly not in its current form, this not only does not bother me; it entertains me.
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