America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/08/12 at 02:19pm By Frank Sharry

The Incredible Shrinking Rep. Lamar Smith

Lamar SmithDoes anyone (besides Mitt Romney) listen to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee anymore?

This week, Rep. Lamar Smith is looking especially desperate. He's taken to the pages of Roll Call and National Review Online to try to garner some attention on one of his favorite subjects: immigrant bashing. In Roll Call, Smith launched what amounts to another fact-free attack on President Obama.  Smith claims the President is ignoring immigration laws.  In reality, as immigrant communities and advocates are painfully aware, the Obama Administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other in history.

Smith is upset because last year Obama ordered the Department of Homeland Security to do what every local, state and federal law enforcement agency in the nation does: establish priorities and focus resources on dangerous criminals.  Coming from Smith, the criticism is sheer hypocrisy.  Back in 1999 Smith asked then-Attorney General Janet Reno to use the same kind of prosecutorial discretion he's now railing about. But Lamar isn't deterred by consistency or reality. 

Nor is his political judgment so sharp.  Last summer, Smith's leading witness at a hearing to denounce the prosecutorial discretion policy was Senator David Vitter.  Yes, the same Senator who has his, um, own unique history with prosecutorial discretion. It didn't work out so well.  

You know time are tough for Lamar when he has to resort to that right-wing bastion, National Review’s "The Corner,"  to whine about -- can you guess? Yep, the liberal media.  The first line of his screed is so outlandish, it's laughable:

"It’s hard to imagine a worse example of media bias than the national coverage of illegal immigration."

Really?  Just because reporters require you to have actual facts behind your arguments, and just because most have come to realize that the nativist case has been propped up for years by junk science peddled by faux think tanks such as the Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) doesn’t mean they are biased.  It means that most have figured out that your rants aren’t anchored in reality.  

Of course, somebody has to take the blame for Chairman Smith’s less than stellar legislative record this Congress. Besides the Vitter debacle on discretion, Smith's signature piece of anti-immigrant legislation is a bill called mandatory E-Verify.  According to Smith and his running buddies Steve King (R-IA) and Elton Gallegly (R-CA), the bill would free up good-paying jobs for Americans.  It tanked after small businesses complained the bill would create an unworkable and expensive bureaucracy; tea party types and libertarians complained the bill would grant the federal government the authority to approve or disapprove every new hire in America; agricultural growers predicted crops would rot on the vine; and the labor movement pointed out that it would actually cost Americans jobs. It would also force vulnerable workers further into the hands of unscrupulous employers. 

So, why the sudden uptick on immigration by Smith?  Perhaps he is looking to change the subject after he suffered a huge loss on another of his signature pieces of legislation, SOPA. That stinging defeat further damaged his already diminished status. 

Bottom line: the notoriously thin-skinned Lamar Smith is flailing. But he shouldn’t get so down.  There is one person who is listening to Smith these days: Mitt Romney.  Just like Lamar, Mitt wants to stop comprehensive immigration reform proposals at every turn, ramp up deportations even further, put in place a federally-run E-Verify system, fight off the DREAM Act (a popular bill that enables undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children to attend college or serve in the military) and have states pass laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56 that purge Latinos from their states.  They call it “attrition through enforcement”  or “self-deportation,”  presumably in hopes of making it sound humane. 

But attempting to make life in the U.S. so unbearable that 11 million undocumented immigrants – a population the size of the state of Ohio – are harassed into leaving the country is not only inhumane, it’s insane. First, it wouldn’t work. But if it did somehow, it would undermine our recovering economy, our global reputation, and our moral compass. 

Lamar and Mitt don’t seem to care.  Both are catering to the far-right nativist wing of the Republican Party, Lamar for ideological reasons and Mitt for political reasons.  And that slice of the GOP electorate doesn’t much like immigrants and doesn’t much care for facts.  Well, here’s a fact that might give them all pause: the GOP presidential candidate needs 40% of the Latino vote to win in key swing states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and even Arizona. But with Romney talking up self-deportation, promising to veto the popular DREAM Act and embracing anti-immigrant zealots like Pete Wilson, Lamar Smith, and Arizona and Alabama law author Kris Kobach, no wonder in head-to-head match ups with Obama he draws no more than the 25% of Latinos who reliably vote Republican. 

Well, if he loses, Mitt can always take another page from his friend Lamar.  He can blame the media.

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post and Daily Kos.    

