August 18th, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution. They have become the norm.

[0:00:24 Speaker 1] At what point must a female senator raised her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room? Hello

[0:00:35 Speaker 0] and welcome to the second reading podcast for the week of August 17th. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. I’m joined again by Josh Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project. And this week I am happy to welcome as our guest, my friend and colleague Mark Jones. Mark is a fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University and a professor in the political science department. There, and relevant to our conversation today, he is the I think, fairly newly minted director of research and analytics for the nonprofit Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation. Thanks for joining us, Mark.

[0:01:16 Speaker 1] No, thanks. Thanks for having me on. It’s a pleasure.

[0:01:18 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s been it’s been too long. Eso we’ll catch up in public. Uh, you know, why don’t you start by telling us about the poll that you all just released? Um, as a joint project of the of the Texas Hispanic Public Policy Policy Foundation and the Baker Institute. What were you guys up to?

[0:01:41 Speaker 1] Well, the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation is a new foundation that was founded as a bipartisan neutral group to examine the policy preferences specifically of the Texas Hispanic population. With the idea being the Texas Hispanics, uh, will soon be the largest group in the states in terms of population, perhaps not in the 2020 census, but without question by the 2030 census. And so as a result, I think one of the things that we’re interested in is understanding the diversity in this population in terms of political preferences, attitudes towards public policies and the like. This survey is the first of many that will be conducting of both the overall population and then with an over sample of Texas Hispanics. The idea is both to be able to compare Texas Hispanics to members of other groups which requires the, of course, the overall survey, but then also the over sample of Texas Hispanics, which allows us to dive deeper into some details of differences in terms of language used in terms of immigration in terms of generation in terms of income, which is often not possible with the standard sample. Because you just don’t have enough variances, you start breaking up the group into smaller and smaller blocks.

[0:03:00 Speaker 0] Um, so there’s been a lot of discussion of trying to do this for a long time. So hats off to you guys for doing this. Um, you know, for, you know, let’s the gonna impose the model that we often adopt on you and let’s get Let’s get the headlines out of the way. Why don’t you tell us about the main findings you guys had in the presidential and Senate races? And then I want to circle back and talk a lot more about the over sample strategy and what you found out about Hispanics?

[0:03:28 Speaker 1] Sure. So on Sort of the top lines, we look at all registered voters. Donald Trump lead Joe Biden, 47.5 to 40.5, so it’s 7% advantage, with 10% undecided. When we limited to the most likely voters. The gap between the two narrowed with Trump at 49.5 and Biden at 44.1. So a 5.4 difference, UH, which is roughly half of what it was, for instance, back in 2016 when, uh, in Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. So in the Senate race it was. What we found was a little. I think it was somewhat more interesting on many respects in that, uh, John Cornyn’s lead over Democrat MJ Hager was somewhat more narrow than some other polls have been showing corn and was up among all voters, 44.4% to 37.4% 7%. And and if you limited to most, the most likely voters in his 46.8 to 40.7. So a 6.1%. But we also found of Hager is that she actually has the strongest net positive rating of any Texas politician, about about plus 13 now. She also has the largest proportion of people, about 28% who don’t know enough about her offer an opinion But what the data suggest is that there’s a lot of room there for both the corn and campaign, as well as the Hager campaign to define Hager as we approach November 3rd. And the more successful in J. Hager is and defining herself in a positive way. The closer this race is going to be on the other hand of Cornyn can effectively, uh, tar Haeger with the brush of being a essentially identical to a national liberal Democrat like Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. The corner is likely to be more successful. Aziz, we go towards November,

[0:05:19 Speaker 0] you know, I wanna bring Josh. And we’ve talked a lot about that Cornyn Hager race as something that’s just been on the back burner for for so long. Um, you know, Josh, I was wondering if you were you know, we were talking about these numbers for he came on. I mean, do you Do you feel like what Mark and his colleagues are finding is showing progress for Hager or not?

