Scott Horsley’s npr.org post “Democrats Hope For A Bright Future In The Lone Star State” sheds light on Latino voter turnout: “According to the census figures, turnout among Latinos who were eligible to vote last year was just 48 percent, 14 points lower than the turnout for non-Hispanic whites. Latino turnout was considerably higher in swing states, though. These numbers aren’t as precise, because of smaller sample sizes, but the trend is clear: 52 percent of Latinos turned out to vote in Colorado, 62 percent in Florida and 67 percent in Virginia — all states where the Obama campaign invested heavily in Latino mobilization and won by narrow margins.” Horsley quotes TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira: “I think it tells you you get what you pay for…We know there’s this sleeping giant of the Hispanic electorate. So if you don’t do anything, or you just do the average amount, you’ll get your average turnout…But there’s a potential there to put more effort, more mobilization, more money, more time, into getting the Hispanic voters to the polls, and it should produce an increment in their vote.”
Of course, demographic trends would never deter Republicans from exercising their singular genius for seizing every opportunity to alienate Latino voters, as demonstrated by this latest example.
A statistic from a new Pew Research Center poll that should give Dems real hope for a 2014 upset: “…Just 22 percent approve of the job performance of GOP leaders in Congress.”
Dan Balz and Todd Mellnick report at the Washington Post that “In terms of participation rates, the Census survey said that 66 percent of eligible black voters turned out last November, compared to 64 percent of eligible white voters. In the course of three presidential elections, from 2004 to 2012, black participation has gone from seven points lower than white participation to two points higher.” However Balz and Mellnick also add that “The Census report notes that 2012 was marked by “large decreases in youth voting rates for all race groups and Hispanics.” Voting rates dropped by about 7 percentage points among both whites and blacks ages 18 to 24, and by almost 5 points among young Hispanics.”
NBC Senior Political Editor Mark Murray reports at NBC First Read that, according to a “new NBC News/Marist poll, 55 percent of Virginia residents say they want stricter laws governing the sale of firearms, versus 36 percent who want them left the same.”
Underdog Democrat Terry McAuliffe gains on VA A.G. Ken Cuccinelli in race for Governor, which is now a stat tie in new NBC/Marist poll.
Sarah Kliff has an interesting Wonkblog post, “Democrats say there’s a reason they’re not selling Obamacare yet,” noting, “I’ve put this question to top administration officials and advocates, and the answer tends to be this: If we start selling Obamacare now, we’re going to be raving about a product that doesn’t yet exist. That would, in turn, undermine the sales pitch they want to make in October, when enrollment in the new health plans opens…Both Enroll America and the Obama administration have discussed early summer, around June or so, as the point at which they’ll start ramping up their outreach campaigns. That’s when they believe they can start talking about health benefits that will become accessible a few months down the road…So, as Republican take more shots at the health care law, the Obama administration’s relative silence is part of a larger plan.”
Yet more evidence that progressives have a powerful weapon in consumer boycotts against wingnut media advertisers.
There may be more detail than you want to know about in Thomas B. Edsall’s NYT Opinionator post,”In Data We Trust” about Karl Rove’s ploy to be the GOP’s information technology czar. But this is required reading for Dem oppo researchers and data managers.
The Nation’s John Nichols explains why Mark Sanford’s win in SC-1 was pretty much a lock once he got the GOP nomination: “In 2012, the Democratic nominee took just 29 percent of the vote. Colbert Busch took 46 percent. So, in what was probably a best-of-all-worlds scenario for the Democrats, their candidate raised the party’s percentage of the vote by almost sixteen points. But she needed a swing of more than twenty-one points…What happened in South Carolina will keep happening there and in the vast majority of American congressional districts for so long as those districts are drawn to advantage one party or the others.”