Mcclatchy DC/Marist released a poll in the wee hours yesterday morning with the headline Poll: 25 Percent of Sanders Voters Would Shun Clinton. In it, the poll describes a 2 point national advantage for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary. That in itself isn’t particularly noteworthy given the margin of error, however, there is something revealed in the poll that it is doubtful anyone in the news will discuss:
Sanders is currently leading Clinton among Latino voters by 32 points nationally.
Sanders, an independent, edges Clinton nationally thanks to solid support from several groups. He leads 76-23 percent among those 29 and younger; 63-31 percent among Latinos; 62-32 among independents; 58-38 among the unmarried; and 56-42 among liberals.
This may come as a surprise, but it was trending this direction for some time. NBC/Marist did a poll in Illinois in the week leading up to the primary where Sanders was leading among Latinos by 34 points but was still projected to lose by six (he lost by two). MSNBC actually reported on this.
This is further supported by showing Sanders winning all but one predominately Latino district in Chicago by an average of 10 points.
And Illinois wasn’t the only evidence of this. As early as Nevada this became an issue. And in Colorado you see it more clearly:
The Sanders campaign pointed to his vote leads in 10 of the 15 counties where Latinos make up the largest shares of Democrats. The largest in that group carried by Clinton was Pueblo County, which she won by just under 5 percentage points.
Wisconsin may be the clearest example of how steady this demographic has become, or would be if reporters included the exit polling for Latinos (and other groups) in Wisconsin (or even most states).
The headline of the night everywhere seemed to be that Clinton won black voters by 38 points and Sanders won white voters by 19 points. Additionally, CNN adds all other non-white voters to the black voter totals to get 43% Sanders support and 57% Clinton support from non-white voters.
But there’s a revealing detail hidden in those numbers. If black support for Sanders is 31% and non-white support for Sanders including black voters is 43%, excluding black voters gives you over 60% sanders support for remaining non-white voters. Sanders lost the non-white vote by 14 points in Wisconsin, but Clinton lost the non-black vote by more than 20. And if Latino support is the same as the Marist poll shows nationally, she lost by similar margins across every non-black demographic in the state.
This is less a coincidence given the repeated Marist polling of Latinos in Illinois and nationally with upwards of 60 percent support for Sanders. Or Sanders winning 66% of Latino-populous districts in Colorado by large margins. While it’s true that Clinton won Latino votes in Texas and Florida by large margins, there’s no polling showing her having won the Latino vote in any other state.
Why is this relevant?
First, it's almost guaranteed that anyone mentioning this poll will completely ignore the margin of support Sanders has among Latinos, the same as they’ve omitted exit polling results in states where Sanders was polling heavy favorability with Latinos going into the race.
But most importantly, given that both campaigns have to be completely aware of this polling even if we have to parse it out, it explains why Clinton wants to end the race in New York and why Sanders will be running at least until June 7th.
On April 14th, New York has a primary. Here are its demographics: 57% white, 18% black, 19% Latino, 9% Asian. It's 82% non-black voters and the third-largest remaining population of black voters. It has about 250 pledged delegates.
On June 7th, California has a primary. Here are its demographics: 44% white, 32% Latino, 6% black, 11% Asian. It's 94% non-black voters with half the black population as the rest of the country and one of the largest populations of Latino voters. It has about 500 pledged delegates.
California is also the second-largest Asian population in the country, behind Hawaii. And while Hawaii is for some reason discounted in punditry as being demographically ideal for Sanders because of its wihteness, it’s only 23% white. What it actually has is a black voter population of 3%, giving it a non-black voter population of 97%.
The demographic story of this race isn't really that Sanders can't win groups other than white voters. The growing reality is that Clinton seems to have lost every demographic but black voters.