Well, not exactly fresh, but the VNS consortium has now released a public use file of the national (though not state) data from the 2002 election. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here and DR’s crack research team will release results from these data as their analysis of the public use file proceeds.

Of course, we’ll do this analysis carefully and make sure we get it right. Others may perhaps be less careful. An early example of this is a column by pollster David Winston in Roll Call that claimed, among other things, that the VNS data show that it is a myth that "Republicans can’t attract minority voters in significant numbers".

Well, not really. In fact, the VNS 2002 data are completely consistent with that so-called myth. Republicans are still having huge difficulties attracting minority voters and the 2002 election was not an exception. Where the GOP did do exceptionally well was among white voters, where they received 60 percent of the white vote. That’s up from 57 percent in 1998, the last off-year election and the best point of comparison, and also from 2000, where they received 56 percent of the white vote.

Winton claims, however, that the GOP had a breakthrough year among Hispanics. He cites as evidence a drop in Hispanic support for Congressional Democrats and rise in support for Republicans between 2000 and 2002. While Winston’s data for ‘02 are wrong and exaggerate this change, it is true that the Hispanic two party House vote was 65 percent Democratic/35 percent Republican in ‘00 and did fall modestly to 62 percent/38 percent in ‘02. However, Hispanic support for House Democrats traditionally falls at least several points from a Presidential to an off-year election, so this says little about a real trend toward the Republicans. The more pertinent comparison is to 1998, the last off-year election, where Hispanics supported Democrats by 63 percent to 37 percent. So, basically, we have a shift in off-year Democratic support from 63/37 to 62/38. If that’s a trend, DR will eat his calculator.

Well, what about the Senate races? These were the most significant races of ‘02 and perhaps a pro-GOP surge can be detected here. Nope, the Senate two party vote among Hispanics was 67 percent Democratic/33 percent Republican. Governors, then? Not here, either–Democratic support among Hispanics was a healthy 65 percent to 35 percent.

What about other minorities? Not much luck here either for the GOP. In fact, blacks and asians both appear to have increased their support for the Democrats. The two party black vote for the House went from 89 percent Democrat/11 percent Republican in both 1998 and 2000 to a 91 percent/9 percent split in 2002. And Asians increased their support dramatically for House Democrats going from 56 percent Democratic/44 percent Republican in 1998 to 60 percent/40 percent in 2000 to 66 percent/34 percent in 2002!

Much more "progress" like this among minority voters and the GOP–aka "the white people’s party"–will have a very limited future indeed.