Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?
The headlines coming out of the Super Tuesday primaries have got it right. Barring cataclysmic changes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president in 2024.
With Nikki Haley's withdrawal, there will be no more significantly contested primaries or caucuses -- the earliest both parties' races have been over since something like the current primary-dominated system was put in place in 1972.
The primary results have spotlighted some of both nominees' weaknesses.
Donald Trump lost high-income, high-educated constituencies, including the entire metro area -- aka the Swamp. Many but by no means all Haley votes there were cast by Biden Democrats. Trump can't afford to lose too many of the others in target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Majorities and large minorities of voters in overwhelmingly Latino counties in Texas's Rio Grande Valley and some in Houston voted against Joe Biden, and even more against Senate nominee Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).
Returns from Hispanic precincts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts show the same thing. Biden can't afford to lose too many Latino votes in target states like Arizona and Georgia.
When Trump rode down that escalator in 2015, commentators assumed he'd repel Latinos. Instead, Latino voters nationally, and especially the closest eyewitnesses of Biden's open-border policy, have been trending heavily Republican.
High-income liberal Democrats may sport lawn signs proclaiming, "In this house, we believe ... no human is illegal." The logical consequence of that belief is an open border. But modest-income folks in border counties know that flows of illegal immigrants result in disorder, disease and crime.
There is plenty of impatience with increased disorder in election returns below the presidential level. Consider Los Angeles County, America's largest county, with nearly 10 million people, more people than 40 of the 50 states. It voted 71% for Biden in 2020.
Current returns show county District Attorney George Gascon winning only 21% of the vote in the nonpartisan primary. He'll apparently face Republican Nathan Hochman, a critic of his liberal policies, in November.
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