Romney-voting native languages

[Sol]

Question: What languages's native speakers do you think voted for Romney?

Vietnamese is the only one that springs to mind. English is probably very close.

Maybe McCain won Inuktitut, but definitely not Romney. Any others? Also, any Ideas on the most Obama languages? Ojibwe?

[Kitteh]

Hmong, perhaps?

[Sol]

Hmong, perhaps?

I want to say the Hmong vote more Democratic- Let me burrow into St. Paul election results....

[Sol]

It actually like the Hmong vote Democrat- they had a state senator in MN who was D, and this poll:
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/11/survey-hmong-voters-shows-strong-democratic-support-shifting-demographics

shows that they supported Obama the first time around (I can't vouch for its accuracy though.

Also, precinct data seems to bear this out- the precincts in St. Paul all voted D in 2008. I believe the Hmong in Merced vote similarly.

[Brittain33]

Russian, Yiddish

[bedstuy]

Persian?

[Franknburger]

I' d say German. Most of the native German speakers with US citizenship should have come as spouses of US soldiers that were stationed in Germany. From 1946 until around 1955 (would need to look up US immigration statistics to find the exact year), Germans were the largest immigrant group into the USA (200-300k annually), and numbers were still substantial (> 100k per year) until the mid 1960s. So we are primarily talking here about women born between 1925 and 1942, i.e. in the over 70 age group, from families with army background. I have hardly any doubt about how they voted in 2012 (though I think in 2008 they might have leaned Obama for concern about the US' international reputation, Obama's Berlin speech, and hoping for troop withdrawal from Iraq).

[Sbane]

Persian?

Maybe the Jewish ones in Beverly Hills. I don't think Persians as a whole will vote Republican.

[Orser67]

http://aaldef.org/press-releases/press-release/new-findings-asian-american-vote-in-2012-varied-widely-by-ethnic-group-and-geographic-location.html

This says that among the Asian-Americans they polled, only the Vietnamese-Americans favored Romney. People from Bangladesh were the most heavily Democratic. Granted they only looked at ethnicity and not native speakers.

For Republicans, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Cubans.

[Sol]

http://aaldef.org/press-releases/press-release/new-findings-asian-american-vote-in-2012-varied-widely-by-ethnic-group-and-geographic-location.html

This says that among the Asian-Americans they polled, only the Vietnamese-Americans favored Romney. People from Bangladesh were the most heavily Democratic. Granted they only looked at ethnicity and not native speakers.

For Republicans, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Cubans.

Spanish-Speakers voted pretty heavily Obama.

[TJ in Oregon]

I' d say German. Most of the native German speakers with US citizenship should have come as spouses of US soldiers that were stationed in Germany. From 1946 until around 1955 (would need to look up US immigration statistics to find the exact year), Germans were the largest immigrant group into the USA (200-300k annually), and numbers were still substantial (> 100k per year) until the mid 1960s. So we are primarily talking here about women born between 1925 and 1942, i.e. in the over 70 age group, from families with army background. I have hardly any doubt about how they voted in 2012 (though I think in 2008 they might have leaned Obama for concern about the US' international reputation, Obama's Berlin speech, and hoping for troop withdrawal from Iraq).

For German, we would also have the Amish, who are overwhelmingly Romney voters if they do vote at all.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

German speakers voted Romney for another reason, most German language strength in the US was in rather isolated enclaves like the Pennsylvania Dutch, that area in central Texas and some counties throughout the Midwest. And all these areas are quite Republican. The olds left who are still German speakers clearly voted Romney and also for McCain.



Interestingly my home county is in a darker shade there but I never met any German speakers growing up probably because they are basically all olds. Actually come to think of it my grandmother claims to be bilingual though I doubt she was exactly fluent in German and of course today would be quite rusty.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also another language that clearly voted Romney would be Tongan, since most Tongan speakers in the US are Mormons.

And I don't even know why Hmong was even mentioned, they are quite strongly Democratic.

[Sol]

Also another language that clearly voted Romney would be Tongan, since most Tongan speakers in the US are Mormons.

And I don't even know why Hmong was even mentioned, they are quite strongly Democratic.

Hmong would make sense though- they were refugees from communism, after all.

Tongans is pretty hard to say. Zioneer might know though.

[nclib]

Perhaps an indigenous language spoken in Oklahoma?

[Sol]

Idea- Dutch?

[Franknburger]

Wikipedia has a list of localities with the highest share of Germany-born residents. Note that resident does not necessarily mean citizen (especially in the several Florida resorts on the list, you may find quite a number of German sunbirds), nor German native language. Nevertheless, anybody with a better overview on local voting patterns than myself can use the list as a starting point for checking out the "native German" vote.

Among the top locations are:
- Pemberton Heights (5.0%) / Cedar Glen Lakes (4.5%), plus a couple of other townships close to Lakehurst, NJ
- Kempner (4.8%)/ Copperas Cove (2.7%) / Killeen (2.3%), TX
- Alamogordo (4.3%) / Boles Acres (3.2%) / White Sands (2.2%), NM
- Wakefield (4.1%) / Grandview Plaza (3.0%) / Fort Riley North (2.7%)/ Milford (2.6%)/ Junction City (2.3%), KS
- Quantico, VA (4.0%)
- Vine Grove (3.4%) / Radcliff (2.8%), KY
- Security-Widefield (3.0%) / Fountain (2.4%), CO
- Level Plains (2.2%) / Daleville (2.1%), AL

[H. Ross Peron]

Russian perhaps?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Russian and Ukrainian, I'd suspect. Obama definitely won the other people of Eastern European first languages, though (would he have lost OH if not for Croats/Poles/Serbs/Lithuanians?).

[Vosem]

Rooskee!

[jimrtex]

Wikipedia has a list of localities with the highest share of Germany-born residents. Note that resident does not necessarily mean citizen (especially in the several Florida resorts on the list, you may find quite a number of German sunbirds), nor German native language. Nevertheless, anybody with a better overview on local voting patterns than myself can use the list as a starting point for checking out the "native German" vote.

Among the top locations are:

- Pemberton Heights (5.0%) / Cedar Glen Lakes (4.5%), plus a couple of other townships close to Lakehurst, NJ

Fort Dix

- Kempner (4.8%)/ Copperas Cove (2.7%) / Killeen (2.3%), TX

Fort Hood

- Alamogordo (4.3%) / Boles Acres (3.2%) / White Sands (2.2%), NM

White Sands

- Wakefield (4.1%) / Grandview Plaza (3.0%) / Fort Riley North (2.7%)/ Milford (2.6%)/ Junction City (2.3%), KS

Fort Riley

- Quantico, VA (4.0%)

Marine Corps Base Quantico

- Vine Grove (3.4%) / Radcliff (2.8%), KY

Fort Knox

- Security-Widefield (3.0%) / Fountain (2.4%), CO

Fort Carson

- Level Plains (2.2%) / Daleville (2.1%), AL

Fort Rucker

These might be children of military personnel.  A lot more wives accompany their soldier husband to Germany, than Korea, Iraq, or Afghanistan.   The children would be Germany-born but not German natives.   There might also be some native German women who met a military husband while he was stationed in Germany.  And it is conceivable that some are German military doing training in the US.

[ag]

Russian and Ukrainian, I'd suspect. Obama definitely won the other people of Eastern European first languages, though (would he have lost OH if not for Croats/Poles/Serbs/Lithuanians?).

Why Ukrainian? Well, I guess, a few of those are Baptists.

Most Soviet Jews from Ukraine would not consider Ukrainian their native tongue.

[morgieb]

English? Though I suppose blacks would've hurt that.