Manchin and Sinema Should Just Say No
Identity Politics Isn’t the Only Way to Appeal to Minority Voters
The GOP should realize that blacks and Hispanics like safe neighborhoods and low taxes too.
Readers often ask why blacks vote in such high percentages for the Democratic Party while supporting issues like school choice and crime control that are more closely associated with Republicans. But this phenomenon is hardly limited to blacks.
In California last year, Asian-American voters helped defeat a ballot referendum that would have reinstated racial preferences in college admissions. Yet Asian-Americans in California also voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who vocally supported the ballot measure. The old political joke about Jews, who are nearly as loyal to Democrats as blacks have been, is that they earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans. There is a temptation to accuse people of voting against their rational interests. But who are we to determine what is “rational” for others?
Within these reliably Democratic voting blocs there have always been exceptions, of course. Religious Jews, for example, are more likely to back Republicans. And black men vote Republican at higher rates than black women. Nor are these voting trends unshakable. As recently as the 1960s, Republicans enjoyed significant black support, and in the 1970s and ’80s the GOP performed well among Asians in California. So-called Reagan Democrats, who were mostly white ethnics, left their party and helped power the Gipper to a 49-state victory in 1984.
The simplest explanation for why Republicans don’t win more black voters is that GOP candidates rarely seek them out. Republicans who can be bothered to court this bloc—former mayors like Richard Riordan of Los Angeles and Stephen Goldsmith of Indianapolis, or former governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey—have found that campaigning in black communities can pay dividends. Even if you don’t win the vote outright, you win goodwill and make it more difficult for your opponent to paint you as antiblack, which is how Democrats habitually describe Republicans to draw attention away from liberalism’s policy failures.
When Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland ran for re-election in 2018, he won 28% of the black vote, which was double the amount he’d won four years earlier. This was all the more impressive because his opponent not only was black but also a former head of the NAACP, and Democrats enjoyed a blue wave nationally that year. Mr. Hogan’s gains among blacks didn’t come from making overt racial appeals. Instead, black supporters cited the governor’s push for lower taxes and his decision to send federal troops to Baltimore during the 2015 riots. Apparently, identity politics isn’t the only way to win the votes of blacks, who like safe neighborhoods and low tax rates just like a lot of other Americans.
This history is forgotten or ignored by too many conservative commentators, who maintain that Hispanics are forever lost to the Republican Party. The argument is that Latinos—those already here and, especially, those who are trying to come—are natural Democrats who can be counted on to vote against the GOP until kingdom come. I wouldn’t bet on that. Besides, can a party that has won the popular vote in only one presidential election since the end of the Cold War really afford to write off support from one of the county’s largest and fastest-growing minority groups?
The irony is that recent news about Hispanic voting patterns has Democratic strategists panicking. According to Catalist, a politically progressive election-data firm, Donald Trump’s support among Hispanics increased by 8 points between 2016 and 2020 as Democrats gave priority to the interests of elites over those of the working class. In the California recall election this month, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom held on, but his Hispanic support dipped. President Biden has watched his job-approval rating among Hispanic voters in Texas fall even further than it has among all voters nationally. None of this is consistent with claims that Hispanic voters are demographically destined to pull the lever for Democrats.
I recall conversations with any number of Democratic operatives in the 2000s who openly acknowledged that Hispanic outreach by George W. Bush and his top strategists—Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, Matthew Dowd —had caught them flat-footed. In 2004, exit polls showed that Mr. Bush won at least 40% of the Hispanic vote nationally en route to a second term. In states with large Latino populations, including Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, he won more than 40%. Democrats had forgotten that Hispanics are swing voters, and Republicans reminded them. Incidentally, 2004 was also the last presidential election in which the Republican candidate won the national popular vote. Draw your own conclusions.
Republicans are justifiably outraged at the lawlessness on the border and the Biden administration’s half-hearted efforts to address it. Still, there’s a difference between wanting politicians to enforce immigration laws, and wanting them to seal off the border based on misguided fears that your party has nothing to offer the country’s newest arrivals.
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