[0:05:44 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, I think so. I

[0:05:46 Speaker 0] think the way Mark

[0:05:46 Speaker 1] defined it is perfect, right? I mean, you know, Hager in some ways has basically been kind of conductor and conducting somewhat of a victory tour since she got into the Democratic primary. And, you know, I think there’s not a lot of you know, there’s a lot of not not a lot of negative attitude towards her amongst Texas Democrats. But I think the thing that you know these results kind of are interesting to me is I’m wondering now is we get to November whether the top of the ticket races are going to tighten it up like, are we going to see what I mean? This we see almost you know, the exact same difference in terms of, you know, the vote margin between Trump and Biden is we see between Hager and Cornyn, and we haven’t really seen that too much, right, because I mean generally Hager has been

[0:06:27 Speaker 0] trailing a little

[0:06:27 Speaker 1] bit Mawr, and so this is a sign that she’s tightening the race up. But one of things I kind of wonder is you know what is gonna be the difference in November between Let’s say, the Biden Trump race On the one hand, the Hager corn and race on the other. And then as we move down the ballot, a little bit to some of these less known races. You know, basically, you know, without straight ticket voting is basically, you know, does the margin of the top carry on through because that has some pretty big consequences. But I would say that this poll sort of seems to show that if the race is tightening up between corn and Hager, maybe we’re just going to see the partisans fall into their camps, and we’re gonna see pretty similar races across the board. I don’t know. What do you think, Mark? Why? I think that’s a good point. I mean, one of the real unknowns is what’s going to happen in the absence of straight ticket voting. And it could be that we still see the strong partisan linkage at the top of the ticket with since the president presidential race will be first, Senate race will be second, Congress will be third. Those 2 may have a stronger linkage. What? I’m really interested in seeing that we really won’t know that until actually, actually after by November 30 in the evening is how does that carry down to those Texas Statehouse races? They’re so crucial for control of the Texas House and control over redistricting in 2021. And so, if we would if it’s space, strongly straight tickets that you know may benefit Democrats mawr, uh, than Republicans. But if, on the other hand, we start to Seymour freelancing as we get further down the ballot or we see roll off, that is where some deep where somewhere and disproportionate roll off or say Democrats roll off earlier than Republicans. That could affect some of the down ballot races, particularly in the big counties where most of these, uh, or at least a large proportion of these competitive races air located in Dallas County in Harris County, where at least on voting machines, that statehouse races gonna be over on the second page. Not the third page, I think. Probably the second page.

[0:08:26 Speaker 0] You know, I’m wondering, uh, you know what? We’re gonna just jump into this sort of Texas electoral environment since we kind of moved into that. Um, you know, how are you think? I mean, you know, you sort of mentioned the length of the ballot. I mean, I think the the question of roll off is really one of the key questions here. and we don’t It feels to me like we don’t have a lot of good precedent to go on, particularly in this environment. So, you know, when you were mentioning the the higher likelihood that there would be, you know, the possibility of a higher tendency of Democratic roll off was that just I’m wondering if you think that there’s been embedded kind of analysis in there. You’re just suggesting that because, you know, I’ve wondered how we gauge, for example, the differential attitudes on the pandemic as a as a part of the impact on people’s decision to possibly get in to get into the voting booth, vote for the most science races and get out and whether attitudes about the pandemic effect that

[0:09:34 Speaker 1] I mean, they very well could. I mean, because that’s going to be a major issue. And it’s a really it’s not an issue for the mid size and smaller counties because they’re the ballots are going to be pretty small. It’s really it’s more of a Harris County, Dallas County, Tarrant County to a lesser extent, Travis and Bear County environment, where you have ballots, especially in Harris and Dallas County. That will be 90 races, 100 races long. And it’s there where if you’re both parties have to be concerned about what? What does. That voter who’s not all that happy about being there, has probably waited in the 20 or 30 minute line, Actually get to the polling place and they just want to get out of there as quickly as possible once they get to, uh, State Court of Criminal Appeals. Have no idea what

