It wasn't just Harry Reid -- a blogger at the pro-immigration reform group America's Voice Online notes that according to the polling firm Latino Decisions, Latino voters went for Democrats in state races in the kind of numbers you usually only see among black voters:
In the Nevada Senate race, Harry Reid’s Latino margin over Sharron Angle was 90% - 8%. According to exit polls, Latino turnout was up from 12% of the electorate in the 2006 mid-terms to 15% in 2010.
In the California Senate race, Barbara Boxer’s Latino margin over Carly Fiorina was 86% - 14%. Latino turnout was up from 19% of the electorate in 2006 to 22% of the electorate in 2010.
In the Colorado Senate race, Michael Bennet’s Latino margin over Ken Buck was 81% - 19%. Latino turnout was up from 9% of the electorate in 2006 to 13% in 2010.
In the California governor's race, Jerry Brown’s Latino margin over Meg Whitman was 86% - 13%.
In the Colorado governor's race , John Hickenlooper’s Latino margin over Tom Tancredo and Dan Maes was 77% - 14% - 9%.
Obama beat McCain in 2008 by about 7 percentage points with two-thirds of the Latino vote. How big does that margin look when 80 percent to 90 percent of Latinos are pulling the lever for Democrats? That said, these races involved Republican candidates who were either particularly bad on immigration for their races or shared the ticket with other candidates who were. Nationwide, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates about 64 percent of Latino votes went to Democrats, which is actually slightly less than the share of the vote they gave to Obama in 2008.
In the short term, the Democratic strategy of simply standing aside while Republicans alienate the fastest growing demographic group in the country seems to be working, but I still believe there will ultimately be consequences if the Democrats fail to offer any tangible accomplishments. We'll probably also see more attempts by Republicans to end birthright citizenship, but since we're not amending the Constitution any time soon, that's not going to work either and ultimately just plays into Democrats' hands by further racializing the Republican approach to immigration.
Latinos are so diverse culturally that the only reason they vote as a bloc at all is because they continue to have collective interests as Latinos. That has more to do with a shared experience of discrimination than a shared culture; the more immigration policy becomes pretext for targeting Latinos, the more likely they are to vote this way. That said, the victories of Republican candidates like Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio, and Brian Sandoval show that they can blunt this trend in the short term by nominating Latino candidates for higher office. Right now, in the long term, Latinos are still a swing vote.
