New Jersey...

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

...told you that Obama had a ceiling here.  If Obama won the nat'l vote by another 5 pts I'd be surprised to see NJ budge more than .5%. 

I'm surprised by how much Obama kicked ass in SJ.  Especially Cumberland and Burlington. 

And what happened in Somerset?  DOLE won here. 

[Stranger in a strange land]

Jersey's polarized. Obama won New Hampshire by a narrower margin, yet won all counties.

[Lunar]

...told you that Obama had a ceiling here.  If Obama won the nat'l vote by another 5 pts I'd be surprised to see NJ budge more than .5%. 

I'm surprised by how much Obama kicked ass in SJ.  Especially Cumberland and Burlington. 

And what happened in Somerset?  DOLE won here. 

If it matters to the analysis, South Jersey saw endless streams of tens of millions of dollars of ads from both candidates.

[ucscgaldamez]

I don't know what exactly happened...all I know is that I got my sister to go vote. She lives in Bound Brook, NJ. She's a religious conservative and voted for Obama. Her issue: Immigration. She became interested in politics after the whole immigration fiasco. She said a lot of her latino neighbors went out to vote who usually don't. I went to visit there and saw a lot of Latinos in Bound Brook, Somerset county.

[Lunar]

Ironic.

What are the differences between Obama's and McCain's immigration beliefs anyway?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember back in the first half of 2008 how Hispanics were never going to come around to Obama? LOL.

[Lunar]

Remember back in the first half of 2008 how Hispanics were never going to come around to Obama? LOL.

Their historic level of support for Obama was ridiculously surprising.

You can't tell me that you predicted that Obama would do ridiculously well against John McCain among Hispanics, given McCain's pro-immigration history and open advertising talking about all of the Hispanics who died in Vietnam.  McCain is obviously a guy who thinks Hispanics contribute positively to American culture and yet he did worse than Bush among them.

[phk]

Remember back in the first half of 2008 how Hispanics were never going to come around to Obama? LOL.

Their historic level of support for Obama was ridiculously surprising.

You can't tell me that you predicted that Obama would do ridiculously well against John McCain among Hispanics, given McCain's pro-immigration history and open advertising talking about all of the Hispanics who died in Vietnam.  McCain is obviously a guy who thinks Hispanics contribute positively to American culture and yet he did worse than Bush among them.

If the political climate was 50-50 maybe. But the financial collapse killed him with Hispanics.

[Lunar]

I'd pay 20 dollars for a serious breakdown of Hispanics.

How much did Obama gain among Hispanics versus how much did he gain among the demographic non-racial similarities between  Hispanics and non-Hispanics.  Did Obama gain uniformly among uneducated people in the Southwest () or did he actually click notably well in the Hispanic community?


His gains are exceptional, but I imagine Obama did better than Kerry among almost every demographic and almost assuredly the non-racial demographics that Hispanics populate.  But I imagine even adjusting for that, Obama still gained racially here.

[phk]

I'd pay 20 dollars for a serious breakdown of Hispanics.

How much did Obama gain among Hispanics versus how much did he gain among the demographic non-racial similarities between  Hispanics and non-Hispanics.  Did Obama gain uniformly among uneducated people in the Southwest () or did he actually click notably well in the Hispanic community?


His gains are exceptional, but I imagine Obama did better than Kerry among almost every demographic and almost assuredly the non-racial demographics that Hispanics populate.  But I imagine even adjusting for that, Obama still gained racially here.

I think Bush did exceptionally well with Hispanics in 2004 (something like 44%) and may even be the peak that the GOP has with Hispanics in the climate of the 2000s and did well to the point to where there was little room for improvement.

[Lunar]

I think Obama has exceptional Hispanic outreach on the inverse too.  I don't think any Democrat has had more Hispanic-targeted ads and spending in history.

But still, I wonder how things look if adjusted for non-racial factors.

[Sbane]

I think Bush perfected the outreach to latinos in 2004 and he got something like 44%( or 38) of the latino vote. But he also promised them things like immigration reform which never happened, and instead led to a insurgence of xenophobia in the republican party. That in itself pushed a lot of middle of the road voters over to the democrat side(a large portion of the latino vote). They might have supported Clinton in the primaries but they were not going to vote republican this year. I don't know if latino turnout was much higher this year, but the margins sure were.