[0:10:25 Speaker 0] the state Court of

[0:10:25 Speaker 1] Criminal Appeals is on there saying, I’m done, Uh, and so it’s It’s really something that could affect. I would say it’s not going to affect the federal races because those air so up that those were the first three races at the top. But it is something that could very well affect the Statehouse races, which are further down and then, especially county races in the more competitive counties. You know, you know, Mark, you may, you may or may not have looked at this, but you have a pretty good right up in the report on attitudes towards the Republican Party and how they’ve been shifting. And I was wondering if you also asked about attitude towards the Democratic party because in terms of answering this question, it strikes me. I mean, you may or may not have looked at this yet, and I you could look at it later or whatever, but it does raise the question. You know, I just know I get these things happens to me all the time. It’s well, surely you’ve looked at this this thing and it’s like, Well, maybe so anyway, I caveat, but I mean, I wonder, you know, to what extent is there is there a difference between, you know, basically don’t have a difference? But amongst let’s say, you know, Texas voters who say they’re going to support Joe Biden. What is their attitude towards the Democratic Party? Because it seems to me that would provide us some insight into this question. Terms of saying where people showing up to vote against Donald Trump because of, you know, whatever the pandemic, they don’t like the way he acts, whatever throwing your reason. But beyond that, you know, do they have a positive effect of orientation towards the Democratic Party that might allow them to say, You know what? I’m going to take the time, and I’m gonna check every Democratic box down the list. We have not looked at that. I mean, we have that question, but we have not that that was gonna be in the third report. Uh, when we sort of drill down to that, we did look mawr in the in the this report we were more interested in and we and we had a pre post question on the Texas Republican Party. We did not have one of the Democratic Party, so we did ask people, uh, has your position on has your evaluation of the text The Republican Party changed since Donald Trump was elected in 2016 and 43% of Texans said yes, it has. And the shift is overwhelmingly negative among those individuals who have had a change. I love that. I’m sorry. I’ll be

[0:12:33 Speaker 0] real quick.

[0:12:33 Speaker 1] I love that question because we always have this sort of discussion about, shall we say, the Texas Republican Party or the Texas Democratic Party? Are we thinking about the national parties and a different points in time and space? You know, one makes more sense than the other, depending on I guess, you know whether the Texas you know often, really, we’re talking Texas Republican Party whether they’re Mawr less aligned with the National party, in this case with Trump. And it’s interesting to try to sort of separate it out a little bit. Yeah, actually, we wait around that. Whether to put the Texas in front of it or not. I sort of I put sort of was forcefully wanted to put Texas in large part because I’m interested in the extent to which I mean, I think there’s a clear indication and all the evidence shows that Donald Trump is dragging down the Texas GOP. Uh, that is that it has been hurt while he has been office in terms of its electoral success in terms of evaluations of it. And one thing that we wanted to look at is how have people’s opinion of the not the national GOP, but the Texas GOP. Have they changed? And it’s, you know, what’s really clear is that Donald Trump, you know, roughly one in five Texans now has a much more negative opinion of the Texas Republican Party than they did before Donald Trump was elected, compared to only 4% who have a more positive to the opinion.

[0:13:51 Speaker 0] Mhm. And And that was all over. All right, Mark?

[0:13:54 Speaker 1] Yeah, yeah.

[0:13:56 Speaker 0] I mean, I mean, I think that, you know, I mean, Josh and I were talking before this, and we’ve been, you know, like, digging through, You know, the data we have trying to figure out what the dimensionality of dissatisfaction with Trump is among Republicans, since in the overall numbers, his numbers have, you know, his numbers have not decade all that much.

[0:14:19 Speaker 1] I mean, what I think one of the things that was interesting with the survey results thus far that we’re just looking at them is in spite of his negative evaluation on Cove in 19 negative evaluation in terms of response Thio, police, police, deaths of African Americans in the hand of the police and just barely above water on immigration, he’s retained a lot of positive support. That is the evaluations of him or negative. But there are still people who are preferring him over Joe Biden.

