Media Explain Republicans Still Need Latino Support

Fusion's Jorge Ramos: “If There Is A Magic Number” Of Latino Votes That Republicans Need To Win The White House, Trump Doesn't Have It Yet. During Fusion's live coverage of the March 1 Super Tuesday primary elections, anchor Jorge Ramos explained that “it would be close to impossible” for Trump “to get to the White House” with the percentage of the Latino vote he is predicted to win in the general election. He added that “in a country as diverse as this one,” Republicans cannot win a presidential election “only with the white vote”:

JORGE RAMOS: Now, we always talk about the importance of the Hispanic vote, 27 million eligible voters. Out of them, according to NALEO, about 13 million will go to the polls, and let's see what's happening in the state of Texas. Because Hillary Clinton won easily against Bernie Sanders, here in Texas, but then she got about 60 percent of the Hispanic vote. And this is important if you want to win the general election because usually it works like this: Democrats get about two-thirds of the Hispanic vote and Republicans only one-third, but I think, for many different numbers, on the percentage that Republicans might need to win the Hispanic vote. They would have to win more than 33 percent of the Hispanic vote, I think. Because, as you know, McCain got 31 percent, and he lost. And then Romney got 27 percent, and he lost. So I think, if there's a magic number for Republicans, it is 33 percent. And again, the last poll that I saw, Mr. Trump would only get 16 percent of the Hispanic vote. And with 16 percent it would be close to impossible to get to the White House. But then, those are the two theories, maybe Donald Trump believes that he can win the White House only with the white vote, however, my theory and the theory of many other people, is that that would be impossible, that in a country as diverse as this one that simply isn't going to work. [Fusion, 3/1/16]

FiveThirtyEight's Carl Bialik Reveals That Republican Super Tuesday Victories Were Not Fueled By Latino Support. FiveThirtyEight's Carl Bialik noted that the Republican electorate in the Super Tuesday states was “heavily white” and the Latino vote was impactful only in Texas, where Texas native Sen. Ted Cruz won, negating Trump's claim that he's “doing well among Latino voters.” From FiveThirtyEight.com's March 1 coverage:  

Trump said he's doing well among Latino voters, citing Nevada exit polls. Why cite numbers from a week ago? Because the Republican electorate in almost all the states that have voted tonight is heavily white -- so much so that in the nine states for which CNN has released exit polls, only in Texas is there enough data to say how Latino Republicans have voted (Cruz won a plurality of their vote) and in no states were there enough black voters for meaningful data.

[FiveThirtyEight.com, 3/1/16]

The Daily Beast: Don't Believe The Hype Around Trump Winning Latino Vote In Any Primary Elections - Turnout Is Unrepresentative Of Latino Population. The Daily Beast's John Avlon noted on March 1 that because “partisan primary turnout is often unrepresentative of the overall state,” we should not “believe the hype” surrounding claims that Trump won the Latino vote in Nevada last month. Avlon explained that Super Tuesday victories -- especially for Republican candidates claiming to win among Hispanic voters -- are not necessarily “an indicator of general election strength” because Republican Hispanic voter turnout has been well below the actual percent of the population that is Hispanic:

Trumpkins will point out that The Donald won the Latino vote in the Nevada caucus last month. This is true and doubly impressive/depressing running against two actual Hispanics, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz--as Ruben Navarrette predicted in The Daily Beast. But it's not incidental to point out that while a record 75,000 Republicans caucused, only an estimated 6,000 were Latino--well below the 27 percent of the population that is Hispanic. Cut this stat with two other facts--President Obama won the Latino vote by 50 points in Nevada and 80 percent of Latinos nationwide have a negative view of Trump--and you quickly pack up any notions that Trump's Nevada caucus victory is an indicator of general-election strength.

And so it goes. The increasingly narrow base of the GOP, dominated by conservative populists, has created the conditions for a celebrity demagogue like Donald Trump. The absence of a strong center-right or real depth of diversity among the Republican constituency means that the party can be too easily hijacked in five weeks of partisan primaries by pandering to an electorate that doesn't look much like the America that candidate will have to win--let alone govern.

While the polls show that Donald Trump is primed for a big night, don't believe the hype: No matter how “yuge” the win, the underlying electoral math is apocalyptic for any party that chooses to not only ignore but insult the growing diversity in America. [The Daily Beast, 3/1/16]