[phk]

I think Bush perfected the outreach to latinos in 2004 and he got something like 44%( or 38) of the latino vote. But he also promised them things like immigration reform which never happened, and instead led to a insurgence of xenophobia in the republican party. That in itself pushed a lot of middle of the road voters over to the democrat side(a large portion of the latino vote). They might have supported Clinton in the primaries but they were not going to vote republican this year. I don't know if latino turnout was much higher this year, but the margins sure were.

Bush got ~44%. But I think there is no way to beat that in the short-run for a GOP.

Even if the country was in a 50-50 mood I couldn't see McCain exceeding Bush's ~44%.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I think Bush perfected the outreach to latinos in 2004 and he got something like 44%( or 38) of the latino vote. But he also promised them things like immigration reform which never happened, and instead led to a insurgence of xenophobia in the republican party. That in itself pushed a lot of middle of the road voters over to the democrat side(a large portion of the latino vote). They might have supported Clinton in the primaries but they were not going to vote republican this year. I don't know if latino turnout was much higher this year, but the margins sure were.

That's a big part of it, I think. McCain didn't lose the Latino vote, but the Republican party sure did, and probably lost them for a long time.

On the other hand, it's a fallacy to think of Latinos as single-issue voters on immigration. Turns out they care about the economy too.

[minionofmidas]

And what happened in Somerset?  DOLE won here. 

Compare 2000 and 2004, New Jersey by county (this is "trend", ie adjusted for Bush's increase nationally):




That one was visible from a mile away.

[Sbane]

I think Bush perfected the outreach to latinos in 2004 and he got something like 44%( or 38) of the latino vote. But he also promised them things like immigration reform which never happened, and instead led to a insurgence of xenophobia in the republican party. That in itself pushed a lot of middle of the road voters over to the democrat side(a large portion of the latino vote). They might have supported Clinton in the primaries but they were not going to vote republican this year. I don't know if latino turnout was much higher this year, but the margins sure were.

On the other hand, it's a fallacy to think of Latinos as single-issue voters on immigration. Turns out they care about the economy too.

Very true. One of the reasons republicans did better among latinos in 2004 was due to the absence of economic issues. They still agreed with the war back then and always have been moderate/conservative on social issues.

[Verily]

...told you that Obama had a ceiling here.  If Obama won the nat'l vote by another 5 pts I'd be surprised to see NJ budge more than .5%.

Maybe a bit more than that. Nudge the country far enough to the Democrats and you'd see a rapid deterioration of the Republican vote on the Shore. But the combined wealthy and Italian traditions held up there this time. But New Jersey is never guaranteed to swing in a similar fashion to the rest of the country.

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Cumberland is increasingly Hispanic, about 25% now. Farm workers, but, unlike those in California, they're not migrants and (mostly) legal. So they actually vote sometimes. 

Burlington is basically the same sort of county as Montgomery County, PA. Suburban and mostly non-ethnic white (or at least identity is mostly not retained). Not the strongest sort of Obama area, but a strong one.

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Eastern Somerset is increasingly inner suburban. And the inner suburbs vote Democratic in New Jersey. It's a long-term trend: fewer horse ranches, more multi-family homes.

[Gustaf]

I think Hispanics symptomize 2 of McCain's key problems that lost him the election:

1. People voted on the economy as a result of the credit crunch. This enabled Obama to do really well among groups suspicious of black northern liberals. This I suspect had a huge effect on Hispanics, as well as white blue-collar voters.

2. His failure to distance himself enough from the GOP. The party obviously lost Hispanic support over the last 4 years as a result of the immigration debate. That spilled over on McCain, just like so many other negatives associated with the GOP spilled over on him.

As a result of this I still suspect that had the election been tied it would have meant an improportionate improvement for McCain among Hispanics compared to the actual result.

[cannonia]

I don't know if it's relevant to New Jersey, but I know that in CA, NV, and AZ Hispanics were late-comers to the housing hysteria and were hit relatively hard by the bubble bursting.  So however the foreclosure mess affected the election, it probably affected Hispanic voters more.