[0:14:46 Speaker 0] Yeah, and and it makes me, you know, and we’ve seen that not only in his, you know, trial ballot numbers, but even in his overall numbers, you know, really, for the duration and I think that we almost gave up is too strong a word. But we were, you know, asking lots of questions. You know, just really plumbing. Like, what is the dimensionality of Trump supporters embrace of him. And it’s kind of hard to underline because, I mean, we have a couple of, you know, attributes kind of indicators, I think over the over the last couple of years. But by and large, you know, there’s just, you know, his numbers can move a lot or be sort of, you know, tepid and a lot of particular dimensions other than the economy. Really. Maybe it’s just that all of that doesn’t make sense now, but you can’t really get at, or it’s hard to get at exactly what it is that is providing the stickiness even as you guys is your guys. Numbers is showing. You know he’s hurting the Republican brand. He’s hurting people’s assessment of the Republican Party. He himself gets negative policy evaluations and let yet, by and large, his overall numbers hold.

[0:15:59 Speaker 1] Damn not uh I mean, I think it’s part, and I think one of the I think when we see those numbers what that might suggest potentially, at least this is something to be watched over the next few months is there’s reason to believe that the numbers may not tighten all that much if the coverage of Biden becomes more negative? Because Biden is pretty much had a luxury over the past six months, where he’s remained holed up in his basement and he comes out and he meets with the media on his own terms. Hey does conferences on his own terms. He does everything pretty scripted. He hasn’t been had to be sort of on the campaign trail off the cuff, the way that he probably will have to be at least a little Maura’s. We enter into September and October, and so there’s gonna be a real test for him in the sense candy of Boyd Gas that you know where he just says things that are embarrassing or counterproductive. Or can he avoid statements that lead to concerns that his cognitive abilities are some starting to fade? Given, you know, the reality is he turned 78 in November. Ronald Reagan after his second term and you know you and I are Jim were alive back then and watching Reagan remember There was a lot of concern about Reagan and whether he was up Thio being president back then, Uh and that was when and he he left office at age 77. And so I think, you know, it’s fair or not. There’s going to be a real focus on any slip up spot and makes because he is almost 78 years old. And so there is the possibility that, Ah, lot of people who are voting farm or against Donald Trump than for Joe Biden Uh, you know, and really we’re not talking about a huge number of people here. Maybe two or 3% they could start. They could either go back to Trump or they could sort of make a decision. You know, stay in the neither category. That’s I mean, that’s the interesting thing in all this. In some ways, I mean one. I think, you know, I I totally agree with everything you said, and it’s clearly not just, you know, I mean, it’s partially it’s e don’t know if there’s a there’s a bad no good way to say this, but it’s sort of it’s fortuitous, provided the circumstances because he doesn’t have to be out there. He doesn’t have to be in the spotlight or try to compete with Trump for the spotlight. I think he’s happy to just seat it to him and let him be the face of the pandemic response. Having said that, I mean, you’re right. I mean, Biden is gonna have to get out there more, but it does make you. I mean, does make me wonder. On the one hand, how long does the Biden gaffe stick in this environment? Or since we moved into this, you know, this news cycle, like I mean, can you I mean, I just can’t imagine anything, really? It all sitting in the news cycle for that long, Besides the pandemic at this point, or, you know, nightly protests in America cities. It’s just, you know, everything moves so fast. But the other side of it, I think, is what you said a super important, which is like, you know, and this goes back to where we started, which is, you know, is Texas uh, a 2.5 point Republican state of 5.5 Republican state. A 7.5 9.5, 12 I mean, what’s the advantage they have? And then you start talking about 2% moving either way, and it actually could start to make a difference to pound how you conceive of the electorate in 2020 right? Right? No, I agree. Yeah, because 2% could be it may not be consequential. I mean, I think the reality for the presidential races that’s only going to be consequential for symbolic reasons. Because if Donald Trump is losing Texas, he’s already lost Arizona and Georgia today in Florida, which, in which case, he has no hope whatsoever being president of United States. But where it matters is, is John Cornyn reelected? Uh, do the half dozen vulnerable congressional Republicans, because are the seats at least? So you know Ken Troy. What happens to Troy Nails in down here in Fort Bend County in Texas? 22 are to Chip Roy in Texas 21 or two best and dying up in Texas. 24 you know. Do do they are Michael McCall in Texas. 10. Do they lose, um, or do they win? And then I think, and then what I think is fundamentally important is those Texas House races will have a real major impact on the congressional balance of power for the next decade. And so the Democrats were able to get down there and flip those nine seats that we’re gonna have a very different both Texas congressional delegation, but also US congressional delegation, because without that surplus from Texas, it becomes farm or difficulty for national Republicans to imagine going back to majority status in the near future.

