California Special Election Analysis

[Sam Spade]

I also said 73 would pass because of the stronger Hispanic support for that initiative.  I was right about how they voted.

What killed 73 was the weak support from rural and more conservative areas of California, which I didn't expect.  What caused that, I have no idea.

I have not even started to look at an in-depth county analysis of 74-77, though I would point out the Michael Barone article that I posted in US General Discussion, which is sort of a beginning at that.

[Sam Spade]

Sam,

Support was weak in the rural areas largely because support for having the election was weak.  The Governor was not able to cinvince people the election was important, and so people decided they didn't want to have one in the first place and voted no on every initiative, liberal or conservative, as a sort of protest.  That's my take.

That's a fair enough argument.  I was really just curious.

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Perhaps.  It depends on how the Hispanics in California turn out to be once they've been in the country 2nd and 3rd generation, which is actually hard to predict in different areas of the world.

FYI, New Mexico would be much more like Texas if the ski resort areas and Santa Fe didn't exist (Austin is made unimportant by the size of Texas) as both states' Hispanic population is very similar.

[Sam Spade]

Its not that their voting is more complicated.  A lot of it is that in Texas, while hispanics are more Democratic than the state at large, the Texas GOP is more immigrant friendly (No prop 187).

I cannot emphasize how important this little factoid is and how big it has played in the divergence of voting trends in Texas and California in the last 10-20 years.