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Tag: pew research center
Black And Hispanic Voters

Pew Data Disproves Reported Trump Advance Among Minority Voters

The Pew Research Center released polling this week that casts serious doubt on recent surveys showing Donald Trump making significant gains among Black and Latino voters.

The Pew survey suggested majorities of Latino, Black, and Asian voters continue to largely favor the Democratic Party. The results show very little change among Black and Latino Americans since the early 1990s, while white voters remain almost exactly as aligned with the Republican Party as they were in the early ‘90s.

"Not much 'racial realignment' in these Pew numbers," Vanderbilt political science professor John Sides tweeted, attaching a series of Pew graphs tracking party alignment over three decades.

On Latinos specifically, Pew’s 2023 data showing Democrats with a 61 percent to 35 percent edge seemed to counter recentNew York Times/Siena polling showing Trump with a 46 percent to 40 percent edge over Biden—6 points above George W. Bush's 40 percent share of the Latino vote in 2004, the high-water mark for Republicans.

Pew puts considerable effort into surveying the U.S. Latino population, and some political analysts consider it the gold standard on Latino polling. The differences in outcomes between the Pew and Times polls are due to a number of variables, including the fact that Pew asked about party affiliation while the Times polled Trump-Biden support.

But another factor—and a potential cautionary tale about polling Latinos—might be differences in the way the polls were conducted. In the fine print of its graph, Pew explains why its data for Latino voters only dates back to the mid-aughts while information for its other three demographic graphs date back to the 1990s.

"Data for Hispanic voters shown only for years with interviews in English and Spanish," the text reads. In other words, the polling organization didn't view polling of Latinos conducted in English as sufficiently representative, even if the sample sizes were technically large enough.

The Times poll conducted just three percent of its interviews of self-identified Latino voters in Spanish—a fact that UCLA political science professor, Democratic pollster, and Biden campaign adviser Matt Barreto currently highlights in his pinned tweet.

"Let's look at their brilliant Latino methodology: 97 percent English," Barreto tweeted incredulously last month, when the poll was released. Barreto added emphatically that Trump's 6-point advantage in the Times survey "does not match ANY actual bilingual large-n polling of Latinos. ZERO CHANCE. Are people frustrated? Yes. Is Trump +6. ZERO CHANCE."

Even the Times piece detailing the poll's findings among Latino voters warned, "For a subgroup that size, the margin of error is 10 percentage points."

But if Barreto's tweet sounds urgent, it's because Biden's share of Latino voters matters. Latinos, who now account for roughly 15 percent of eligible voters, can be difference-makers in 2024. That is particularly true in a swing state like Arizona, where Latinos are expected to account for around one-quarter of voters this year.

There's good reason to question polling suggesting such a dramatic shift among a group of voters who present unique challenges to pollsters.

As Republican political consultant and Lincoln Project co-founder Mike Madrid tweeted, Pew's "numbers are much more in line with where Hispanics will likely end up. Lower for GOP than most current polls but high historically."

Trump's big purge of old-school and more moderate Republicans, such as supporters of his primary rival Nikki Haley, has also put more pressure on him to overperform among groups that typically haven't favored Republicans—including Latinos.

The smartest reporting out there on the topic of Trump's potential gains with minority voters this cycle comes from CNN analyst and The Atlantic senior editor Ronald Brownstein, who has been at the forefront of tracking demographic trends since coining the term "the blue wall" in 2009.

As Brownstein points out, one underreported trend in this cycle's polling is Biden's relative strength among white voters. In most state and national polls, Biden is "matching or even exceeding" his winning 2020 share of the white vote.

So with Biden and Trump running roughly even in national polling now, Biden's continued strength with white voters puts the onus on Trump to win over a historically high share of voting groups that don't typically lean Republican.

As Brownstein tweeted, "Trump's gains w/Black & Hispanic voters have drawn justified attn. But w/little notice, Biden is matching or beating his 2020 # w/Whites in most ntl & state polls. That means to win,Trump may need to hold more minority votes than any GOP nominee in 60+ yrs."

That's going to be a tall order, particularly among Latinos, given the full-court press the Biden campaign rolled out last week with its new targeted outreach strategy, "Latinos con Biden-Harris."

The conventional wisdom over the past few months has been that Biden is in trouble because he's bleeding support among Latinos (and potentially Black voters, too).

But with current polling showing Biden and Trump relatively evenly matched at this stage of the contest, it's entirely plausible for the Biden campaign to woo back some voters who are more naturally predisposed to voting for Democrats, as the Pew polling suggested.

As Democratic strategist Joe Trippi recently explained on his podcast, “That Trippi Show,” "We don't have to gain back 20 points with Blacks, we don't have to gain back 20 points with Latinos, or with young people. If we're in a dead heat when we've lost 20 points with all those folks across the board, you get 2 points, 3 points, 4 points of them back, and Trump is dead."

It's another case of: We'd much rather be us than them.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

immigrants

New Polling Confirms Americans Welcome Immigrants More Than Ever

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Here's more of that other "Trump Effect" we've talked about before: new polling from Pew Research this week continues to confirm that Americans have only become more welcoming of immigrants and refugees since 2016 and Donald Trump's ensuing xenophobic presidency.

