Rangel Leads Espaillat in NY Democratic Congressional Primary, According to New Poll
The NiLP Network on Latino Issues (May 22, 2014)
The Democratic Primary in the New York's 13th Congressional District has drawn national attention because of speculation about the reelection prospects of longtime incumbent Charles Rangel. This primary also involves what is the increasingly new development across the country of Black and Latino electoral competition, in this case the future of a longstanding tradition of Black political power in iconic Harlem against the rising political influence of a growing Dominican-American community in Northern Manhattan and Northwest Bronx. For an historical overview of this race, see NiLP's primer on it [click here].
While there has been much speculation about the outcome of this race and a growing narrative that Rangel, the incumbent, was losing ground to his Dominican challenger, Adriano Espaillat, a couple of new developments yesterday have complicated everyone's political calculations. First there was the news that the influential union, 1199SEIU, would be endorsing Rangel, with all the fieled operations that implies, and then in the evening, the results of a New York Times/NY1/Siena College Poll that put Rangel ahead.
According to the poll, if the primary was held today, Rangel would win by 9 percentage points, 41 percent to 32 percent for Espaillat. Rangel would get 68 percent of the Black vote, but only 35 percent of the White and 25 percent of the Latino vote. Espaillat would get only a slight majority (52 percent) of the Latino vote, 36 percent of the White and a miniscule 5 percent of the Black vote.
One major problem with the survey is that the Latino sample represents only 39 percent of the total, despite Latinos comprising 46 percent of eligible voters in the district. The margin of error for Latinos in the poll is the greatest --- plus/minus 8 percentage points --- despite being their being the largest part of the district's electorate. The margin of error is 4 percentage points overall and 5 points for Blacks. The pollsters indicated that they conducted the interviews in both English and Spanish.
The pollsters also pointed out that "In pre-primary polls like this, results can also be affected by low turnout, lightly held preferences, and last-minute campaign developments." The turnout in the 2012 Democratic Congressional primary in the district was only 14 percent of registered voters. One factor that the poll didn't examine was the potential role that labor unions could play in getting out the vote. The support that Rangel has just received from 1199SEIU, for example, could be pivotal in what is expected to be a low turnout race.
The breakdown of the Latino sample in the poll was 56 percent Dominican, 30 percent Puerto Rican, 1 percent Mexican, 13 percent other Latino, and 1 percent refused to answer. It has been observed the poll shows that Rangel had stronger support among his Black base (68 percent) than Espaillat did among his Latino base (52 percent). This could be the result of weaker Puerto Rican than Dominican support for Espaillat. In the 2012 primary, Rangel won the Puerto Rican vote (64 percent of the vote in East Harlem) and this year, while many more Puerto Rican elected officials are supporting Espaillat, he may at most split the Puerto Rican vote. Some argue that how Rangel performs among largely Puerto Rican voters in the East Harlem area in Manhattan could be decisive to the outcome.
Asked who they thought will win the primary, regardless of how they personally planned to vote, a majority (54 percent) thought it would be Rangel, and only 27 percent Espaillat, perhaps indicating the power of incumbency. While 73 percent of Blacks and 60 percent of Whites thought Rangel would win, only 36 percent of Latinos did. On the other hand, less than a majority of Latinos (46 percent) thought Espaillat would win.
There were also interesting differences in the candidates' name recognition. Rangel had by far the highest name recognition with only 17 percent saying they hadn't heard enough about him. In contrast, 43 percent hadn't heard enough of Espaillat. In a surprising development, Yolanda Garcia, who is generally viewed as the weakest candidate in the primary, had greater name recognition than Michael Walrond, who has much gotten better media coverage of his campaign: while 78 percent hadn't heard enough of Garcia, 83 percent hadn't heard enough of Walrond.
The shift of support from Rangel to Espaillat by Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito was widely viewed as a factor providing the Espaillat candidacy with new momentum. However, according to this poll, more than two-thirds (68 percent) indicated that they hadn't heard enough about her, which points to the limited role her support would carry in this district. The same percentage of Latinos as total voters also indicated they hadn't heard enough about her. In addition, support for Espaillat in Viverito's Council District has, at best, been uneven, with the defection of Viverito loyalists like Clark Peña remaining with Rangel and Espaillat supporter East Harlem Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez' political club, the Arturo Schomberg Democratic Club, voting to remain nuetral in the race.
While large majorities of Blacks (61 percent) and Latinos (59 percent) indicated that they were certain about their choice of candidate for the primary, only 34 percent of Whites indicated this level of certainty. Given that Whites are 17 percent of the district's eligible voters, and probably will turn out at higher rates than voters of color, this could result in Whites being the swing vote in this primary, along with Puerto Ricans.
The NiLP Network on Latino Issues is an online information service provided by the nonpartisan National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP). For further information, visit our website at www.latinopolicy.org.