Florida Clinton’s Coalition: Hispanic Support Appears To Be Up, Black Turnout Down

[loyola llothta]

The FBI may have injected last-minute uncertainty into the presidential race, but with eight days to go, the contours of Hillary Clinton’s coalition are coming into sharper focus. It’s not yet clear whether it will match the breadth of President Obama’s coalition, which was sufficient for a majority in both 2008 and 2012. But even if it doesn’t, it could be sufficient for a plurality.

Clinton’s voters overwhelmingly overlap with Obama’s, but there are important distinctions. Her support among Latinos appears stronger and more intense. On the other hand, African-American enthusiasm has dipped compared with that in 2012 — a surprising and disquieting development for Democrats who believed Trump’s racial appeals and flirtations with the birther movement would generate more urgency.

As polls have shown all year, the education and gender gaps in this race are likely to be wider than any we have seen in modern history. Clinton’s coalition is more dependent on college-educated white voters and less dependent on whites without degrees than Obama’s was in 2008 and 2012. It’s also more dependent on women than men.

But Clinton is also more dependent on high enthusiasm and support among Latino and Asian voters, who appear very motivated to oppose Donald Trump. And she’s less dependent on African-Americans and millennials, who could well support Clinton by the same margins they supported Obama but may not turn out at the same rates as they did in 2008 or 2012. That’s a big concern for Clinton’s team in the home stretch.

The early voting data is beginning to bear these observations out. According to the U.S. Elections Project, a website run by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, more than 22.5 million Americans have already cast ballots. And although early voting data is of limited value when it comes to predicting a winner, clear patterns are emerging: Enthusiasm is up from 2012 among Latinos and liberal whites, and down among African-Americans. (Of course, it’s possible those patterns will change.)

Because many states have altered their early voting periods or procedures since 2012, direct comparisons aren’t always possible. However, we can look at three states where absentee/early voting rules weren’t drastically changed since 2012: Florida, Texas and Virginia.

In Florida, the good news for Clinton is that the two most Latino counties in the state, Miami-Dade and Osceola, are above the state average in their progress toward exceeding 2012 early/vote-by-mail turnout. But the bad news for her is that turnout has lagged behind the state average in all five counties with the highest percentage of African-American voters — a sign the absence of Obama from the ballot is having a negative impact:

IN MOST LATINO COUNTIES IN MOST AFRICAN-AMERICAN COUNTIES
1 Miami-Dade 87.4% Gadsden 61.4%
2 Osceola 84.1 Jefferson 65.0
3 Hendry 76.0 Leon 64.4
4 Orange 79.2 Duval 58.7
5 Broward 78.3 Broward 78.3
Statewide average: 79.4%
Florida votes cast, as of Monday morning, as a share of all early and vote-by-mail votes in 2012
SOURCE: FLORIDA DIVISION OF ELECTIONS

The even worse Florida news for Clinton is that all eight of the counties with the most early/vote-by-mail votes cast so far relative to 2012 totals are heavily Republican. Lee County, a GOP bastion on the southwest Gulf Coast, is already at 125 percent of its 2012 total, and Sumter County, the ruby red home of The Villages, is at 104 percent, signaling increased GOP enthusiasm.

In Texas, which reports only early vote data for the 15 largest counties, the trend lines seem more favorable for Clinton. The counties with the highest Latino shares, Hidalgo, Cameron and El Paso — all located along the Mexico border — are experiencing big surges in participation. After its first week of early voting, El Paso is already at 83 percent of its total 2012 votes cast and 177 percent of where it was at this point in 2012’s early balloting.

