Daisy Hernandez

Multi-racial push got Dems the win?

Everyone from independents to married suburban women are taking credit for the Dem win this week. But what about the people of color vote?

*More than a million Latinos voted this year compared to 2002. In New Jersey, the Senate seat looked vulnerable but Latinos delivered, giving the win to Bob Menendez. You know it’s bad for Republicans when even the Florida Latinos are upset. Exit polls showed that 68% of Florida Latino voters were dissatisfied with the state of the country.

Latinos also turned Texas counties blue this year, voting Democrats and kicking out Republicans who have held county seats there for the last 20 years.

*Republicans had hoped 2006 would be the “Year of the Black Republican.” Did they thinking no Black person would vote? Here’s just 3 Black Republicans who tanked with the party: Michael Steele lost the Senate seat in Maryland and Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell both lost governor seats in Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively.

For the Dems, Black voters delivered the South, specifically Virginia and Missouri. “Without the African American vote, the Democrats would not have won three of the Senate seats,” Kirk Clay, Director of the Electoral College Reform Project at Common Cause, told Democracy Now.

Not that we needed any stats but a recent Associated Press poll showed that Black voters thought the country was going on the wrong track. They should know. Two-thirds of Black registered voters follow the news compared with 71 percent of all registered voters.

*An exit poll of 4,600 Asian American voters in closely-watched races in Virginia, New Jersey and other states showed them voting for Democratic candidates, according to the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) that did the polling.

In Virginia, Democratic candidate Jim Webb was declared the Senate winner by 0.3% of the total vote (49.6%) beating Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen (49.3%), best known now for his derogatory “macaca” remark to a South Asian campaign worker. According to AALDEF’s exit poll of more than 250 Asian American voters there, 76% voted for Jim Webb, 21% voted for Sen. Allen, and 3% voted for Glenda Parker.

Posted at 11:56 AM, Nov 10, 2006 in Elections | Permalink | View Comments