Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is over. Here are a few brief thoughts:
Hispanic Voters
The Democratic debate highlighted an important point for Republicans: they need to rethink their stance on immigration or risk losing voters for decades to come. That doesn’t mean a full embrace of amnesty, but they can call for securing the border and finding middle ground on the issue. Much of Wednesday’s Democratic debate, hosted by Univision, focused on immigration. For Hispanics, it’s not necessarily the most important topic, but it’s clearly a highly emotional one. Even many Hispanics who were born here might know people who immigrated to the United States to make a better life for themselves.
After its loss in the 2012 elections, conventional wisdom said the GOP needed to do better with Hispanics in 2016. According to Pew Research Center, the number of eligible Hispanic voters has grown by 17 percent from 2012 to 2016, compared to 2 percent growth among White voters. Why hasn’t the GOP had its own debate with this much Hispanic involvement? The Feb. 25 GOP debate was co-hosted by Telemundo and CNN, but the Hispanic influence was not as clear as it was in Wednesday’s Democratic debate.
Money in Elections
Sanders repeated the party line on campaign finance Wednesday. “Together we’re going to have to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision,” Sanders said. “Billionaires and Wall Street should not be buying elections.” But overturning Citizens United will only lead to more Donald Trumps and fewer Bernie Sanderses.
When the law restricts campaigns or political action committees from raising money, it ensures only wealthy candidates that can self-fund (like Trump) will be able to afford a run for office. If your solution to that is to make sure candidates can’t transfer their personal wealth to their campaigns, good luck — that’s already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. A campaign finance expert told me in September, “Campaign finance restrictions, there’s no evidence they’ve done any good to make for better government.”
Polls
Can lightning strike twice? Sanders overcame a 20-point projected loss in Michigan Tuesday to win by 1.5 points. It was the biggest upset in primary polling history. Now, he faces similarly long odds on March 15 in Florida (30 points behind), Illinois (37 points), North Carolina (22 points) and Ohio (20 points).
Yes, Sanders’ victory in Michigan was a huge polling failure. But it was an outlier and likely won’t happen again. It wouldn’t be shocking if Sanders pulled another upset at some point, but it’s not going to happen in every single state. The Clinton campaign is on shakier ground now than it was before the Sanders upset, but it’s still one of the surest bets in this wild campaign season.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