Posted 02/07/12 at 04:42pm By Mahwish Khan

Dear Mitt: Not That You Care, But to Latino Voters, Pete “Prop 187” Wilson Is Still “El Diablo”

Pete WilsonCalifornia Proposition 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative to prohibit undocumented immigrants from health care, public education, and other social services.

At the time, Gov. Pete Wilson was its most ardent supporter. And now, former Gov. Pete Wilson is Mitt Romney's. 

Yesterday, the Romney press camp sent out a statement touting the endorsement from the latest member of Mitt’s anti-immigrant task force:  

“I’m honored to have Governor Pete Wilson’s support, because he’s one of California’s most accomplished leaders,” said Romney.

And the feeling between the two is mutual. In the same press statement, Wilson waxes poetic about the former governor of Massachusetts, claiming that only Mitt has the qualities to “restore America's strength and credibility, and win back respect for America from both our friends and our enemies.”

Maybe not from your enemies, Wilson. Peter Wilson, who will serve as honorary chairman of Romney’s California campaign, is well known in the Latino community as “El Diablo,” which translates quite literally to “the Devil.” So hated was he that the bill he championed mobilized enough Latino voters to vote Democratic. California has been blue ever since.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

An analysis today on Univision, the Spanish-language network, passed around by the Democratic National Committee, speculated that the Wilson endorsement “could further wreck (Romney’s) reputation with Latino voters, the fastest-growing voting bloc, in the general election.”

Latino voters will play a key role in new battleground states like Colorado, Nevada, Florida, and Arizona.  On a press call, this Thursday at noon EST, pollsters and political experts will discuss how the issue of immigration has influenced politics since the days of Proposition 187; the numbers behind the Latino vote in key states like Nevada and Colorado; and the impact Latino voters will have on the general election. 

Will Mitt Romney’s embrace of Pete Wilson, Kris Kobach, and other luminaries in the anti-immigrant movement help him or hurt him in the general election?  What lessons do Republicans in these purple states need to learn from the California experience?  What does the name “Pete Wilson” mean to entire generation of Latinos—and how personal is the issue of immigration to Latino voters? 

The answer to these questions and more, here, on Thursday. Follow us on twitter for a live-tweet of the call. 

Posted 02/06/12 at 03:19pm By Maribel Hastings

After Nevada: placing bets on the Latino vote in November

voz y votoNote: America's Voice's Maribel Hastings, who wrote this post, is in Nevada covering the GOP caucus. She'll be filing regular reports on the campaign as part of our "Voz Y Voto 2012" series.

LAS VEGAS – Republican caucus attendees in Nevada chose Mitt Romney to carry their standard (and delegates) in the campaign for the presidential nomination, and all eyes there are now fixed on November’s general election. Republicans are betting that discontent among Latino voters over the failure to pass immigration reform will mean fewer votes for Barack Obama, while Democrats wager that Republican anti-immigrant rhetoric will work in the president’s favor at the polls.

But if anything is worth highlighting from Saturday’s caucuses, it was the drop in turnout among Republican Latino voters relative to 2008, explained pollster Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions.

In the 2008 caucuses, 8% of Republican voters were Latino, according to entrance polls. This year, only 5% were Latino.

“We know that Nevada has the fastest growing Latino electorate of any state. And despite the fact that Latinos are getting bigger and bigger in Nevada, they are becoming a smaller and smaller part of the Republican Party,” Barreto said.

This is consistent, he added, with the 2010 elections, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won 90% of the Latino vote.

Nevada will be a competitive state in November, Barreto declared, but the drop in Republican caucus participation is a sign that “Latinos are very reluctant to go into the Republican Party.”

In Nevada, he indicated, Hispanics continue to align themselves primarily with the Democratic Party, which “has done a decent job at outreach.” Reid’s reelection in 2010 helped solidify this trend, as the anti-immigrant positions of his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, “has had lasting effects” in encouraging Latinos to continue to register as Democrats.

But Barreto added that Democrats face the challenge of recreating the remarkable enthusiasm and passion of Hispanic voters in 2008, even though “Latinos are definitely leaning at this point towards the Democratic Party and towards president Obama.”

“The question is going to be turnout. How many Latinos vote. And that is what the Democrats and the president need to focus on heavily, taking their message to the community, talking about where they had failures, how they are going to address that, what they’ve done to help Latinos. If they can make those connections, then that will help,” Barreto explained.

Barreto’s bottom line: in the next nine months, Obama and the Democrats have to close “a mobilization and enthusiasm gap.”

The conversations I had with a few Hispanics on the outskirts of a Mexican market in Las Vegas confirmed the existence of this enthusiasm gap, and demonstrated how the immigration issue—and, specifically, the lack of comprehensive immigration reform—figures prominently among Latinos’ central concerns, alongside the economy, jobs, and the housing crisis.

