Ever since last November’s election, we’ve been hearing that Hispanics comprised a record 10 percent of the vote—which therefore obliges Republican Congressmen to pass “comprehensive immigration reform” a.k.a the Schumer-Rubio Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill RIGHT NOW.
For example:
National exit polls showed that 10 percent of the electorate was Hispanic, compared with 9 percent in 2008 and 8 percent in 2004. … A growing perception of hostility toward illegal immigrants by Republican candidates is driving many Latinos to the polls.
[Growing share of Hispanic voters helped push Obama to victory, By Donna St. George and Brady Dennis, Washington Post, November 7, 2012]
But what if these nice, round turnout numbers provided by the Edison exit poll company weren’t true? What if the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” clamor is based on exit poll error?
What if in 2012 the Sleeping Giant of the Latino Vote didn’t actually awake—but instead rolled over and started a new siesta?
In short, what if the Main Stream Media exaggerated the Hispanic share of the 2012 vote by a factor of almost 20 percent?
Well, we now have the numbers. We now know that the suppositions behind these awkward questions are true.
After every national election, the Census Bureau conducts a massive survey of voter turnout. Then it bureaucratically mulls over the results for months—while the conventional wisdom congeals around whatever slapdash numbers the exit poll firm emitted in the early going.
In contrast to the Census Bureau survey, though, exit polls aren’t designed to measure turnout. Heck, exit polls aren’t even very good at figuring out who won the election—just ask President John F. Kerry.Exit polls can’t be based on the random samples that would be needed to measure turnout accurately, because the exit poll company has to bake a forecast of the electorate’s demographics into its plan of which precincts to send workers to cover. Not surprisingly, it tends to get back the results it anticipated.
Moreover, Hispanics are both of interest to sponsors and difficult to survey (they can need Spanish-speaking pollsters). So their needs are typically given more weight in planning the exit poll. The result: national exit polls have overstated the Hispanic share of the vote at least since 2000.
Now, finally, on May 9, the Current Population Survey division of the Census Bureau has issued its turnout report, scintillatingly titledThe Diversifying Electorate—Voting Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin in 2012 (and Other Recent Elections)[PDF]
Despite the title, it makes compelling reading.
It turns out that the official best estimate of the Latino share of 2012 voters isn’t 10 percent—but merely 8.4 percent:So the standard story you’ve been hearing in the MSM for almost seven months is indeed inflated by 19 percent.
But what can you expect … because the conventional wisdom as embodied in that Washington Post story has been exaggerated for, roughly, ever.
Hispanics didn’t account for 9 percent of the 2008 electorate, but 7.4 percent. And in 2004, they weren’t 8 percent, but 6.0 percent. Way back in 2000, the exit poll claimed that Hispanics made up 7 percent, but the real number turned out to be 5.4 percent, as I reported for UPI on July 24, 2001. [Mexican-American Vote Smaller than Many Think]
But who did turn out in 2012 to drive Obama to victory? Who was the fresh new face of the American electorate in 2012?
Old black ladies.
According to the Census survey, fans of Tyler Perry movies voted in remarkable numbers in 2012—even more than in Obama’s first victory in 2008.
Unsurprisingly, given Obama’s candidacy, from 2004 to 2008 the number of black voters had grown 15 percent.
Unexpectedly, however, blacks added another 10 percent to their vote total from 2008 to 2012. Nationally, 66.2 percent of eligible blacks voted compared to 64.1 percent of whites, 48.0 percent of Hispanics, and 47.3 percent of Asians.