There’s a reason that Democrats are nervous about Latinos, and it’s a very good reason. It’s not that they don’t still have a majority of the Latino vote, they do. But the Latino vote remains erratic and unpredictable, the product of people who make up and change their own minds, than a bloc vote.
These Newsom recall numbers have good news for him, but bad news for Democrats watching the Latino vote.
Just 40% of voters said they would cast a ballot to recall Newsom if the election were held today, while nearly 46% said they’d vote to support the governor, according to a poll from Newport Beach-based Probolsky Research.
The picture looks even better for Newsom when looking at responses from likely voters. In that group, less than 35% support the recall and nearly 53% oppose it, with opponents also more likely to be certain about how they’ll vote.
Latinos are by far most likely to support the recall effort, according to Probolsky Research, which polled 900 voters statewide in mid-March. Nearly 45% of Latino voters favor a recall vs. 39% of white voters, 29% of Asian American voters and 19% of Black voters who feel the same.
When it comes to age groups, voters 50 to 64 years old are most likely to support booting the governor, while voters 65 and older, who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus, are least likely to favor the recall.
Newsom has been aggressively reopening the state and so the numbers for him have been improving, but a situation in which the Latino numbers have tilted against him has to be worrisome. Latino demographics helped flip California, but as these numbers show, the Latino vote is starting to look more hostile to the Democrat one-party state than the white vote. Considering how many working-class and middle-class white voters have fled California, that’s not surprising either.
Governor Newsom has been careful to appoint Latino officials, but it’s not enough.
To clarify the Probolsky numbers, a majority of Latinos support Newsom’s recall. As with Cuomo and Northam, black voters are Newsom’s political firewall. But demographics don’t favor that particular firewall and there’s a political car crash coming.
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