“I feel disappointed,” said one voter, who supported Obama in 2008 but won’t vote for him this year. She’s considering jumping to Romney, she says, because even though the Republican frontrunner doesn’t support reform, “he can boost the economy.”

Others, who are undocumented, lamented the effects the lack of reform has had. “We are with whoever gives us reform,” one said. “It’s the same thing every year, they promise and they don’t do anything and do you know how much pain we’re in?” said another.

But others, like Alejandro Martinez, say that things don’t get fixed from one day to the next and that Obama faced fierce opposition from Republicans on immigration. He’ll vote for Obama again “because he deserves a second chance.”

Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, thinks this is the mindset of many Hispanic voters in Nevada—including himself. In 2008, despite being a Democrat, Romero voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain because he had a proven record of support for immigration reform.

Now he plans to vote for Obama, because Romney’s positions—opposition to comprehensive immigration reform and a promise to veto the DREAM Act—send a clear message to Latino voters that he won’t stand with them on defining issues.

Romero pointed out, however, that the number of Latino voters registering as independents is on the rise. According to him, the most recent statistics from Clark County, where the bulk of the state’s voters are concentrated, “report that there are 94,000 voters with Spanish surnames: 60% of them are Democrats, almost 17% are Republicans and if you add up the percentages of the rest of them, the number of independent voters is greater than the number of Republicans,” Romero said.

This confirms just how competitive Nevada is. Republicans don’t expect to win a majority of the Latino vote here, but they hope to put a dent in Obama’s Hispanic support.

But that will depend on the candidate and his message—and if that candidate is Romney, his message of “self-deportations” and a DREAM Act veto won’t resonate with Latino voters in Nevada.

Nor did it resonate with René Cantú, a Republican who did not support Romney at his caucus on Saturday.

Initially he supported Rick Perry, “who got beaten up for showing a more compassionate point of view on immigration.”

For Cantú, immigration “is an important issue, but not the most important.” But Romney’s current positions are hardly to his liking.

He doesn’t support him right now, but he anticipates that will change. “I think that after the primary, Romney will soften his position, and all this is just rhetoric.”

It remains to be seen if this rhetoric has already had a lasting effect in driving Latino voters in Nevada away from the Republican Party.

Now, the campaign moves to Colorado—and speculation about the role of Latino voters moves with it. It’s not just in Las Vegas that both parties are placing bets on the Latino vote.

Posted 02/06/12 at 03:17pm By Pili Tobar

Colorado: While Immigration Won’t Drive GOP Caucus, Issue Could Prove Decisive in November 2012

colorado sealWith the Nevada caucus behind them, the GOP presidential candidates now turn to Colorado, where they will compete in the sixth nominating contest so far this year.  Despite the fact that immigration is not a big issue for most Republican caucus-goers, as in years past, the issue will have clear salience in November as Latino voters size up the candidates and their positions on the issues that matter.

Latino voters’ share of the electorate is expected to grow yet again in the 2012 election.  If the past two cycles and results of the 2010 Census are any guide, Colorado’s Latino voters and the issue of immigration reform will have a big impact on the 2012 contests—not only in the Presidential race, but key House races as well. 

Here are some of the relevant facts and figures to keep in mind about Colorado, as well as analysis about recent elections and what their results mean for 2012.

Latino voters are expanding their political clout in Colorado, and immigration is a defining issue for these voters:

  • Colorado’s Latino population grew by 41.2% from 2000 to 2010 – 42% of all population growth in Colorado during the decade.
  • While “jobs and the economy” are the top issues for all voters, including Latinos, immigration is a key, motivating issue for Colorado Latinos.  In Latino Decisions’ election eve polling in 2010, 29% of Latino voters in Colorado said that immigration was the most important issue in determining their vote and another 28% said that it was “one of the most important” issues.  Thirty-seven percent said immigration was the most important issue facing the Latino community that politicians should address. 

2008: Obama flips Colorado and other states from red to blue, with help of Latino voters

  • President Obama got 54% of the vote in 2008 in Colorado, which was one of the four states in Obama’s column that George Bush won in 2004.  In each of those four states, which also includes Nevada, New Mexico and Florida, the Latino vote was a decisive factor in Obama’s win. 
  • Latino voters made up over 10% of the Colorado electorate in 2008 and Latino voter turnout there jumped over 23% between 2000 and 2008.  In 2008, 61% of Colorado Latinos voted for Barack Obama, helping him win a state that George W. Bush had won in both 2000 and 2004. 

