Two truths about the Latino vote

Or, really, one very complicated truth

Here’s how I wish Latino partisans on both sides were responding to how Latinos voted:

Democrats: “HO.LY.SHIT! Can you believe what happened? I can’t believe we beat all odds by holding on to the Senate, and maybe even the house. Everyone told us we were supposed to lose. Everyone said we should brace ourselves, but the wave never crashed. Also, we’ll have more than 40 Latinos in the House! Isn’t that some kind of record? (Yes, yes it is) We also slowed the momentum Republicans thought they had among Latino voters, and even reversed the tide in some places. It’s clear that we were an important part of the Democratic coalition. We definitely have some work to do, though. Florida was a disaster, and we can’t abandon it. Republicans also ate into our margins in Georgia, most of Texas outside of the RGV (where a comparatively small number of Latinos live), and in Arizona. And did you see the shift toward Republicans that happened in Los Angeles County? Los Angeles Frickin County? I mean, I’m totally psyched by how we did, but are we sure that this election wasn’t really a referendum on the extremism of the GOP, instead of a positive vote for our agenda? Look at what happened in Maricopa County, Arizona! It seems like we won because 7 or 8 or 9 percent of Republicans in Maricopa crossed party lines to vote for Democrats. Those silly Republicans, shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity. But what happens if or when they dump Trump, and when abortion isn’t on the ballot as it was this year? Will things look differently then? We’ll take the win, but let’s keep learning.”

Republicans: “OUCH! We got our asses handed to us. Weren’t we supposed to run away with this thing? Weren’t Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell telling us it was gonna be a landslide? What will we say and support about abortion? The Supreme Court’s decision was clearly out of step with what most Americans (and Latinos) believe. Can we finally get rid of Trump? Most Americans clearly thought other parts of our platform were too extreme as well; Marjorie Taylor Green is batshit crazy, and we’re not going to let her take over the party. Also, we’ve been saying for two years that our party is becoming the party for non-white working class voters. What happened there? We thought Mayra Flores and Cassy Garcia could win in South Texas. At least Monica de la Cruz won. Phew. And Florida! Did you see what happened there? We need to study what happened in Florida, and figure out how to duplicate our successes there in other states with large Latino populations. It looks like what really happened is that we basically held on to the gains we made across the country in 2020. That might not be true everywhere, but it’s true in a lot of places. Something about what we’re selling is resonating with Latinos. For our own survival, we have to keep investing in them, instead of abandoning them now that the red wave we’ve been talking about failed to materialize.”

Instead, what we’re getting is partisan narratives from both sides.

From Democrats: “BREAKING: Red wave hit a Brown Firewall.” Latinos delivered control of the Senate, and perhaps the House, to Democrats! Latinos saved Democracy! We told you it was absolute nonsense that Latinos are becoming more conservative. “Take the Latino slide bs and shove it.”

From Republicans: “Beware left/media conflation of the still-ongoing Hispanic shift with the red wave that didn't happen.” “Republicans just had their best midterm performance ever with Hispanics … There may not have been a Red Wave, but the data certainly point to an Ola Roja.” “Latinos proved to be an electoral asset for GOP.”

There’s some degree of truth in all of this partisanship. And also, partisans gon’ do what partisans gon’ do. It’s their job. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a more critical take, and see that there’s a fair amount of each side seeing what they want to see, telling half truths instead of whole truths, and cherry picking data that will help Democratic and Republican Party leaders see that they need to keep investing in Latinos.

Let’s take a look at the Democrats’ claim that Latino voters were “Brown Firewall” for the Democratic Party, that they delivered Congress, that they saved Democracy. In particular, let’s look at the difference between causation and correlation. My wife likes to remind me about the c’s of historical thinking. Here’s what our text messages to one another look like; we are, after all, hopeless and severe nerds:

So, she didn’t name correlation as one of the c’s, but it’s certainly associated with causality. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that Latinos were an important part of the Democratic coalition everywhere they voted. I spoke with Carlos Odio of Equis Research on Friday, and he had a great sports analogy about the role that Latinos play in the Democratic coalition. It’s his analogy to share; I don’t want to steal his thunder. But his main point was that Latinos may not be the superstars of the team (this role is played by Black voters, he said), but they are critical teammates.

Without Latinos, Democratic wins wouldn’t be possible. That much is undeniable, but you can also say the same thing about many other groups that voted for Democrats. Without the women who voted to protest the Supreme Court’s abortion decision—which includes many Latinas, of course—Democrats wouldn’t have done as well as they did. Without the young people who voted in larger numbers than many expected—and again, this group of course includes many Latinos—Democrats wouldn’t have done as well as they did. Without the Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for Democrats because the candidates in their party were too extreme—and yet again, this group has to include some number of Latinos—Democrats wouldn’t have done as well as they did.

It therefore seems to me that there were many critical players. And causality, the argument that Latinos and other Brown folks were THE firewall, or that Latinos were THE voters who saved Democracy, is a difficult thing to prove. It seems more accurate to say that Latino voters helped Democrats win, as did every single non-Latino who voted for a Democrat. Why wouldn’t that be enough?

One question I have is what’s at stake for the Latino Democrats who say that they saved Democracy and delivered Congress? I understand why they want to believe that. I also understand why it feels satisfying to dunk on all the Latino Republicans who’ve spent the past couple of years talking about a red wave. I also wonder whether it has to do with positioning over the next two years, and how they’ll convince party donors and leadership that they need to invest in Latino outreach, which was as uneven this year as it was in the past.

You could (and should) ask the same question of Republicans: what’s at stake for them when they say that Republicans maintained and even slightly expanded their support among Latinos? They have the same interest that Democrats do in convincing party donors and leaders to continue to invest in Latino outreach. In many ways, this is a heavier lift for them than it is for Democrats. Even though Democrats haven’t always invested in Latinos, they have a more developed infrastructure for doing so, including the preponderance of advocacy organizations that are registered as non-partisan but are, in fact, left of center if not progressive.

I wrote a little more about how there is no one Latino vote story here, for The New Yorker.

I’ve promised to get on to other subjects. Remember when I said I wanted to write about the World Series, my grandpa, and, above all, Latino history. It’s coming, but this is how I’ve been feeling this week: