Comments on: It’s Not Rocket Science: Explaining the Sotamayor Vote http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/08/06/its-not-rocket-science-explaining-the-sotamayor-vote/ A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:45:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Matthew Dickinson http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/08/06/its-not-rocket-science-explaining-the-sotamayor-vote/comment-page-1/#comment-3210 Matthew Dickinson Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:59:40 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/?p=192#comment-3210 Fraz – I think you’ve hit on part of the explanation, but the larger part is that the Senate vote really turned on ideology. Even in the long term, Senators and Representatives from Republican districts generally have more to fear from losing support from their base voters than from Latino voters. What you need to be careful about is confusing national considerations (e.g., support among Latinos for the Republican party) with the factors that influence how members of Congress vote. They don’t look at national figures – they look at their own constituents’ preferences.

]]> By: Fraz Thomas http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/08/06/its-not-rocket-science-explaining-the-sotamayor-vote/comment-page-1/#comment-3208 Fraz Thomas Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:48:39 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/?p=192#comment-3208 Do you think it could also be said that Republicans voted the way they did because alienating is a less immediate—if not more dangerous—threat than alienating conservatives? In Texas, for example, Latinos are an influential voting bloc, but they have yet to singlehandedly influence elections.

Kay Bailey is in a gubernatorial primary battle with Rick Perry right now, and while she is incredibly popular with the population at large, he is more popular with the very conservative sector that votes in the Republican primary, so she has been trying to shore up her conservative credentials. Similarly, John Cornyn has been elected on the back of hardcore conservatives, rather than a broad coalition.

Both senators, I suspect, would rather avoid alienating Latinos for the long term health of their party, but both need conservative votes right now, and feel the need to sacrifice long term goals for short term survival.

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