On October 30th, I predicted that President Obama would do a full point better in the popular vote than the aggregate poll numbers were showing because most polls were only surveying Latino voters in English. The few polls asking questions in Spanish (Latino Decisions being the most prominent) were telling a story that few in the mainstream media were reporting - that Latino voters polled in Spanish were not responding teh same way as those polled only in English. My calculation was showing about a 10% difference with the President. I assumed that the Latino vote would be about 10% of the overall electorate. Which meant a one percent boost for the President.I followed PollTracker all year and on the day of the election, their aggregation of the major national polls showed the President would win by .7%.
While we still await a few votes to be counted in Florida, we now roughly know the final numbers.The President receive approximately 50% of the vote. Romney got approximately 48%, which was right on target.
Incidentally, Latino Decisions has posted the cross tabs for their final exit poll and they show that 83% of respondents who answered the questions in Spanish supported the President versus 70% of those who answered in English.
House Speaker Boehner Expresses Optimism Deal Will be Cut on Comprehensive Immigration Reform
More of the new tune being sung by the suddenly reasonable Republicans. From the New York Times:
Fresh off an election in which Hispanic voters largely sided with Democrats, Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that he was confident Congress and the White House could come up with a comprehensive immigration solution.Immigration reform is an important issue that I think ought to be dealt with, Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC World News.
This issue has been around far too long, he said, and while I believe its important for us to secure our borders and to enforce our laws, I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue, and Im confident that the president, myself, others, can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.
The words conveyed a new sense of urgency from Mr. Boehner, who said earlier this year that he thought it would be politically impossible to tackle a Republican proposal on the Dream Act, which sought to open a path to citizenship for some students in the United States illegally.
The question is what exactly the Republicans mean by "comprehensive"? Hopefully, it means a proposal along the lines discussed five years ago rather than something modest.
November 08, 2012
Will DACA Applications Accelerate in Wake of Election?
Immigrant of the Day: Mazie Hirono - US Senator-Elect
Japanese-born Mazie Hirono set several firsts on Tuesday
when she was elected as the junior Senator from Hawaii. Senator-elect Hirono is
the first Asian woman ever elected to the Senate. She is the first Japanese
immigrant ever elected to the Senate. She is the first Buddhist-American in the
Senate. And the sitting Congresswoman is already the first foreign-born Asian
woman to serve in the Congress.
Senator-elect Hirono was born 65 years ago in Fukushima, the town now famous for the devastating combination earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown disaster from 2011. She immigrated to the US at the age of 8 and was raised by a single mother in Hawaii. She naturalized in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. Congratulations Senator-elect Hirono!
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