What targeted polls and subsamples tell us about the Latino and Asian votes ~ The Scorecard

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

What targeted polls and subsamples tell us about the Latino and Asian votes

As will be repeated here at least once a week, if not more, demographics will be destiny in the presidential race. Donald Trump either gets to Reagan’s 1984 number among whites, he improves on Romney’s performance with minorities, the electorate (shockingly) becomes more white, or he loses. No matter what the polling says it will take seismic shifts in previous electoral patterns for Trump to win.

Today we are looking at polling conducted within specific minority sub-groups and interesting patterns that emerge. Three such polls have come out since Trump’s nomination was assured, one among Asians Americans http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-asian-american-223502 and two among Latinos http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2016/05/20/latinos-favor-clinton-over-trump-by-3-point-margin-fox-news-latino-poll-finds/ and http://latinousa.org/2016/05/19/latest-fiu-online-national-poll/

These polls paint a picture of both groups still widely disdaining Trump. Trump is less well liked and on pace to do worse than Romney. Engagement by both groups does not seem to be down which pours a little cold water on the whiter overall electorate theory. These specific polls also show Trump doing worse with these groups that indicated in national polls that include subsamples of these groups. Trump gets near the Romney number with Hispanics in subsamples, but he does consistently worse in the two polls of Hispanics. This is important because inaccurate polling of Hispanics has been one of the prime reasons for general election polling failures. Polls had Harry Reid losing his Nevada Senate seat in 2010, for example, but he ended up winning fairly easily due almost entirely to the Hispanic vote. Polls had Colorado looking much closer in the 2012 presidential race than it turned out to be, again because of the Hispanic vote.

This trend is not automatic. It would be unwise to assume that Trump will undoubtedly struggle to attract these voters but it is also important to remember how steep the hill is for him.

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The Scorecard

The Scorecard is a political strategy and analysis blog. Our hope is to provide information and insight that can be found nowhere else into how and why things are happening in American politics. Unlike many political pundits, we will tell you who we think is going to win as an election approaches; we will tell you why; and we will give you a sense of our level of confidence. Ours is a holistic approach, one that takes in as many numbers as possible but is also willing to look past the numbers if need be. When we turn out to have been wrong, we will let you know. When we are right, we’ll let you know that too.

The Scorecard

Wednesday, May 25, 2016