There has also been a huge spike in interest in the Austin area: Travis and Williamson counties are at 81 percent and 84 percent of their 2012 totals, respectively. That suggests strong interest levels among white liberals, who are most numerous there. But Texas counties with the highest share of African-American voters tend to lag behind the average:

IN MOST LATINO COUNTIES IN MOST AFRICAN-AMERICAN COUNTIES
1 Hidalgo 82.1% Dallas 71.1
2 Cameron 83.7 Harris 68.8
3 El Paso 91.3 Fort Bend 74.1
4 Nueces 66.8 Tarrant 67.4
5 Bexar 68.9 Galveston 74.7
Statewide average: 73.8%
Texas votes cast, as of Monday morning, as a share of all early votes in 2012
SOURCE: TEXAS SECRETARY OF STATE

In Virginia, the demographic disparities are even greater. Manassas Park, a small jurisdiction with the highest concentration of Latino voters in the state, has also recorded the highest absentee voting surge in the commonwealth: Manassas Park is already at 106 percent of its 2012 absentee total. Prince William County, the much larger surrounding jurisdiction with the third-highest Latino share, is already at 89 percent, well above the state average.

There’s also good news for Clinton in Arlington and Fairfax counties, the state’s largest bastions of liberal whites. They’re at 78 percent and 79 percent of their 2012 totals, respectively, compared to 70 percent statewide. The bad news for Clinton? Petersburg, the state’s most heavily African-American city, is only at 47 percent, and Portsmouth, the second-most African-American city, is at 40 percent — the lowest of all jurisdictions in Virginia.

MOST LATINO LOCALITIES MOST AFRICAN-AMERICAN LOCALITIES
1 Manassas Park 106.4% Petersburg 46.7%
2 Fairfax City 83.5 Portsmouth 40.3
3 Prince William 89.3 Richmond City 57.2
4 Manassas 84.4 Brunswick 55.1
5 Arlington 78.0 Franklin City 43.8

Statewide average: 70.0%

Virginia votes cast, as of Monday morning, as a share of all absentee votes in 2012
SOURCE: VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS

Is there time for these numbers and this narrative to change? Of course, but there’s only a week left. And although higher Latino enthusiasm is a positive sign for Clinton, African-American engagement is a cause for concern. After all, African-Americans make up a much higher share than Latinos in the critical battlegrounds of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and any Trump victory scenario would likely depend on lower black turnout.

Increasingly, this give-and-take looks likely to produce a “Clinton coalition” broader than the one that propelled her husband into office in 1992 (43 percent) but narrower than the one that propelled Obama into office in 2008 (53 percent). Win or lose, it’s a new alignment.

 

[loyola llothta]

Weak early voter turnout among African-Americans hurts Clinton in Florida

Hillary Clinton has a black voter problem in the nation’s biggest battleground state.

After the first full weekend of in-person early voting ended Sunday, African-American turnout failed to meet expectations — or historic precedent — leaving top Democrats and activists fuming or worried that Clinton’s campaign isn’t living up to the hype in Florida.

“They’re not doing enough in the black community. I have been screaming for months about this and nothing changed and now look what’s happening,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, who represents one of South Florida’s largest African-American communities.

Hastings said he told Clinton aide John Podesta on a conference call last week that “you need to plus-up the spending in the African-American community and get out the vote.” Hastings said he was told someone would get back to him. “Nobody did,” he said.

African-Americans traditionally dominate early in-person voting. But they didn’t show in force this weekend. And Hastings said he wasn’t surprised. After Sunday night’s polls closed, black voters accounted for 16 percent of the in-person early vote ballots cast. And that included five previous days of in-person early voting.

But in 2012, in just two days of in-person early voting, blacks cast 25 percent of those early ballots, according to Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who published some of the early voting data on his must-read Election Smith blog.

Due to such strong African-American turnout after the beginning of in-person early voting in 2012, Democrats began outpacing Republicans in total ballots cast before Election Day, by about 10,000. This year, though, Republicans still cling to their own lead of about 9,000. As of Monday morning about 3.7 million absentee and in-person early ballots had been cast, 40.5 percent of them by Republicans and 40.2 percent by Democrats.

“The black vote is way underperforming compared to 2012,” Smith said.

Clinton’s Florida communications director, Mahen Gunaratna, said Clinton has been campaigning in African-American communities throughout the state.

"From visiting historic Overtown [in Miami] to attending Bethune-Cookman University Homecoming and services at New Mount Olive Baptist Church this past weekend, Hillary Clinton has spent time connecting on issues important to the Black community in Florida,” he said in a statement to POLITICO Florida. “Over this last week of the campaign, she will continue sharing her vision of a nation that stronger together with the diverse communities that make up the coalition that will deliver Florida on November 8.”