"In 2016 voters were about evenly divided in the share saying that the growing number of newcomers strengthens American society," Pew said, finding that 46 percent of all voters agreed with the statement. Four years later, that number has now surged to 60 percent. Americans "across the political spectrum have shifted in a more liberal direction in this domain," researchers said.

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Pew Report: Fake News Caused ‘A Great Deal’ Of Confusion During Election

Pew Report: Fake News Caused ‘A Great Deal’ Of Confusion During Election

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

According to a new Pew Research report, 64 percent of Americans — including a majority in both political parties — said that fake news has caused “a great deal” of confusion about the basic facts of current events.

According to the study, the fake news problem is a bipartisan one: “Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to say that these stories leave Americans deeply confused about current events”:

While fake news became an issue during the highly charged 2016 presidential election campaign, Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to say that these stories leave Americans deeply confused about current events. About six-in-ten Republicans say completely made-up news causes a great deal of confusion (57 percent), and about the same portion of Democrats say the same (64 percent). And although independents outpace Republicans (69 percent say fake news causes a great deal of confusion), they are on par with Democrats. This perception is also mostly consistent across education, race, gender and age, though there is some difference by income.

These findings draw a sharp contrast between Americans’ perception of fake news and an active campaign by right-wing media and figures, including Donald Trump and his transition team, to downplay the existence of these false stories and attack credible news sources by blurring the lines between fake news (fabricated information presented as a legitimate news story) and real reporting. Fox host Sean Hannity called concerns about fake news “nonsense,” and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, attempting to make fake news a partisan issue, called it “satire and parody that liberals don’t understand.” Similarly, The Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris described fake news as “whatever people living in the liberal bubble determined to be believed by the right.” Trump himself tried to undermine CNN’s reporting on his executive producer credit on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice by calling it “FAKE NEWS!” And Trump transition senior advisor and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway asserted that “the most fake piece of news” during the election was that Trump couldn’t win.

The report also found that Americans “collectively assign a fairly high and roughly equal amount of responsibility” for the spread of fake news to three groups: social networking sites and search engines, government and politicians, and members of the public. The survey reported that 42 percent of U.S. adults believe that social networking sites like Facebook and search engines like Google have “a great deal of responsibility” in “preventing completely made-up news from gaining attention.”

Though Google and Facebook have announced steps to combat the spread fake news, including the policy Google adopted in November barring fake news publishers from using its advertising system, a Media Matters analysis found that Google AdSense-linked advertisements were still running on countless hyperpartisan websites peddling fake news nearly a month later. Ad revenue is a driving cause of the fake news explosion and incentivizes its spread. On Facebook, large, hyperpartisan pages that regularly peddle fake news content still remain verified.

According to the report, nearly a quarter of Americans admitted to sharing a fake news story that they either knew at the time was made up or later found out was fake. Nearly one-third of U.S. adults reported seeing fake political news online “often,” and 71 percent reported seeing fake political news at least sometimes.

Pew’s report comes just two days after PolitiFact named fake news the “2016 lie of the year” and about a month after the election, which saw engagement on Facebook with top fake news stories surpass engagement with top news stories from 19 major news outlets.

IMAGE: People are silhouetted as they pose with laptops in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Global Role Divides U.S. Across Political Spectrum

Global Role Divides U.S. Across Political Spectrum

Washington (AFP) — Most Americans want the United States to do less overseas, with the question of the country’s global role divisive across the political spectrum, a survey said Thursday.

Six in ten said the United States should focus more on home and less overseas, according to a wide-ranging study of U.S. political views by the Pew Research Center.

That figure was the same as in the last survey in 2011 but was up from 49 percent in 2005, in the midst of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

The survey, which included interviews with 10,013 adults, found that U.S. attitudes did not fall neatly into left/right categories.

Some 71 percent of Americans classified by the survey as “steadfast conservatives,” who tend to be religious and traditional, said that the United States should focus less abroad.

But 67 percent of more business-minded conservatives, who also lean toward the Republican Party, said the United States should pursue an active global role — stronger support than from any other group.

Most liberals also supported an active U.S. role overseas, but the strongest opposition came from Americans identified as “hard-pressed skeptics,” who lean toward President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party but are generally low-income and distrustful of government. An overwhelming 87 percent in the group said the United States should focus less overseas.

The survey comes as the United States prepares for a 2016 election that could scramble traditional divides on foreign policy.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is considered a potential 2016 candidate, is deeply skeptical of foreign intervention, while potential Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton sometimes took positions more hawkish than Obama while she was secretary of state.

The Pew survey also showed differences across the spectrum on immigration. Both liberals and business conservatives overwhelmingly embraced immigrants, while wide majorities of steadfast conservatives and hard-pressed skeptics were critical.

Overall, 59 percent of Americans said immigrants strengthened the country, while 35 percent said that a growing number of immigrants posed a threat to “traditional American customs/values.”

AFP Photo / Daniel Shirey

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