3) The 2014 election isn’t the 2012 election, part 2
The 2012 decision helped Obama carry a higher percentage of the Latino vote in his reelection campaign (71 percent) than in 2008 (67 percent). In fact, Latinos were one of very few demographic groups that actually increased their share of the Obama vote between 2008 and 2012. And that helped Obama carry heavily Hispanic swing states like Colorado, Florida and Nevada.
As the New York Times’s Nate Cohn noted Monday, though, very few battleground Senate races this year feature large Hispanic populations. In fact, there’s basically just one: Colorado. And it’s not yet considered pivotal for the Senate majority.
Where is the Senate majority likely to be decided? Red states. We have to wonder how voters in Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia would feel about such an executive order. And if the supposed big electoral benefit to Obama halting more deportations is that it increases Latino turnout, that impact won’t be felt much where it matters in the fight for the Senate this fall.
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