Both the Clinton and Trump campaigns are blitzing Florida this week. Former President Bill Clinton is making stops today in Immokalee, Florida City and St. Petersburg. Hillary Clinton holds rallies in Dade City, Sanford and Fort Lauderdale. And President Barack Obama is in Miami and Jacksonville on Thursday. Trump will also stop in Jacksonville and Pensacola on Thursday after making Wednesday appearances in Miami and Orlando.

The black vote is not only crucial to Clinton but to any Democrat who wants to win statewide. Though 13 percent of nearly 13 million registered voters in Florida, African-Americans often give Democrats 90 percent of their vote. Although the margins are huge for Democrats, the benefit of the black vote diminishes with low turnout.

Despite their disappointment with African-American turnout, Democrats see reason to hope in the emergence of the Hispanic vote. Hispanics, who account for about 16 percent of the active registered voters, appear to be backing Clinton with at least 60 percent of their vote or more.

Compared to 2012, Hispanic voting is off the charts. As of Monday morning — eight days before Election Day — Hispanics had cast more than 507,000 absentee ballots by mail and in-person early votes. That’s 97 percent of the total combined early ballots that Hispanics cast in the entire 2012 election, according to an analysis from the Associated Industries of Florida, a conservative-leaning business group.

White voters so far have cast 2.6 million early votes eight days out, which is 80 percent of all the early votes they cast in the entire 2012 election. And mixed-race, Asian and other-race voters so far have cast 209,000 ballots, which is 76 percent of their 2012 total.
The lowest-performing group: African Americans. They cast about 421,000 early and absentee ballots as of Monday morning, accounting for 55 percent of the total early ballots that black voters cast in 2012, AIF’s analysis shows.

Excluding public-opinion polls by Republican-leaning groups, Clinton is narrowly winning Florida, according to the averages of the most-recent major public-opinion surveys. Donald Trump needs to carry Florida in order to keep his presidential hopes alive. His path to the White House therefore gets easier if blacks don’t make it to the polls in Florida in big numbers.

Campaigns closely monitor in-person early votes and absentee ballot returns by party. Though the ballots aren’t opened and tallied before Election Day, the numbers are used as a measurement to gauge the health of a campaign because the candidate whose party casts more votes before Election Day usually wins the election.

One big unknown: the 19 percent of independent voters — known as no party affiliation voters in Florida — who have cast ballots so far. About 66 percent of the early NPA voters so far are white and 18 percent Hispanic.

Race and party aside, another problem for Clinton right now might reside with young people. Millennial voters (ages 18-34) generally back Clinton, but they’ve only cast 402,000 ballots so far — 52 percent of their 2012 total, according to AIF. Those over 65 — who are most likely to support Trump — have cast the most ballots so far, 1.6 million. That’s 97 percent of their 2012 total.

Democrats aren’t hiding their concern. They thought they should be ahead in pre-Election Day ballots. And now they’re not. The Clinton campaign admits that one her biggest problems is that she has a tough act to follow: The first black president.

Democrats also hope that the remaining week of early voting — including the Sunday-before-Election-Day “Souls to the Polls” events at black churches — will make the difference.

But for Congressman Hastings, that isn’t enough. He said he’d love to know how much Clinton’s campaign and her allies spent on TV ads in Florida instead of on the ground to motivate black voters. When told by POLITICO that Clinton and her allies have spent and reserved about $57 million in airtime in Florida since her campaign began, Hastings was aghast.

“Jesus Christ. And you can quote me on that,” Hastings said. “Just imagine if they hired someone like Mike, who has a felony record and can’t a job, but for $300 a week, he’ll work for you. And though he can’t vote his mama, and his cousins and everyone he knows will. That makes a difference.”

But Hastings said the campaign just wasn’t hearing it.

That’s no surprise to Leslie Wimes, an African-American activist from South Florida who in September told POLITICO that the Clinton campaign was in “panic mode” over what looked like a lack of enthusiasm by blacks for Clinton. The campaign denied it and Wimes was excoriated on social media by Democrats and liberals for speaking out.

