Van de Putte will not materially increase Latino turnout
The dumbest thing I heard in the last week was: "Leticia Van de Putte will increase Latino turnout."
This is where I get to go back to my old standby:
Why can Leticia Van de Putte do it if Tony Sanchez couldn't do it? If memory serves, Tony Sanchez spent $80 million in 2002. Wendy Davis and Van de Putte will be lucky if they can scam raise half that out of donors.
The fundamental premise behind Sanchez's candidacy was that he would increase Latino turnout enough to win. I've experienced an election or two in Latin America, and let me tell you: I heard more sound trucks around Houston during 2002 in both Spanish and English than I did in those. Sanchez had a monstrous amount of field staff trying to gin up turnout. Didn't work.
In the aggregate, non-voters are less motivated to vote, by definition. How likely is it that a non-voter will turn out to vote for someone named Van de Putte if they didn't turn out for someone named Sanchez? Not to mention that downballot races are not very motivating for non-voters. That's why 2002's so-called "Dream Team" of Sanchez/Kirk/Sharp hid their least inspiring candidate in the lite guv slot.
tl;dr: 1) Sanchez spent more than Davis/Van de Putte will. 2) Sanchez > Van de Putte for last names. 3) Very few non-voters start voting because of the lite gov.
There's really one fact-based counterargument, which is that poli sci academic literature suggests that Latino turnout is low in Texas because the Latino population of Texas is young. I haven't checked recently but my understanding is that the median age of Texas Latinos has increased a bit since 2002. But that's not a reason for why Van de Putte will increase turnout, just an argument that turnout might increase.
I know that the Austin press corps is almost entirely white folks who don't get out of Austin enough, but Ħen serio! Se puede hacer mucho mejor.
Posted by Evan @ 12/08/13 10:21 PM
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