The correlation between Hispanic CD percentages and the swing to the GOP in CA CD's in 2022

[Torie]

Regarding the purported Hispanic swing to the GOP this cycle, I decided to do a deep dive into CA. Below is a link to a scattershot diagram with a trend line overlay, which compares the Hispanic percentage in each CA CD to the percentage that the GOP candidate (where there was a GOP candidate – the was none in 5 CD’s), ran ahead of the Trump 2020 percentage. There was a correlation (with a rather weak T stat).

My conclusion is that the correlation was more due to very low, indeed shockingly low, Hispanic turnout, rather than Hispanics switching their partisan preference vote. One weird thing is that the Dem percentage in the Hispanic portion of the San Fernando Valley had a huge collapse (a whopping 17.63% swing from 76% to Biden to 59% for the Dem CD candidate (both percentages rounded)), along with the typical turnout collapse. What is up with that? The lowest swing, 0.66%, was in, you guessed it, the very high turnout coast north of San Francisco.

[ottermax]

Regarding the San Fernando Valley seat (I assume you are referring to CA-29 Cardenas) it was a Dem vs. Dem contest with Duenas running to the left of Cardenas. So you should probably leave the Dem vs Dem contests out of this type of analysis as it may obfuscate things.

One thing I am really curious about is how much the raw numbers for Democrats decreased compared to 2018 or 2020. It looks like turnout was abysmal.

Where did you get the house vote data? I'd like to do some additional analysis but would prefer not to manually enter all the data.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

All I know is I'm already sick of the California talk that's come out of this election. I don't remember if it's worse than 2014 when the GOP actually picked up some state legislative seats and brought some statewide races to single-digits.

I can't wait for the statement of votes and more counties to certify so we can get more detailed analysis regarding turnout vs persuasion.

[Torie]

First, thank you for explaining the CA-29 anomaly. That brings to 7 districts, elections where there was no GOP candidate on the ballot. Those 7 districts have been excluded from the analysis.

As leavened by candidate quality/incumbency, it appears that the GOP swing in CA from Trump 2020 to 2022 Congressional races was driven more by the disproportionate failure of Biden voters to turnout than a swing by Hispanics per se. While there is not a statistically significant correlation between the Hispanic percentage of a CD and GOP swing percentage, there most definitely is one between the percentage decline in turnout in a CD and GOP swing from 2020 to 2022.



Here is a scatter diagram chart. I have labeled some of the CD’s of interest, particularly those farthest from the trend line. It does appear that the bulk of the CD’s farthest from the trend line have to do with incumbent candidate quality.



Here is a chart with the raw data from which the above is derived. I have identified CD’s that don’t fit into the pattern (e.g., low turnout/low Hispanic percentage, high Hispanic percentage/ low swing, high turnout/high swing, low turnout/low swing).

[ottermax]

Yes this data confirms my suspicions that 2022 in CA was more of a story of low Hispanic turnout especially among Hispanic democrats.

I am really curious about the candidate quality situation in CA-27... is Garcia that popular or is Smith really that disliked?

In case anyone is wondering why the Sacramento area numbers seem low turnout - Sacramento still hasn't completed counting tens of thousands of votes along with Placer county.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Sorry, this just doesn't cut it with me
At the end of the day, we don't know if the hispanics that didn't show up this year that might be more likely to vote in say, 2024, are still as democratic as they were in years past.