“My reaction is pretty clear: I. Told. You. So,” Wimes said. “All their talk about enthusiasm in the black community was bullshyt. Bullshyt. In September, I said they had time to fix the problem. Now we’re a week away from the election and they can’t fix it. Let’s hope the Hispanic vote bails her out.”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/10/clinton-campaign-struggles-in-getting-african-americans-to-early-voting-polls-

 

[CASHAPP]

It is crazy when you think about it. Trump would have this election completely in the bag if he didnt offend "white women" for the past couple months lol.

One day the Republicans are gonna look at themselves in awe how they had the best chance to steal an election if it was anybody else except for Trump.

 

[Alexander The Great]

Florida democratic party is the worst. if it wasn't for Obama the last 2 pres elections, they would have lost the state. in no way should they have loss the Governorship TWICE to Rick Scott, but they did...because they are terrible at their jobs.

and this election, clearly their arrogance will be their downfall. they assumed Black folks would fall in line like they did for Obama. nope. Hillz ain't popular mane. and she never did enough to engage Black and young voters in the state.

I'm just mad we getting 6 more years of Rubio and the rest of the rethugs in the state house and the conservative judges that keep getting voted in

 

[CASHAPP]

Florida democratic party is the worst. if it wasn't for Obama the last 2 pres elections, they would have lost the state. in no way should they have loss the Governorship TWICE to Rick Scott, but they did...because they are terrible at their jobs.

and this election, clearly their arrogance will be their downfall. they assumed Black folks would fall in line like they did for Obama. nope. Hillz ain't popular mane. and she never did enough to engage Black and young voters in the state.

I'm just mad we getting 6 more years of Rubio and the rest of the rethugs in the state house and the conservative judges that keep getting voted in

Everytime i watched CNN/MSNBC it was so annoying when a pundit would bring up how Hillary has the "Obama Coalition" every 5 mins. The Obama coalition...they were obsessed with using that phrase. Like you said they assumed far too much and even a year before i could have tell that 2016 would have been low turnout. They talk about coalition as if Obama's presidency and the high numbers in 2008 meant automatically every future Democrat running would get those same numbers.

Most of Hillary's Black support especially in Florida , is from Black women. Even the older Black men aint voting for her like that and i bet i can find a couple coli members with relatives in FL who can vouch for that. IF Trump loses FL its only because of lost of support from white women because of the p*ssy tape

It was so pathetic to listen to pundits on TV. Its like we have to remind them that Obama was running on history and he was a once in a lifetime candidate. They base way too much off of 2008 . Imagine how much worse the numbers would be if Trump wasn't running though lol. They take us too much for granted and act like they always got us in the bag. I want to really see them get egg in their face and end up losing(even if its unlikely right now) . If in the rare case that does happen watch them get real desperate and run with someone like Kanye in 2020.

 

[Alexander The Great]

Everytime i watched CNN/MSNBC it was so annoying when a pundit would bring up how Hillary has the "Obama Coalition" every 5 mins. The Obama coalition...they were obsessed with using that phrase. Like you said they assumed far too much and even a year before i could have tell that 2016 would have been low turnout. They talk about coalition as if Obama's presidency and the high numbers in 2008 meant automatically every future Democrat running would get those same numbers.

Most of Hillary's Black support especially in Florida , is from Black women. Even the older Black men aint voting for her like that and i bet i can find a couple coli members with relatives in FL who can vouch for that. IF Trump loses FL its only because of lost of support from white women because of the p*ssy tape

It was so pathetic to listen to pundits on TV. Its like we have to remind them that Obama was running on history and he was a once in a lifetime candidate. They base way too much off of 2008 . Imagine how much worse the numbers would be if Trump wasn't running though lol. They take us too much for granted and act like they always got us in the bag. I want to really see them get egg in their face and end up losing(even if its unlikely right now) . If in the rare case that does happen watch them get real desperate and run with someone like Kanye in 2020.

naw, can't let Repubs have the Presidency, Senate, and the house plus the next pres will appoint anywhere between 1-3 new Supreme Court Justices. last thing we need is trump nominating 3 more Roberts' or scalias