Al’s Loupe

How Obama won

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com

President Barack Obama has won reelection, a victory that will protect his landmark health care legislation and offer him a chance to extend his agenda into a second term.

There are many reasons for the President’s reelection success: from Romney’s flip-flopping, lies and 47% statement, to Hurricane Sandy and Governor Chris Christie’s hug. Kudos must also go to a team of professional, political strategists who are state of the art and may be the finest this country has ever seen. It’s not by chance that the president won every single swing state except North Carolina: the team’s strategy for victory – a change from 2008 when Obama had grassroots operations in almost all 50 states.

This year they turned their attention to about 15 states Obama needed to win the election. By election night those 15 had boiled down to nine: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. This, they’d determined, was the winning path to the more than 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.

What follows are numbers I’ve put together using personal sources, media from around the country, and the help of pollsters like Latino Decisions.

Some of the numbers

Looking at the national picture and focusing on Florida as the sample state, which helps explain what happened nationally except, of course, for the Cuban republican vote out of South Florida – an anomaly we’ve come to expect. Interestingly, and may I add happily, Cuban republicans in Florida may have been exposed this election and seen its voting bloc power suffer at the expense of other Latino groups from throughout Florida.

Let’s start with some facts. White men went with Mitt Romney in a large way (59%). That was expected. And black voters went overwhelmingly with Obama (more than 90%). So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Women, who should be given as much credit as any other subgroup for the president’s victory, went with Obama by a 12 point margin (55% to 43%), just a one point drop from 2008. I mention the importance of women voters because they comprise 54% of registered voters in the U.S.

The youth vote was also important. The president garnered 60% of persons voting between the ages of 18 and 29. Of note here is the fact that nationally this figure was down as compared to 2008, but in the swing states needed for victory, Obama’s share of the youth vote improved as compared to his first election. Like I mentioned earlier, state of the art strategists at work here.

Latinos flexed their muscle

Republicans woke up on November 7 and realized that their message and exclusionary philosophy must change going forward. Unless they’re willing to face extinction. And note there was little mention of the Tea Party this time around. Except, of course, when their candidates were falling by the wayside and losing elections last Tuesday.

Nationally, Latinos favored President Obama by 72 percent – a whopping 44 percent margin. And a more than 10 percent increase from 2008. The state where the president’s numbers jumped highest (as compared to 2008) among Latinos was Colorado, where he got 74% of their vote. In Florida, President Obama won 60% of the Hispanic vote, a jump upward from 57% in 2008.

Of importance here is the dwindling power of the Cuban republican bloc. Before Obama, republicans usually carried the Latino vote in Florida. It now seems a thing for the history books.

Cubans in Miami may be loud. But Puerto Ricans in the central part of the state may have become the sexiest Hispanics in political circles these days – the group who may have decided the Florida election. With a large and growing number centered around Florida’s I-4 Highway that connects Tampa and Orlando, after this election Puerto Ricans will become the largest Hispanic voting subgroup in the state.

I mention Puerto Ricans because of their sheer numbers. But exit poll breakdowns of the participation by other Latino communities was as impressive, and at times even more impressive than the Puerto Rican.

Exit polls tell us that in Florida, 95% of Dominicans voted for Obama. Central Americans came in at 76%, Puerto Ricans at 72%, South Americans at 70%, Mexicans at 69% and finally the Cubans at somewhere between 35 and 49%, depending on what poll you look at.

Is the 2012 presidential election the dawn of a new coalition of voters not interested in Democrats or Republicans, but what’s best for the country? If we continue to see women, young voters, black voters, and the ever-growing numbers of the Latinos coming together for the good of the country, I can suddenly see a glimmer of hope going forward.

Who knows? Maybe that’s the “hope” Obama talked about in 2008.

Finally! Rivera booted out

David Rivera lost. To Joe Garcia. The good news: things seem to be changing in South Florida. One more name I’d like to throw out there: Jose Javier Rodriguez, a young, progressive democrat. A son of Cubans. And hopefully what future South Florida politicians will look like… Let’s hope so. This relative unknown beat Alex Diaz de la Portilla for a state house seat by walking the district and knocking on doors. What a novel idea…

Tuesday, November 6, definitely a good night for South Florida progressives. And for others around the U.S.