[0:20:28 Speaker 0] So let’s talk about that a little bit, because I wanna, you know, I’m happy to be able to ask someone else this, Um, you know, I mean, Josh and I have been talking recently, you know, as we sort of talked to people around town here in Austin. Muchas you can under the circumstances. You know, there’s this growing sense in the capital community here that that the house is gonna flip. Now that’s could be group think that could be being, You know, there’s a lot of reasons that could be wrong, and my own sort of conservative impulse sort of feels a little or my You know, my intellectually conservative impulse tells me I’ll believe it when I see it, but I’m wondering like you know how how it looks from where you are. There’s obviously obviously a lot of competitive, you know, just a handful of competitive seats in the Houston area. Um, what’s your what’s your sense of how that looks?

[0:21:23 Speaker 1] What I think you know. I think the key is to think about it in terms of tranches. And there’s the In the end, the Democrats need a net gain of nine seats, which requires doing three things, uh, protecting their most vulnerable feats. And that would be, say, Gina Kalani down here in Harris County 1 32 and then some other people, like, maybe, uh, errands. Weiner and Vicky, Good good one. And James Talarico more up in the Austin area. Michelle Beckley up in Denton County. So that’s the first thing they have to do it. And if I actually look at that, I think Democrats are pretty well positioned to protect most of those seats. That is, if you if you if I was doing, I wouldn’t probably adverse to an even money bet where I say no Democratic loses, although you know this guy could be one or two losing. But that’s the first step that Democrats have to do protect their existing C. The second is toe flip, the vulnerable Republicans probably the most vulnerable being Morgan Meyer up in Dallas. But then also people like androgen button in Dallas. Uh, Sarah Davis to seat down Houston. Duane Boac sold seat. That’s open here in Houston. Matt Shaheen’s up in Uh uh, that’s a Collin County. And then, um, I guess you know Bill’s Adler’s old seat in Tarrant County. And that’s another group on there, about six seats there. And so, though that’s the second thing that I think that is possible to do, although winning all six of those seats is difficult, but not impossible. But then you get to the next step is they’re gonna have to then win three seats where presently, I think we’d say that the Republican has an advantage that could be in the open seat down here in Fort Bend 26 where Jaycee Jetton was governor. Abbott spent a lot of time and a lot of money to make sure that J. Cvjetan, who’s ah, Asian American Republican from Fort Bend County, one that, uh, seat he did that gives Republicans an advantage. There you have Jeff Leach in Collin County, Lynn Stucki in Denton County. Uh, those were also, you know, seats Where I, you know, we have to give the Republican advantage. Uh, so I think we’re in a situation where Democrats to get those Final three seats, they’re gonna have to flip some hard to flip seats. So if you think all the probability of all three of those things occurring together, I think we have to say it’s less than 50 50. But you know this point, I’d say, at least you know, give it a one in three shots, depending on how and this goes back to that. What you and Joshua both saying, though, depending on how things are at the top of the ticket, is we hit in November. The worst things are for the Republican Party, the better the odds. These down ballot races go Democrat. If Trump Trump is in corner, for instance, we’re able to widen the gap with Biden and M J Heger thin. The better things were looking for the down ballot Republicans,

[0:24:08 Speaker 0] but the Democrats have toe tell all their voters to make sure they finish their ballots.

[0:24:12 Speaker 1] Yeah, yeah, to vote all the way down and particularly for these House races, we’re gonna have a lot of people turning out who have no idea what house district they live in. And I haven’t really thought about it all that much.

