Poor Showing By Latino Candidates In Calif. Raise Questions
By Tony Castro, Voxxi
Did the increase in Latino voters heighten expectations so that some failures at the polls brought about disappointment and allegations of being organizationally unprepared?
Those questions are being raised because of the apparently poor showing of Latino candidatesin several congressional districts where Hispanics make up at least 40 percent of the population.
“Latino candidates did not do nearly as well as they could have but did a lot better than they would have before lines were redrawn,” says Dan Schnur, a political analyst at the University of Southern California.
Latino population statistics, however, can be misleading given that in many instances a large percentage of those residents are too young to vote or cannot vote because they are not citizens — a phenomenon especially true in rural districts in the state’s agricultural regions.
Additionally, some analysts naively assumed that there would be great potential for Latinos to gain as many as six congressional seats when the new California Citizens Redistricting Commission redrew political lines after the 2010 Census.
But redistricting after the 1990 and 2000 Censuses had already corrected some of the gerrymandering that had left Latinos out of congressional representation.
The most obvious omission remaining was the San Fernando Valley part of Los Angeles where Latino residents and advocates such as MALDEF had threatened legal action after the 2000 redistricting failed to provide a safe district for a likely Hispanic winner.
The Citizens Redistricting Commission targeted the Valley and created a revamped 29th District where Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas, a Democrat, will face token opposition in November en route to becoming the newest Latino congressman in the state’s 53-member House delegation.
To mold Cardenas’ district, the Redistricting Commission forced two veteran incumbents —Democrats Howard Berman and Brad Sherman — into an altogether newly redrawn district where the winner will be decided in a costly campaign to be waged all the way to the November general election.
The two candidates are expected spend more than $5 million in the campaign which is likely to become one of the costliest in history by the time it’s over. The upshot is that some analysts say it has focused both attention and money that could have helped Democrats — some of them Latino candidates — in other races.
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One of the most disappointing congressional races for Democrats was in the new District 31 in San Bernardino County where party leaders had high hopes for Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, though one wonders why.
The district has a Republican incumbent and, although the district is 41 percent Hispanic, the pool of eligible Latino voters is considerably smaller. Aguilar got only 22 percent and finished third behind two Republicans, including Rep. Gary Miller. Under the state’s new top-two primary system, in which the top two finishers regardless of party goes to the general election, Aguilar was out.
“Realistically, anyone who expected Aguilar to do well in that district was living in a political fantasy,” says GOP consultant William Orozco. “Too many factors were working against him.”
Democrats have a five-percentage-point edge in registered voters in the district, and Aguilar missed finishing in one of the top two spots that would have gotten him into the general election by about 1,000 votes.
But a closer examination of the race shows how Democrats failed to capitalize on the opportunity. Although Aguilar was backed by the Democratic Party, his chances were undermined by a trio of other Democrats on the ballot, including Latina Rita Ramirez-Dean, who combined received a quarter of the votes — far more than the number Aguilar needed.
“So long as Democrats — and in particular, Latino Democrats — continue to fight one another in district where they have such a narrow chance of success, they play into the hands of Republicans,” says Orozco.
Latino political expectations in California have been bolstered by figures showing Hispanic registration at 3.26 million out of a voting age population of 8.85 million and a citizen voting age population of 5.19 million. But those same statistics show a 62.8 percent voter registration rate among Latinos, compared to 67.1 percent for African Americans and 69.9 percent for whites.
Another congressional race where Latinos may be drawing unfair criticism is District 36. That district belongs to Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack, who succeeded her late husband, singer Sonny Bono, after his death in 1998. She is now married to Rep. Connie Mack, R-Florida.
There is no reason to believe that Democrat Raul Ruiz has a reasonable chance of unseating a seven-term congresswoman who continues winning re-election by comfortable margins. Although the district population is 47 percent Hispanic, many of those residents are not of voting age or not legally eligible to vote.
Still, Ruiz supporters are hoping for lightning to strike.
“He has made it to November,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. “So now he has to energize the Latino base.”
This article first appeared in Voxxi.
Los Angeles-based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” (E. P. Dutton, 1974) and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son” (Brassey’s, 2002). His rite of passage memoir, “The Prince of South Waco: Images and Illusions of a Youth,” will be published in 2013.
[Photo by ziptrivia]