2010: The immigration issue was key to erecting a “Latino firewall” in the West that led to Senator Bennet’s victory and ended the “Republican wave” at the Rockies

  • Democrat Michael Bennet has been a consistent supporter of comprehensive immigration reform; he is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, and his campaign website stated that it is “time  for  practical,  comprehensive  reform  that  fixes  our  immigration  system  as  a  whole--enhancing  border  security  and  creating  sound  policy  solutions  for  undocumented immigration.”  Republican Ken Buck, on the other hand, advocated an enforcement-only position, and was backed by the extremist Americans for Legal Immigration Reform Political Action Committee (ALIPAC).
  • In a contest where Bennet triumphed over Buck by a mere 15,000 votes, 81% of Latinos went for Bennet.  According to exit polls, Latino turnout was up from 9% of the electorate in the 2006 mid-terms to 13% in 2010. 
  • Immigration was a major factor in driving Latino voters to the polls for Bennet.  In 2010, 29% of Latino voters in Colorado said that immigration was the most important issue in determining their vote, according to Latino Decisions’ election eve polling, and another 28% said that it was “one of the most important” issues. 

2012: Top of the ticket Republicans are anti-immigrant – and that matters

  • Mitt Romney has already seared his image as an anti-immigrant candidate into the minds of Latino voters.  Romney’s vow to veto the DREAM Act and his continued calls for self-deportation of undocumented immigrants are reverberating in the Latino community – and will continue to do so through November.  Romney is being advised by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070, which is strongly opposed by Latinos in Colorado.  Kobach is also a former attorney for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – which has been labeled an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
  • Latino voters in Colorado heavily favor President Obama over either of the GOP primary frontunners, preferring him 63% to 29% against Mitt Romney and 66% to 29% against Newt Gingrich.  Seventy percent of Colorado Latino voters have a strongly unfavorable view of Romney, while 63% have a strongly unfavorable view of Gingrich.
  • In Colorado, the Democratic Party is led by a Latino, Rick Palacio, who has challenged Republicans’ embrace of hardline anti-immigrant policies.  In comparison, Colorado Republicans’ loudest voice on immigration, immigrants, and Hispanics is arguably super-extremist Tom Tancredo, who founded the restrictionist House Immigration Reform Caucus.  Palacio recently said that Romney has “taken a page from the Tancredo playbook.”  That comparison is accurate, but it should trouble Romney.  Tancredo parlayed his advocacy against immigration into losing presidential and gubernatorial bids, unable to win a statewide or national election by demonizing immigrants.  Tancredo lost the 2010 gubernatorial race to Democrat John Hickenlooper—despite the strength of the Tea Party at the time—after the Latino community turned out to vote against him. 

  • Latinos are also poised to play key roles in U.S. House contests in Colorado.  With the Cook Political Report currently listing CO-3 and CO-6 as races to watch, it remains to be seen whether these districts will be taken by a Democrat or Republican.  In CO-3, 14.77% of voters are Latino, while in CO-6, 5.32% of voters are Latino.  Fifty-six percent of Latinos in Colorado are registered Democrats, while 12% are Republicans. 

RESOURCES

Posted 02/03/12 at 04:40pm By Maribel Hastings

Nevada: How The West Will Be Won

voz y voto

Note: America's Voice's Maribel Hastings, who wrote this post, is in Nevada covering the GOP caucus. She'll be filing regular reports on the campaign as part of our "Voz Y Voto 2012" series.

LAS VEGAS--Although the Republican primary process has barely begun, Mitt Romney is looking like the inevitable nominee. This Saturday, he's expected to repeat his 2008 triumph in the Nevada caucus, winning a state that will be decisive in the fight for the White House in November, and where the Latino vote will be instrumental.

Latinos represent 27% of the population in Nevada, and 15% of voters eligible to cast ballots in November.

Attention has already centered around what the race between Romney and Barack Obama will look like here. Obama won 76% of the Latino vote in the 2008 elections, with 22% going to Republican John McCain. Among all voters, Obama won 55% of the vote to McCain's 43%.

Immigration played a central role in that election, as Obama's promise to move comprehensive immigration reform mobilized Latino voters, especially naturalized citizens, to support him in Nevada and other key states.

Many Latinos in Nevada aren't just facing high unemployment rates and the housing crisis, but also the lack of those expected reforms. 

Some Democrats recognize that the failure to pass immigration reform poses a challenge for Democrats in their efforts to mobilize the Latino vote in Nevada.