[0:24:24 Speaker 0] Yeah, and it’s Ah, yeah. I mean, I think it’s a tricky I mean, I think trying to figure out the the relationship between the top of the ballot and the very bottom of the ballot is a lot trickier this year, for you know, the combination of the reasons we’ve talked about. Um, you know, I feel like it was malpractice If I didn’t say since you’re right there in Houston and I don’t remember where in town you live, what do you What do you know about the about? District 1 34 is where Sarah Davis’s

[0:24:53 Speaker 1] rocks. I’m sitting in 1 34 right now. I

[0:24:56 Speaker 0] thought you might be eso

[0:24:59 Speaker 1] won 34 is a very interesting because if you had any representative other than Sarah Davis and this would be a solid blue district, at least the likely Democratic district that we wouldn’t be talking about it. But Sarah Davis has established a personal brand of someone who’s an independent thinker who’s not in lockstep with the Republican Party and is her own person. And she happens to do it in the best educated district in the entire state of Texas, that is. No district has mawr, college educated residents and people with postgraduate degrees than 1 34 so it’s a very sophisticated electric. It’s also a Democratic electorate that doesn’t like to think that they are straight partisan voters. But what rather that they are people who choose the best candidate who just happens to be a Democrat most of the time, and

[0:25:52 Speaker 0] we caught them lying. Independence. Yeah,

[0:25:54 Speaker 1] that Zack, they’re they’re lying independence that at an extreme. But there’s creates cognitive dissonance for them because Aziz intellectual, educated, thinking, people they do not want to believe that they are the famous. They hyperpartisan. And so one thing Sarah Davis allows them to do. Previously there were two people. County judge it in it and, uh, who is a moderate Republican and then Sarah Davis that they could say, Well, I vote for I vote primarily democratic, but I vote for the best candidates and house district of Sarah Davis and county judges, academic now that didn’t help Ed Emmett. I get with the Beto tsunami last election but swamped him out and brought in Lena Hidalgo. But it did save Sarah Davis, in part because Sarah Davis has the luxury end m and had to compete Countywide, where you don’t have as many of those voters where David Sarah Davis has the whole district full of them. So the difficulty I think Sarah Davis is going to run into this cycle is one. She has a stronger opponent this year than last cycle than 2018 and Johnson and last in 2018. The Democrats, by and large, left her alone. Uh, they didn’t really campaign too hard against her. Now, with redistricting in control of the house on the line, uh, that Democratic love for Sarah Davis has now gone, and the focus is on electing Ian Johnson. So I think Davis is going to have the toughest election of her political career in terms of trying to still convince people to vote for her in spite of the fact that she has in our next door neighbor,

[0:27:29 Speaker 0] Sarah Davis getting ghosted by Democrats. How sad. Um, I’m just glad you used the love, the love metaphor that enabled me to do that. So before we run out of time, let’s let’s go back and talk a little bit more about your Hispanic over sample. And, you know, I guess I would say this. You know what? You know, you talked about our need to learn about you know, the more subtle aspects of Hispanic population of state what you learn.

[0:27:55 Speaker 1] Well, I mean, one thing we were interested in looking at is some generational issues, and we found mixed results in the sense that, uh, the biggest gap in this may have something to do with age. We haven’t. Well, look at this in our third report. But first generation Latinos are the most strongest. Biden supporters in the most anti trump second generation actually support Trump over, uh, over Biden. But then as you get the third generation plus, Biden has a modest advantage. So we’re gonna need to look into that. Another thing we found. I think this was very interesting. Was that there’s a real different based on the language that you use at home. If you primarily use Spanish or Onley you Spanish, then we saw Biden with a 48 to 25 advantage over Trump. But if we flip it over and say people who speak only English or mostly English, then Trump has a very narrow 44 to 43 advantage. So there. And I think that’s one of the things that there’s often, I think, an archetype that gets, uh, created by the media as well as some elites of what a Latino is or what a Hispanic is. And it shows there’s variance that is, in terms of in terms of who they are, whether they speak Spanish, not speak Spanish. And then we also have a similar finding related to, uh, ancestry. About two thirds of Latinos have, uh, four Hispanic grandparent’s uh and then among them you have a 49 to 36 advantage for Biden over Trump. But once you get thio Hispanics who have somewhere between +12 or three Hispanic grandparent’s meaning, they have one grand parent who is not Hispanic. Then Trump and Biden are effectively tied. But Biden, 44 Trump 42. So there’s a lot of variants out there. Uh, one final factor we found is that college educated Latinos. Uh, those with four years or postgraduate degree were favored Trump by a 10 point margin. Whereas all other Latinos it was Biden over Trump by about 2025 point margin, about 20 points. Try 20 point mark. You

