In a Wednesday-morning post, Daily Kos editor and publisher Markos Moulitsas, noting Republicans’ improved performance among Latino and Asian voters in yesterday’s midterm elections, commented, “I guess that's what happens when the president shits on immigrants.”
Kos, who has long bashed President Obama from the left regarding immigration reform, was arguing that many Latinos and Asians agree with him and sat out the midterms to punish Obama for his timidity on the issue. Exit polls indicate that the GOP increased its share of the Latino vote from 27 percent in 2012 to 35 percent in yesterday's elections, and its share of the Asian vote from 26 percent to 49 percent.
From Kos’s post (emphasis added):
So yes, we got spanked. The pre-election polling was actually pretty good, and would've been even better had it been even more pro-GOP. Don't know if it's a small sample size or a feature of the modern political landscape, but in every cycle since at least 2006, one party has swept all the tight races. And last night was no different…
…[E]arly indications were that the national turnout was below 38 percent. It's the age-old problem for Democrats—we'll do fine in presidential years, but how the hell do we survive our base turnout woes in the midterms? The vaunted Dem GOTV machine did appear to goose turnout, but obviously not enough to make a difference…
Non-Hispanic whites are 62.6 percent of all Americans. African-Americans were just under their 13.2 percent share. But Latinos and Asians? I guess that's what happens when the president shits on immigrants. (And to think, he delayed executive action on immigration to help Sens. Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor. In the end, they all lost and ended up taking Colorado's Mark Udall down with them.)
That's how a GOP-led Congress with 20 percent approval ratings is set to become even more Republican. That's how people like Joni Ernst will bring that special Sarah Palin brand to the Senate.
So what's ahead? Well, we have a great cycle ahead of us, with boatload of Senate pickup opportunities, with Dem presidential-year turnout on tap. The GOP has a two-year Senate rental. The presidential math still looks brutal for the GOP. Demographic changes continue unabated. But we've got to look beyond this boom-bust electoral cycle.
We've got to get beyond the fact that people like Democratic policies—higher minimum wage, access to abortion rights, pot—yet didn't vote for the Democrats who supported them…
…I can't wait to take on Joni Ernst and the rest of this year's class of Republicans again. In 2020. In a presidential year. The rest of the stuff? I don't have any answers, not now.
