By Matt A. Barreto, UW assistant professor of political science
Gary Segura, UW professor of political science

An increasingly important narrative in the Democratic primary campaign has focused on the heavy preference for Hillary Clinton among Hispanics. This preference, the story goes, reflects a deep-seated and important social and political tension between Latinos and African-Americans. It's evidenced not just in Latino support for the Clinton candidacy but in a generalized aversion to African-American politicians among Latinos across the political landscape.

This narrative has been helped along by Clinton’s Hispanic pollster, echoed by progressive black authors angered by the increasingly racialized tone of the Democratic contest, and embraced whole-heartedly by conservative pundits in gleeful editorials commenting at length about a fractured Democratic coalition and new prospects for the GOP in November.

From a political science perspective, the principal problem with the central elements of this narrative is that there is little or no evidence for any of it. It is incorrect to equate Latino support for Hillary Clinton in 2008 with anti-Obama or anti-black voting patterns. In multiple national surveys in which we have participated, and in our own polling among Latinos in Nevada and California, we find that the Clinton advantage is driven primarily by her eight years as first lady and seven years as Senator from New York.

By contrast, in April of last year, a survey of 1,000 Latino voters nationwide found that 35% said they had no opinion of Senator Barack Obama in contrast to 8 percent of those asked their opinion of Clinton. So while Obama has become well known in a relatively short time among political observers, he did not rise to national prominence among Latinos until this campaign.

This name-recognition advantage for Clinton has been enhanced by a strong and aggressive advertising and outreach effort by her campaign and a string of high-profile endorsements. She has hired an independent Latino pollster and aired significantly more Spanish language radio and television ads.

In contrast, the Obama campaign’s outreach to Hispanics has been anemic and particularly ineffective. Even Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a prominent Latino supporter of Obama, has criticized him for failing to reach Latinos. In short, there are many reasons why Hillary Clinton enjoys a large advantage among Latino voters, none of which has anything to do with racism.

The claim, then, that her support is somehow evidence of Latino unwillingness to support African-American candidates is wrong on its face, a point one of us made on CNN immediately after the Congressional Black Caucus Debate. Latino voters have demonstrated strong support for African American candidates in the past, across a variety of circumstances. Harold Washington, David Dinkins, Wellington Webb, and Ron Kirk were all elected as mayors of major American cities with Latino vote shares from 70 to 80 percent. In the U.S. Congress, eight African American members of the U.S. House represent districts with more than 25% Latino population, including Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, whose districts are actually majority-Latino.

Even Obama himself has a strong record of Latino votes. In 2000, when Obama challenged incumbent Bobby Rush in the Democratic primary for First Congressional district in Illinois, he won more Latino votes than African American ones. In 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate Democratic nomination in Illinois, Obama received more Latino votes than Latino candidate Gerry Chico. Claims that Latinos will not vote for Barack Obama, or black candidates are clearly false.

This is not to say there aren’t moments of political rivalry between African-Americans and Latinos. They have much in common, including educational disparities and economic disadvantages. Though those commonalities should often result in political coalition, there will inevitably be moments, circumstances, and candidacies that pull the groups in different directions. This is the very definition of democracy and not at all surprising. The question is whether there is anything fundamentally preventing coalition of these two groups behind the eventual Democratic nominee. There is not.

In 1973, when Tom Bradley was elected mayor of Los Angeles, he lost among Latinos, and the punditry then, as now, speculated that Latinos would not vote for a black candidate. But Bradley’s political skills and the inherent shared interests of Latino voters and the Bradley coalition reversed this trend. By 1982, when Bradley ran for governor of California, he won an estimated 70-80% of the Latino vote.

The election of 2008 looks to be a good year for Democrats among Latinos. The failure of immigration reform and the nativist grandstanding of the GOP and its primary candidates, including the once-moderate John McCain, seem certain to drive the Democratic share of the Latino vote back towards 70%. The wealth of empirical research, not speculation, suggests this will be true whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Dr. Matt A. Barreto and Dr. Gary M. Segura are professors of political science at the University of Washington, Seattle. They are leading experts on Latino public opinion and voting patterns and have twice published their research in the American Political Science Review, the leading academic journal in political science.