The Declining Latino Voter in NYC Democratic Primaries 2001-2013
By Jerry Skurnik (February 10, 2014)
Despite Latinos being an increasing portion of the voting population of New York City, there were no serious Hispanic candidates for any of the three citywide posts in the 2013 Democratic Primary (Mayor, Comptroller and Public Advocate). This was also the case four years ago, but not in previous years when candidates such as Fernando Ferrer, Herman Badillo, Willie Colon, Roberto Ramirez and others ran for one of the three citywide spots with significant support.
I will let others consider the reasons for the lack of Latino candidates. What I would like to do here is explore how the presence or absence of serious Hispanic candidates has affected the Latino vote.
My company, Prime New York, maintains a database of voters in the United States that includes an ethnic dictionary that tries to match voters to their likely ethnic group. Using that, I reviewed the voting history in this century of Democrats with Spanish surnames in New York City.
A few caveats. Ethnic dictionaries are not 100 percent accurate and we will mislabel some voters as Latinos and miss some who are. Also, the counts I am using are for voters currently registered. This is not the same as turnout in each year, as some people who voted in earlier years are no longer registered. But since we are using the data to compare votes over the years, these don't really affect the comparisons.
Looking at the Latino numbers for the Citywide Democratic Primaries held this century makes it clear that, by far, the most important factor in turning out the vote is the presence of strong Latino candidates. In 2001,, when former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer came in first in the initial Democratic Primary, Latinos made up 23 percent of the overall turnout. This is roughly equal to the Latino share of all registered Democrats. In the subsequent Runoff that would pick the Democratic nominee (which at the time was considered the sure winner in November), they made up 26 percent of the total means that Latinos voted in a higher percentage than they represent of all Democrats.
The next Primary in 2005, when Ferrer tried again in a year when most observers thought Mayor Bloomberg was unbeatable, the number of Latinos voting also dropped. But because the overall turnout was lower than in 2001, they again slightly outvoted their share of the electorate, making up 24 percent of the total.
Four years later in 2009, with Ferrer not running and no Hispanic candidates at all running for any citywide position for the first time in many years, the number of Latinos voting dropped both in the Democratic Primary and in the Runoff for Public Advocate and Comptroller. Even with the lower overall turnouts for these two Primaries, the Latino share dropped to 18 percent and 12percent, respectively, which were much lower than their share of the Democratic electorate.
That brings us to the recent Primary in 2013 where the only Latino Citywide candidate, Rev. Erik Salgado, was not considered a serious contender for Mayor and received only 15,914 votes out of 691,801 cast (2.3 percent of the total). The relatively high overall turnout meant that while the number of Latinos voting was the highest since 2001 with over 100,000 voting, its share of the electorate was only 17%. The subsequent Runoff for Public Advocate, with only an African-American and White candidate, produced a low turnout of 202,647, of which Latinos were just under 10%.
It's not altogether surprising that Latino turnout tends to rise and fall depending on the possibility of Latino candidate's winning. That has been truth for almost every emerging group in the electorate. For example, in the last two Presidential elections, the African-American vote set records largely because of President Obama's campaign. but their turnout dropped dramatically in the congressional elections of 2010 despite the President's efforts because his name was not on the ballot. This is a key reason for the Republican's electoral success that year.
If Latinos are to increase their influence in New York City politics, making their turnout numbers less dependent on the presence of strong Latino candidates would be a good start. How to do so will require some new thinking about how to mobilize the city's Latino electorate.
Jerry Skurnik, a partner with Prime New York, is well-known in New York as the political consultant to politicalconsultants, working behind-the-scenes, gathering information crucial to the success of political campaigns. Prime New York is the city's oldest and most successful voter file company. It sells detailed lists of voter information to campaigns looking to target "prime" constituents, providing campaigns with everything from voter addresses to emails to ethnic data. He can be reached at primeny711@aol.com.