In a post the other day, I debunked the claim that Romney would have been elected president if only he had won an additional 10 percent of Hispanic voters. Romney was too far down in swing states, and there were too few Hispanics there, for that to have changed the outcome. Using this interactive tool created by Nate Silver, I noted that doing three points better among whites, four points better among blacks, and two points better among Hispanics would have gotten the job done for Romney.
The post got a big reaction on twitter, with some people taking it to mean more than it does: e.g., “Trump doesn’t need Hispanics” to win the presidency. There are three reasons for caution about that conclusion. First: Use Silver’s tool for 2016 rather than 2012, and my suggested winning formula would generate a very narrow Republican defeat. That’s the impact of demographic change. (Of course, Silver’s assumptions about the make-up of the electorate in 2016 could be wrong. You can also look at this tool from Sean Trende and David Byler, which lets you tweak turnout assumptions.) Second: There’s no reason to assume that Romney found the floor for Hispanic support for Republicans. I can very easily see Trump doing worse (or rather, I could see it if I could see him as the nominee). Third: Getting an additional 3-4 percent of white voters is much easier said than done, and it’s not at all clear to me that coming out against birthright citizenship, etc., is the way to do it.
The boring truth of the matter is that if Republicans win the next election, they are likely to do so not by pursuing a strategy centered on Hispanic voters or one centered on white voters but by making improvements across the board. An economic agenda that could plausibly be said to offer something to households making $40,000 a year–white, Hispanic, or other–would help.
P.S. Playing around with these models, Pennsylvania really seems to be key. That’s not surprising when you consider that Obama got his 270th electoral vote in either Pennsylvania or Colorado, but I’m not sure it has sunk in with Republicans, who last won the state’s electoral votes in 1988, how pivotal it has become.