[0:30:02 Speaker 0] know, I think all this intersects interest, you know, interestingly with, you know, decades of scholarship on ethnic ethnic political identity, particularly in terms of Latinos, um, you know, and how you compare Latinos to the Anglo population over time as you as you cross across generations as you go across generations, you know, now, Josh and I were talking. We were particularly stuck struck by the interesting education inversion there that the pattern is actually the opposite of what you find. All things being equal among Anglos,

[0:30:35 Speaker 1] right? And so I mean, that’s where that could be a financially. That’s where we need. That’s really I think that’s what a lot of what this poll is telling us that we need mawr data and we need to go back and look at these issues. And that’s one of the reasons why we did this initial poll. We’re going to do a much larger poll in the future that tries to really dig down into some of these issues because one thing we didn’t ask in this questionnaire about is sort of national origin. In part, just we’re limited on time. But But we do know that a lot of the individuals with four year in postgraduate degrees often come from places other than Mexico. I mean, there’s still a representative proportion, but if you look at the proportion of people from South America, uh, in particular when they come to the United States, a much larger share of them tend to be college educated than is the case for people from Mexico and Central America. And so there’s going to be part of the degree. But we since we don’t have that origin question, we can’t get at it.

[0:31:31 Speaker 0] Well, you know, I mean, I think you know the other thing that then gets tossed is in there. And you know, the the national origin thing, I think is probably part of this is I also thought that yeah, you were talking about you mentioned in passing a minute ago, the the tendency of people to make the wrong assumptions about about Hispanics, particularly in Texas, and I thought the other thing I noticed. And and for people who have studied Latin America like you, this is not surprising. But the difference in the political profile between Catholic and Protestant Hispanics, you know, I think, really flies in the face of what for years was I think the assumption that because you had, you know, a Hispanics we’re gonna be, you know, the vast majority. And it’s a big majority Still are gonna be Catholic, but they’re gonna be uniformly social. Socially conservative doesn’t really play out in the data that you guys have collected. And it really speaks to, you know, having a more nuanced understanding of the politics of of Catholicism and inside the Catholic Church and the cultural attitudes there. But it also underlines, you know, the need for attention to the growth of evangelical Protestantism among Hispanic groups and in Texas. I strongly suspect that while some of that certainly could be is found, we know from demographics and stuff that’s already been done among Mexican Americans. It’s also the impact among Central Americans. Were evangelical churches have made such significant inroads, right?

[0:33:00 Speaker 1] Right? No. If you go to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, today you’re going to find farm or active participants in evangelical Protestant churches than Catholic churches, you still may have a share of the population that’s relatively similar even slightly more Catholic. But if you actually ask a second survey question about frequency of attendance, then you know if you, if your definition of religion requires somebody to at least attend church once a month. Uh, then Protestants were going toe. Evangelical Protestants were going to outnumber Catholics in, uh in all the Central American countries.

[0:33:34 Speaker 0] Josh, what else did you notice about the Hispanic sample? Because we wind down on time?

