Ryan Streeter
That we have been hearing non-stop about "middle class tax cuts" the past couple of days shows just how much the Democrats and the left own the concept of the middle class. But it's not at all clear that the middle class loves them as much as they say they love the middle class.
And on top of this, it's also not clear that working and middle class Hispanic families are so much in the Democrats' pocket that using the Dream Act will ultimately work as a wedge issue.
Michael Barone's analysis today at The American sheds some interesting light on the middle class and Hispanic vote last month.
While Democrats continued to do well among African Americans and what Barone calls "gentry liberals" (high-income, left-leaning voters), the GOP made substantial gains among Hispanics and working class voters. Barone looks at the districts in which Obama won by 60% or more in 2008, and then lists the percentage difference in the Republican vote in those districts in 2010. The results are astounding. While the GOP did fairly well in 2010 compared to 2008 in general, its strongest gains in these heavily Democratic districts were in the Hispanic and working class districts, as the chart below shows:
Newt Gingrich is showing a lot of insight, and foresight, by reaching out to Hispanic voters in such a public way. And blogger Matt Lewis has been writing for some time now about the important opportunity Republicans have before them with Hispanic voters - something GOP leadership should be thinking a lot about.
It's now time to throw the recent gains Barone documents into high gear by ensuring that the new group of Hispanic Republicans - from Marco Rubio in the Senate to Susana Martinez in New Mexico - are given a lot of airtime. They will likely, as a result of their newfound prominence, to be held to a slightly higher performance standard than other newly elected officials, but that's okay. Bobby Jindal, as an exciting non-white new governor, was held to a tough standard early on, and he has rebounded beautifully to a position of fairly strong prominence.
Equally as important is how the GOP capitalizes on its gains with working families. Ross Douthat recently wrote on ConservativeHome about the importance of making progress with middle class families by offering real, solid policy solutions that boost disposable income and create opportunity.
Barone's analysis shows that middle class families trended hard enough toward Republicans that it's hard to believe the Democrats will win too much ground with all their talk of "middle class tax cuts." However, without the kinds of policies Douthat talked about, these gains could vanish.
We'll be revisiting this theme a lot at ConservativeHome in the coming weeks.
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