Los Angeles Times
By Cathleen Decker
April 3, 2016
Women, Latinos and California primaries
Two
groups of California voters — women and Latinos — have powered the
Democratic Party’s ascent here and delivered a near-death knell to the
state’s Republican Party.
A
USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released last week showed that the
prominence of those groups also explains why the two hottest candidates
this year aren’t running away with the state.
Across
the country, in the states contested so far, Bernie Sanders and Donald
Trump have forwarded a similar message on the topic of the economy: that
trade deals have decimated jobs in this
country and that those making less money have been ignored as
politicians have hewed to policies that benefit the rich and powerful.
The
two candidates may disagree on nearly everything else, but their
echoing economic messages have boosted them among blue-collar workers,
those who haven’t attended college and those lower
on the income scale, overlapping groups.
But
in California, the USC/Times poll found, Sanders and Trump are not
gaining a huge advantage from those voters, at least this far out from
the June 7 primary.
When
the poll looked at Democrats and independents eligible to vote in the
Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton won 45% of those making less than
$50,000 annually, and 46% of those making
$50,000 or more annually. Sanders carried 39% of those making less than
$50,000 per year, and 38% of those making $50,000 or more.
Among
Republicans, Trump won 38% in each income category. His main
challenger, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, carried 28% of those making less than
$50,000 and 32% of those making more. Ohio Gov. John
Kasich, the third candidate still in the race, won 13% of both groups.
The
distinction between who lower-income voters backed in other states and
how they’re behaving in California derives from their makeup and
political loyalties here.
Overall,
whites make up just over half of voters making less than $50,000, but
two-thirds of those making more than that. Latinos make up more than a
third of those making less than $50,000,
but only 16% of those making more than that. Women, like Latinos, are
disproportionately in the lower-income group.
White
working-class voters have been Trump’s most passionate supporters. But
in California, 57% of white working-class voters are women, who as a
group have not embraced Trump as wholeheartedly
as men have. Their presence appears to explain why Trump’s standing
among poorer white voters, 39% in the Republican primary race, is not
that different from the 36% he wins among more wealthy white voters.
The
muting of Trump’s typical blue-collar dominance is also apparent in a
hypothetical general election contest against Democratic front-runner
Clinton. Among white working-class voters,
Clinton defeats Trump by 12 percentage points, not much less than the
18-point gap among white voters with higher incomes.
In
the Democratic primaries that have been held so far, Clinton has tended
to corral richer and more educated voters, and Sanders has triumphed by
huge margins among younger and lower-income
voters. In California, she’s losing voters younger than 50 by 15
points, so that deficiency remains true.
But
among blue-collar voters, she’s beating Sanders by 6 points because so
many of those voters here are Latinos and women, two groups with which
Clinton has relationships dating to her husband’s
1992 campaign.
Among
Latinos making less than $50,000, for example, Clinton won, 55% to 33%.
Wealthier Latinos were split between the candidates. (Their numbers are
too small to measure separately, but
lower-income African American and Asian American voters sided with
Latinos; taken together, lower-income minority voters backed Clinton by
15 points while wealthier minority voters were split.)
Had
the state’s working-class voters been mostly white, as they are in
other states, the results would have been different. The poll found
Clinton lost to Sanders by 12 points among white
voters earning less than $50,000 annually.
“It’s
yet another mark of the impact Latino voters are having on California
politics,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of
Politics at USC.
The
demographic makeup of California voters also influences their view on
issues that the candidates use to plead their cases. One of the issues
with which Trump has successfully attracted
blue-collar voters is illegal immigration. But voters here — even white
ones — are less open to Trump’s message than are voters elsewhere.
Six
in 10 white voters, regardless of income, disapprove of Trump’s
positions on illegal immigration, which include deporting 11 million
people currently in the country and erecting a giant
wall to limit future travel over the Mexican border. And 6 in 10 white
voters, regardless of income, favor a path to citizenship for those in
the country illegally — a position opposed by the three remaining
Republican candidates.
Though
white voters are not as emphatically against Trump’s views or in favor
of citizenship as minority voters, the numbers suggest that familiarity
with the issue and the Californians influenced
by it have altered their views. All told, 22% of those making under
$50,000 annually said they had a “very close” relationship with someone
in the country illegally, well above the 13% of richer voters who said
that.
“Whether
you are Latino or Latina yourself or spend a lot of time with people
from other ethnic backgrounds, you are exposed to this issue in a much
different way in California than people
who live in a more homogenous community,” Schnur said.
One
of the biggest problems for Republicans seeking to expand their ranks
in California has been the strongly anti-illegal immigration message put
out by national Republican figures, including,
this year, Trump and Cruz. The broad support here for a path to citizenship suggests the difficulties that remain for any Republican
seeking a foothold in this diverse state.
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