[0:33:40 Speaker 1] Yeah, I mean, one of the I mean one specific thing that maybe something more summit of about this, I think is interesting. I mean, you know, the other thing that sort of strikes me. We’ve been looking at this in our data to is the difference between Hispanic men and women in their orientations. And I mean, it’s something that you were working with a colleague on right now, and it’s kind of ah, this servant aside. But, you know, this colleague has been particularly interested in sort of understanding kind of white male grievance or sort of white male threat is Ah is a political factor, and he’s defined it that way. But it’s funny because we’re taking some items from our one of our previous polls or a couple of our previous polls and created a bit of a measure. And, you know, the measure kind of access you’d expect people, especially white men, high on white male grievance, basically, you know, moving very, very conservative direction. But the interesting thing about it was you also saw this effect among Hispanic men, but not what Hispanic women and not really other groups. And, you know, it sort of makes you think about you know, this idea of the Hispanic electorate that you know again, if you know anything about it in Texas, it’s not ah, University. It’s not a monolith. It’s not universally Democratic. There’s always, you know, somewhere between Japan, whose measure you want to take 20 and 40% of the electorate of Hispanic electorate. That that is, you know, for all intensive purposes, Republican conservative voters. Um, but this sort of you know, to someone, in some ways, really I think is you know, it’s interesting, cause this is another survey that kind of starts to look at this, you know, there’s there’s something may be going on here with gender and among Hispanics in a way that I think you know, is is super interesting. And then, just as a summit of thing is, we get out. I mean, what strikes me in all of this is we sort of layout these generational differences, you know, differences of origin and all that is, you know, how dynamic the selector it’s gonna be. I mean, ultimately, we’re taking a snapshot now as they keep growing. But I always, you know, sort of, you know, look at the census data, you know, acknowledge the fact that if we look at the under 18 population in Texas, it’s overwhelmingly Hispanic. And if you think about all these factors that you know you’re talking about about, you know, again, number of parents were, you know, Hispanic or grand, parents were Hispanic. Uh, you know, first generation and second generation naturalized, and I mean, ultimately, you know, even once we get a grip on the you know what, we think we get a grip on the Hispanic electorate. It’s going to get bigger. It’s gonna have a bunch of new entrance, and it’s probably going to change a little bit. And I mean, that’s kind of almost why this work to me is so important and so interesting because it’s really starting toe get at. What are the key factors here is we start to understand, really what’s gonna be a majority of the texts electorate? Eventually? No, no, I agree. I mean, e. I think that the male female difference is one that’s very interesting to look at because, really, when we talk about Texas Texas Republicans having strong support within the Latino population, we’re really talking about Latino men that it was just Latino women. Then the gap would be much larger. And that’s where it’s unclear. E think it was. Lee Atwater used to use a term was a Republican strategist called Trucker Hat. Latinos, uh, but effectively, you know the extent to which there are Latino men? Yeah, but it was. It was effectively saying, to the extent to which Latino men who shared identities are closer to those of Anglo men who who share a similar class background, often working class or middle class, as opposed to with recent immigrants, that is their lives. Their lives were much more intersected with their neighbors. Who were these Anglo men and therefore their identities were closer to them as long as you have, As long as the Republican Party avoids racist policies like, say, the SP 10 70 in Arizona to show me your papers legislation it that you know, that was where or, you know, some of the Pete Wilson, uh, prop with Prop 1 82. I was. I mean, the fact is, even when we pull on these, you know, seemingly divisive issues At least we expect to be divisive. You know, specifically in the Hispanic community, you know, way still tend to find that core of, you know, again, between 20 and 40% and say, yeah, you know, show your papers, right? I mean, we have in our polling, at least throughout this. So it

[0:37:35 Speaker 0] zoo there where you locate that limit, The limit cases, really not always where you would expect it to be, you know, and I think in terms of kind of associate, all you know, not that this is what I really Well, anyway, I mean, in terms of sociology, of academic research and kind of sociology of knowledge. Over time, I think we were late to kind of realize that. I think, you know, it’s one of the areas where insufficient attention to gender, you know, in the early waves of ethnic studies. You know what used to be called ethnic studies, you know, kind of missed a lot of that, and we’re playing catch up on that. And it’s one of the things that makes the data really valuable.

[0:38:14 Speaker 1] Yeah, it’s trying to essentially provide that look at the diversity within the community, as opposed to sometimes politicians on both sides of the spectrum and elite, having tends to be the one to try to present it as a monolith supporting their point of view, which and that just isn’t the case.

[0:38:33 Speaker 0] And I think that is why this is important and why we’re glad to have you on. So Mark, Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Keep it up.

[0:38:41 Speaker 1] Thanks, Jim.

[0:38:42 Speaker 0] And let’s stay in touch. So thanks to Mark Jones for being here, thanks to Josh, as always, thanks to the crew in the College of Liberal Arts, the liberal arts development studio, uh, you’ll confined. Uh, the data we’ve been discussing at the website of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation will also have links to results in the poll tracker and on the block page for this podcast, as always at the Texas Politics Project website, Texas politics dot utexas dot e d u. So thanks to everybody for listening, and we’ll be back next week. Second reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin