Bloomberg Línea — Hispanic voters supported Democratic candidates albeit by only a 21-point margin in 2022, according to Pew Research Center, and which is a 55% drop (26 points) given the 47 points obtained in the 2018 survey.
According to the research, this phenomenon was driven by asymmetric shifts in voter turnout among Hispanic adults, rather than changes in individual voter preferences.
Currently, Black, Hispanic and Asian voters are overwhelmingly Democrat-supporting, although each group may show nuances. However, Republican candidates have been gaining ground among Hispanic voters, especially in the last four years.
Black voters remain loyal to the Democratic Party, with 93% voting in 2020 for the party’s candidates for the US House of Representatives. Hispanic and Asian voters also clearly favored Democratic candidates, but by narrower margins: 60% to 39% for Hispanic voters and 68% to 32% for Asian voters.
Electoral participation
White Americans are much more consistent voters than African-Americans, Hispanics, or Asians in terms of voter turnout. Of white citizens who were eligible to vote in all three elections (2018, 2020, and 2022), 43% participated and 24% did not vote in any of them.
Meanwhile, 27% of Blacks, 19% of Hispanics and 21% of Asians who were age-eligible citizens voted in all three elections. However, Hispanic citizens were the most likely to have not voted in any of the three most recent general elections (47%).
“Black and Hispanic college-educated adults also voted at higher rates than Black and Hispanic adults without a college degree in each of the three elections,” the Pew Research Center report says.
However, in the 2020 presidential election, college-educated Hispanic voters preferred Biden by a margin of 69% to 29%, while Hispanic voters without a college degree preferred Biden by a somewhat narrower margin (58% to 39%). But no significant education gap in candidate preference was demonstrated for Black or Hispanic voters in 2018 or 2022, nor for black voters in 2020.
The current electorate
During the 2022 elections, Republican House candidates received approximately 51% of the total vote, compared to 48% for Democratic candidates. This helped the Republican Party obtain a narrow majority in the House, while Democrats maintained control of the Senate.
The research center shows that midterm voters tend to be older, more educated, and wealthier than those who vote only in presidential election years.
Those who voted in 2018 and did not turn out in 2022 favored Democrats in 2018 by about two to one. Similarly, about one-third of 2020 voters did not turn out to vote in 2022. This group voted 53% to 43% for Joe Biden. The absence of these Biden voters in 2020 resulted in a worse showing for Democratic candidates in 2022.
The number of voters who dropped out was important, but so were the numbers of voters who turned out in 2022 but not in previous elections, and who also helped Republican candidates.
