49, not 59

Reader Eric G points me to this Mystery Pollster post which notes that the Associated Press exit poll for texas, which had originally claimed that 59% of Texas Hispanics had voted for George Bush, has been revised.

In the Nov. 3 BC-ELN--Texas Glance and BC-TX Exit-Poll Excerpts, The Associated Press overstated President Bush's support among Texas Hispanics. Under a post-election adjustment by exit poll providers Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, 49 percent of Hispanics in the state voted for Bush, not a majority. The revised result does not differ to a statistically significant degree from Bush's 43 percent support among Texas Hispanics in a 2000 exit poll.

The revised BC-TX-Exit-Poll Excerpts showed that 20 percent, not 23 percent, of all Texas voters were Hispanic. They voted 50 percent for Kerry and 49 percent for Bush, not 41-59 Kerry-Bush.

I had posted on this topic before here and here. I believe that 49% is still a tad high, but it's at least plausible. Note also that they revised downward the estimated proportion of the electorate which was Hispanic from 23% to 20%. The two are clearly related, and in fact if that 20% number is too high, then the 49% number is as well.

Mystery Pollster has a good explanation for what probably went wrong in this poll, plus a number of links to check out. Obviously, 49% support is still higher than I'd like to see, and it represents a wake up call to the Democratic Party, but given Bush's outperformance in Texas of the other statewide Republicans, it's perhaps not indicative of a true trend. That doesn't mean we don't have our work cut out for us in 2006, though, that's for sure.

UPDATE: Ruy Teixeira notes that the estimate of Bush's Hispanic support nationally has dropped from 44% to 40%.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 03, 2004 to Election 2004 | TrackBack