Latino voting results mixed

Experts say Trump didn’t inspire turnout as expected, but five Latinos won spots in runoffs

Democrats are hoping anger with the Trump administration will drive Latino voters to the polls across the country for this November’s midterm elections and blunt the Republican president’s agenda. So how did that work out in California’s primary election, in a state where Latinos are the largest demographic group?

While Tuesday’s results were disappointing for some of the state’s most prominent Latino politicians, five Latino candidates for statewide office all advanced to the runoff in November — a first.

“That’s historic,” said Fernando J. Guerra, political science professor at Loyola Marymount University. “There’s never been five viable Latino candidates on the November ballot statewide, ever.”

Ed Hernandez, the runner-up in Tuesday’s primary for lieutenant governor, will face fellow Democrat Eleni Kounalakis.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla, also a Democrat, will face Mark P. Meuser, the Republican runner-up challenger. Appointed Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who fended off fellow Democrat Dave Jones, will face Republican runnerup Steven C Bailey. Democrat Ricardo Lara will compete against front-runner Steve Poizner, who claims no party affiliation, for insurance commissioner.

And while state Sen. Kevin de León limped toward the November runoff far behind Dianne Feinstein, he secured the second spot in a crowded field to bring his progressive agenda to the race for U.S. Senate.

The one major Latino candidate left behind: Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa lost his bid for the November runoff in the governor’s race to fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox.

It’s too early to say how large Latino voter turnout was for the primary — mailin ballots were still arriving to be counted Friday. Analysts who study turnout demographics say they won’t have solid statewide data for a month or so.

Overall statewide turnout in the June primary appears unimpressive based on available returns. The Secretary of State’s office was reporting estimated turnout at 22.7 percent by the end of the week, slightly less than the 25.14 percent in 2014, the last primary election for governor.

Turnout in some big counties with large Latino populations was reported even lower. It was 18 percent in Los Angeles, home base for both Villaraigosa and de León.

Political Data Inc., which analyzes election data, won’t have a good picture of statewide voting patterns for another 40 days or so after county elections officials certify results, said the firm’s vice president Paul Mitchell.

Latino voters are seen as key to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Republican-led House of Representatives in the November midterm election. To many Latinos, the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement sweeps and calls for a border wall evoke California’s Proposition 187.

Pushed by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and approved overwhelmingly in 1994 at a time when Latinos were about a fourth of California’s population, Prop. 187 sought to deny public services to illegal immigrants. Critics saw it as targeting Latinos.

Blocked by the courts, it inspired a generation of young Latinos such as de León to political activism and has been blamed for the Republican party’s California swoon. About four in 10 Californians today are Latino, slightly more than the share of whites. Republicans haven’t won statewide office since 2006, and GOP registration dipped below “no party preference” for the first time this year.

“The question going into the primary is whether hostility toward Trump could motivate Latino voters to turn out at presidential year levels or the smaller numbers that have been the case in past midterm elections,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches politics at the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley.

“The answer is somewhere in between,” said Schnur, who has worked for Arizona Sen. John McCain and for former Gov. Wilson. “General election turnout is always higher than primaries, so these numbers should increase in November. But the Democratic base will have to become much more motivated to produce the type of ‘blue wave’ they have been predicting.”

Matt A. Barreto, political science professor at UCLA, said there were encouraging signs for the Latino primary vote in Los Angeles. An analysis by the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at UCLA showed the Latino vote increased more than any other demographic in Los Angeles County from June 2014 to June 2018. He said nearly all Latino precincts had more than a 100 percent increase in ballots cast, much higher than the countywide average.

“There’s no question that the Trump and Sessions immigration policy and rhetoric has really angered Latinos,” Barreto said, “and you’re seeing a response.”

So why didn’t that boost Villaraigosa and de León? Guerra and Barreto said other factors weighed them down. Villaraigosa has been out of office for five years and had to compete against three strong Democrats, while only one other Republican threatened to pull support from Cox. De León as a state lawmaker did not have a high profile among voters and was competing with other Democrats, yet still made it to the runoff against a popular incumbent.

They also pointed out that Latinos did well in California congressional races. In the 39th Congressional District that includes parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, Democrat Gil Cisneros ran a strong second place to Republican Young Kim.

In the 24th Congressional District that includes Santa Barbara, Democratic incumbent Salud Carbajal, who was considered a vulnerable target, won nearly 53 percent of the vote. Another vulnerable Democratic incumbent, Raul Ruiz in the 36th Congressional District in western Riverside County, won almost 55 percent of the vote.

“When you look at it from our perspective,” Guerra said, “it was a really good election for Latinos.”