From Mr. “Emerging Democratic Majority” Himself — Hispanics Leaving the Party!

Democratic political scientist Ruy Teixeira co-authored in 2002 The Emerging Democratic Majority . The book, as Teixeira himself noted, has proven to be “the most influential Democratic theory .   .   . for building their coalition.” With a conservative white population in demographic decline, the liberal nonwhite population will keep growing, delivering an ever-larger Democratic majority.  

Barack Obama fully embraced Teixeira’s “emerging nonwhite majority.” When the Obama administration’s progress stalled after Republicans captured the House in 2010, Obama more forcefully supported Teixeira’s coalition. He used black teenager Trayvon Martin’s death to inject racism into the national dialog; to up nonwhite support for his 2012 re-election.

Following a white police officer's 2014 acquittal for killing black Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Obama continued employing racism to re-enforce his coalition. Then months later, when Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president, Trump did his part to boost the Democrats’ coalition. He attacked Hispanics, saying, “When Mexico sends its people, [t]hey’re sending people that have lots of problems.    .    . They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.”
 
Nearly seven years on, a big shock. Teixeira himself has written an article arguing that many Hispanics of the nonwhite coalition’s largest and fastest growing segment are leaving Democrats behind. One cannot overstate the importance of Teixeira’s article on Hispanic flight. This is the Democratic coalition’s co-creator trumpeting its decline!

Teixeira has facts to back the Hispanic shift :

1. A Wall Street Journal poll found Hispanic voters split evenly between Democrats and Republicans on the 2022 Congressional ballot. And a 2024 hypothetical rematch between Trump and Biden showed these voters favoring Biden by only a single point.

2. In that poll, Biden’s approval rating among Hispanics was minus 12 (42% approval/54% disapproval). Hispanics favored Congressional Republicans over Democrats on both containing inflation and securing the border. On the economy, just 25% believe it’s headed in the right direction, compared to 63% who saw it going the wrong way.

3. A Democrat-leaning poll aggregation showed that, while Biden has lost support among all racial groups in the last 9 months, the decline is sharpest among Hispanics.

4. In Texas, a September Dallas Morning News poll showed Biden's approval among Texas Hispanics at only 35% (with 54% disapproval), 19 points underwater. His approval rating on handling immigration at the border was worse--29 points underwater, in line with other recent polls.

5. In the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, Democrat Terry McAuliffe actually lost the Latino vote while losing ground among black and Asian voters.

6. In the 2020 election, Hispanics, after four years of Trump, gave him more support than in 2016  — a 16 point margin shift toward Trump. Mexicans registered a 12 point shift as Puerto Ricans moved toward Trump by 18 points.

7. Hispanic movement toward Trump went from Florida (28 points) and Texas (18 points) to Wisconsin (20 points), Nevada (18 points), Pennsylvania (12 points), Arizona (10 points) and Georgia (8 points).

8. Pew found Biden did especially poorly among noncollege Hispanics. They gave Trump 41% support in 2020. The New York Times' detailed precinct-level analysis of the 2020 vote also showed the working class Hispanic vote shift, especially important because around 80% of Hispanic voters are working class.

9. In New York City, analysis by Matthew Thomas showed:

precincts where at least 50% of residents are Hispanic swung toward Trump by 18 points, with a quarter of voters now backing him for reelection. The shift was even more pronounced in precincts where at least 75% of residents are Hispanic, which [swung] 25 points toward Trump. [Of] all ethnic enclaves in Queens, Hispanic areas showed the largest movement away from Democrats.

Teixeira believes Democrats erred by lumping Hispanics in with “people of color” and assuming they embraced 2020’s racial activism. The Hispanic population is a working class, economically progressive, socially moderate constituency that cares above all about jobs, the economy and health care. The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group (VSG) panel survey found no other issue came close, though crime rated higher than immigration or racial equality,

Latinos showed little sympathy for more radical Black Lives Matter demands. Hispanics by 2:1 or more opposed defunding the police, decreasing the size and scope of police forces, or awarding reparations to slave descendants.

Hispanics embrace upward mobility. They see themselves as able to benefit from opportunity, with three-fifths of Latinos believing life will be better for the next generation.

And Hispanics are patriotic. By well over 3:1, Hispanics would rather be citizens of the United States than of any other country. By 35 points, they like how American democracy works.

Why does liberal Democrat Teixeira present such a compelling, fact-filled picture of his “emerging Democratic majority’s” possible break-up? He of course wants his party to pay more attention to Hispanics. Yet the facts are there. Thanks in part to Hispanics’ true aspirations, Republicans may split the Obama nonwhite-white progressive-unmarried women-youth coalition that the Woke dreamed would ensure permanent rule.