Joe Guzzardi: Hispanic Voters Abandoning Democrats’ Ship |

(Dick Wright cartoon / caglecartoons.com)

As Democrats’ prospects in the 2022 midterm elections dim, the party needs to revive itself with what was once a reliable constituency: Hispanic voters.

A Wall Street Journal poll taken in December found Hispanic voters split 37% to 37% “if the election were held today.”

The Journal poll also showed that Hispanic voters mirror the overall voter pool. When asked how President Joe Biden is handling his responsibilities, 42% approved of his job performance and 54% disapproved — in line with the 41% approval and 57% disapproval among the broader voting public.

Since The Journal published its results, conditions in the country have worsened, more bad news for the flailing Biden administration. As of late May, only divine intervention can save Democrats from electoral calamity when Nov. 8 rolls around.

A clarifying note: the term Hispanic voter should be interpreted broadly. The Census Bureau includes as Hispanic any person who, when asked, identifies as Hispanic. Included are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, South Americans and other mostly Spanish-language speakers.

Continued erosion in the Hispanic vote would leave Democrats’ chances of maintaining its already slim margin in Congress at nil.

EquisLabs, which studied the Latino electorate, found that in 2020 swings toward the Republican Party of 20 points occurred in parts of Florida’s Miami-Dade County, 12 points in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and double-digit swings in parts of the Northeast. In South Florida, the move was large enough to flip two congressional seats to Republican from Democrat.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote that, despite a booming jobs market, today’s political environment is among the toughest for incumbents that he’s ever surveyed.

The consensus among political analysts like Zandi is that voters are out to punish incumbents with their Republican vote. If conventional wisdom is correct and if Hispanics continue to abandon Democrats, they’ll be the minority in the upcoming 118th Congress.

Hispanic voters’ shifting allegiance took the establishment news media by surprise, but not other impartial, national scene observers.

First, Hispanic voters have the same goals as other citizens: a stable economy, educational opportunities for their children and a good quality of life.

Second, and less noted by mainstream journalists, mass immigration, a hallmark of Democratic administrations that Biden has taken to record levels, harms Hispanics and other minorities more than any demographic.

The immigrant who arrives today makes yesterday’s immigrants’ efforts to become established more challenging, particularly in his job search or for his school-age children who will enroll in ever-more crowded classrooms.

The report that Homeland Security Department tracking has identified as many as 50,000 migrants from Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Haiti, Peru and the Northern Triangle countries waiting in makeshift tents along the Southern border’s Mexican side is terrible news for recently arrived migrants.

The most important factors among Hispanics who are fleeing Democrats began during President Barack Obama’s two terms, and both of which Biden is pursuing to the extreme.

One is a refusal to vigorously carry out interior enforcement, including at the workplace. Weeding out illegal aliens from the job site would make more blue-collar jobs available to minority populations.

Second, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that, from 2009 to 2014, the agency issued 5.5 million new work permits to immigrants, beyond the 1.1 million legal immigrants and 700,000 guest workers admitted to the United States each year.

Moreover, Biden has begun to give the arriving migrants — as well as Ukrainian refugees and Afghan evacuees — work authorization.

Voters who identify as Hispanic will decide if they want to continue with unprecedented record immigration under Democratic leadership that will adversely affect most every aspect of their lives, or if they wish to support sustainable immigration levels that include border and interior enforcement.

For now, multiple polls indicate that voters will support candidates who promise to reduce immigration and increase immigration enforcement, a welcome change from Biden and his lieutenants’ sovereignty-ending agenda.

— Joe Guzzardi is an analyst and researcher with Progressives for Immigration Reform who now lives in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [email protected] and joeguzzardi.substack.com, or follow him on Twitter: @joeguzzardi19. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.