ELECTION RECAP

The results from the election are still not entirely settled, but the dust is beginning to settle and we can begin analyzing the election results and making predictions about what the future holds.

 

The White House

First and foremost, we will have four more years of a pro-immigration President. We knew that before the first vote was cast because both Senator McCain and President-Elect Obama have well-established records and said most of the right things in the campaign.

The specifics of the President-elect's plans on immigration are far from clear, however. While he presumably signed off on the Democratic Party platform call for enacting comprehensive immigration reform within the first year of his Administration, he never referred to a timetable in any of his remarks on immigration.

 

Senate and House Races

In the races in the House and the Senate, Democrats had an evening that in a normal year would be considered excellent, though some of the predictions of massive pickups in both Houses that were predicted did not happen. The Democrats will pick up probably a half dozen seats in the Senate and about 20 seats in the House of Representatives.

 

The Democrats did not reach the magic number of 60 in the Senate that would stop filibusters, but on immigration issues, that number is not necessarily critical. There are a few pro-immigration Republicans and anti-immigration Democrats and it’s not always easy to predict how votes will go. Yes, sixty votes can keep a bill moving, but that sixty will very likely be a combination mostly comprised of Democrats with a few critical Republican votes. The key is that the Democratic Party is clearly the more pro-immigration of the two major parties so the increase in the Democrats’ ranks will make it easier to get immigration legislation passed. Whether the numbers are enough are hard to tell at this point.

 

Ballot measures

 

Immigration was on the ballot in a few states, though the measures were someone modest in comparison to bills that have passed in the last couple of years. Here’s the quick run down:

 

·        Missouri overwhelmingly passed a bill making immigration the state’s official language.

·        Arizona failed to pass a referendum that ratified legislation softening the state’s notoriously tough employer sanctions law.

·        California voters rejected a referendum that would have barred illegally present immigrants from being able to secure bonds in criminal cases.

·        Florida voters failed to support a measure that would have prohibited the state from regulating property ownership by people ineligible for US citizenship (the measure was designed to address a 1926 law allowing Asians to be barred from property ownership)

·        Oregon voters rejected a referendum that would have limited to one to two years the amount of time a student can be taught primarily in a language other than English

 

 

How the immigration issue played around the country

 

The real immigration story in this year’s election was the lack of immigration as an issue in the election. In 2006, candidates could not get enough of promoting themselves as get-tough-on-immigration candidates and we saw commercials touting the border fence, worksite raids, and, of course, no “amnesty”. Immigration had ranked as late as last summer as the number one issue for 12% of the US population and immigration ranked number two on the list of issues of most importance to Americans.

 

In November 2008, most Americans don’t think a lot about the subject anymore. Fewer than 1% consider immigration the most important issue and on the list of most important issues, immigration now ranks 12^th. Some candidates decided to make an issue over immigration in this race, but no one seemed to care. Even a last minute story about the illegal status of President-Elect Obama’s aunt was barely noticed by voters. With the exception of Utah Republican Chris Cannon losing his primary race largely due to his immigration views, there is little evidence that taking an anti-immigration position significantly helped any candidate this year.

 

The one candidate that made immigration a major issue didn’t succeed in the race. Republican Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania who was responsible for one of the nation’s toughest immigration ordinances, narrowly lost to Democratic incumbent Paul Kanjorski.

 

The New Republic’s James Kirchik goes further and claims that the GOP’s anti-immigration positions seriously damaged the party:

 

 

The Latino Vote

The one group that immigration mattered to was the nation's Latino population. And the vote clearly shows a major problem with the Republican brand with Republicans. 68% of Hispanics surveyed indicated they felt that Republicans don't have a favorable view of immigrants, something that clearly hurt the GOP in several key states.

Congress and the President may be influenced to some extent by the fact that the Latino American community had a large role in last night's results. America's Voice crunched the numbers:

• The Latino Vote Surged in Size: The Latino vote comprised at least 8% of the overall electorate, according to exit polling. This works out to approximately 10.5 million voters, given the expected 130 million votes cast. This figure represents a jump of 3 million voters since 2004, when 7.6 million Latinos cast ballots, and is almost double the Latino turnout of 2000.

 

• The Latino Vote Broke Democratic: In 2004, Democratic candidate John Kerry won the Latino vote 56-44% against George W. Bush. Yesterday, Barack Obama won the Latino vote by a 66-32% margin against John McCain, and even won a majority of Latino support in Florida, a former Latino stronghold for the GOP.  Given the increased size of the Latino electorate, this means that 2.9 million more Latino votes went to the Democratic candidate compared to 2004.

 

• Barack Obama Swept the “Latino Battleground” States: Both the Obama and McCain campaigns focused their Spanish-speaking advertising and outreach on four key battleground states – CO, FL, NM, and NV. Within these states, the Latino vote’s rapid growth and break towards Democratic candidates played an important role in Democratic victories.

 

• CO: The Latino vote in CO grew from 8% of the state’s electorate in 2004 to 17% in 2008. Obama gained support of 73% of CO Latinos – key to his 53-46% victory in the state, as well as the Udall Senate victory.
• FL: The Latino vote’s shift towards the Democrats was essential in Obama’s win. FL Latinos broke 56-44% for Bush in 2004 and 57-42% for Obama in 2008.
• NM: Latinos comprised 41% of the NM 2008 electorate – a jump from their 32% in 2004.  Latinos in NM supported Obama 69-30% -- a big jump from 56-44% support for Kerry. NM Latinos’ trend towards Democrats played a huge role in the Presidential race and in handing the open Senate seat and two Congressional races (NM-1 and NM-2) to the Democrats.
• NV: Latinos in NV supported Kerry 60-39% in 2004 and Obama 78-20% in 2008. Latinos in NV also increased from 10% of electorate in ’04 to 16% in 2008, and played a key role in handing the NV-3 Congressional seat to the Democrats. 

 

• John McCain’s Support Among Latinos Was More Dole than Bush: John McCain’s received just 32% of Latinos’ support nationwide – closer to the Republicans’ low-water mark of 21% support received by Bob Dole in 1996 than the high-water mark of 44% received by George W. Bush in 2004.

 

• Voters Broadly Rejected Anti-Immigrant Candidates and Politics: Voters defeated leading anti-immigrant crusaders such as Marilyn Musgrave (CO-4), Thelma Drake (VA-02), Lou Barletta (running for Rep. Kanjorski’s seat in PA-11), and possibly Virgil Goode (VA-5) (race too close to call at press time), and supported candidates with practical and common sense approaches for fixing our nation’s broken immigration system like Dina Titus (taking Rep. Porter’s seat in NV-3), Bill Foster (IL-14), Jim Himes (taking Rep. Shays’ seat in CT-4), Rep. Giffords (AZ-8), and many others.  In the Senate, new pro-reform senators include Mark Warner in VA, Jeanne Shaheen in NH, Mark Udall in CO, Kay Hagan in NC, and Tom Udall in NM.

Latinos around the country can and should demand action on immigration, an issue on which they've been extraordinarily patient.