But they reason that the Republican candidates--particularly presumptive nominee Romney--aren't offering a viable alternative to Latino voters. To the contrary, they're making Democrats' jobs easier by mobilizing Latinos to vote against their hard-line policies.

Romney, for example, opposes comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act, which have overwhelming support among Latino voters. One of Romney's (unpaid) advisers on immigration policy is Kris Kobach, architect of the harshest anti-immigrant laws in the country-including those in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina--and of the concept of "attrition through enforcement," "which consists of making life impossible for undocumented immigrants so they will decide to leave the country, even if it means separation from their families. Others call this "self-deportation."

Vicenta Montoya, of the group Sí Se Puede Democratic Caucus, admits that it's possible that some Latinos who voted for Obama in 2008 will decide not to vote this time, "but I don't think they're going to vote for a Republican.  It's ridiculous, because what Republicans are saying goes totally against the Latino community," she said.

And Republicans shouldn't underestimate the power that immigration has to mobilize Latino voters in these parts.

Maybe they should make a call to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who retained his seat--and a Democratic majority in the Senate--in November 2010 when Nevada's Latinos supported him at the polls and led him to defeat Republican Sharron Angle, who ran an anti-immigrant campaign that portrayed immigrants as criminals.

In that same election, Nevada elected Republican Brian Sandoval to the governorship. Republicans rapidly began to use Sandoval as an example of how Republican candidates could get elected in states with large Hispanic populations. What Republicans didn't realize was that Sandoval won only 15% of the Latino vote in his state, thanks to his support for SB 1070 in the neighboring state of Arizona.

According to Fernando Romero, president of Hispanics in Politics, the oldest Hispanic political organization in Nevada, the next Republican nominee won't put up much of a fight against Obama for the Latino vote in the state.

"It's one of the reasons why Latinos don't show up to the caucus, because the Republican Party offers nothing positive to our community," he added.

To Romero, Latinos' choice in November is clear. "Even though many [Latinos] say they're not going to vote, they know that any of the four Republicans in the race is in favor of hurting us. We have no other option," he said.

And if Romney is the nominee, "when all the negative things he's said about our community come out, I don't think that people who have friends, relatives, loved ones, neighbors who are undocumented are going to support Romney."

Even, he added, if Republicans put a Hispanic on the ticket as Romney's running mate: Florida Senator Marco Rubio or Governors Sandoval of Nevada or Susana Martinez of New Mexico.

"Sandoval's the one who's gotten the least involved on the issue of immigration, and since supporting SB 1070 in 2010 he hasn't said anything, either positive or negative. And if Brian, the most moderate of the three of them, didn't get support from Latinos in his own state despite the fact that his last name is Sandoval, it's going to be very tough for Romney. Rubio's suddenly softening his rhetoric a little, but it's too late because we already know what's in his heart. And on Martinez, no comment. Her actions say it all," Romero explained.

Alex Garza, the vice president of Hispanics in Politics--and a Republican--said that "what's happening is that the rhetoric is out of control."

In his opinion, Democrats have been able to use the immigration issue to their advantage, even though they ultimately haven't kept their promises of reform. But on the other side of the aisle, "the Republican Party shouldn't promote policies of family separation.  Self-deportation isn't possible," said Garza, whose father was legalized under Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty.

This year, said Garza, will see a fierce fight for the Latino vote. He anticipates that while many Hispanic Democrats will stay loyal to their party, others will continue to register as independents--the largest swing group of voters that may decide the election.

The fight to win the West has already begun.

Posted 02/03/12 at 01:28pm By Adam Luna

Immigration & Latino Voters in Nevada: Why the 2008 & 2010 Results Are More Instructive for November

Welcome to Nevada SignFor the next few days, Nevada will be the center of the political universe.  But like the ad says, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."  Simply, what happens in February won’t matter much in November.  That’s when the state will turn into a battleground.  And if the past two election cycles – and results of the 2010 Census – are any guide, the Latino vote and the issue of immigration reform will once again prove decisive in the 2012 general election—not only in the Presidential race, but in key House and Senate contests as well. 

Here are some of the relevant facts and figures to keep in mind about Nevada, as well as some analysis from my colleagues at America's Voice on the recent elections and what their results mean for the 2012 contests.

Latino voters are expanding their political clout in Nevada, and they care deeply about immigration

  • If there’s one number that you need to know it’s that in 2012, Latinos constitute 26% of the state’s population.  Latino Decisions estimates that Latinos will comprise 15% of Nevada’s registered voters by the 2012 general elections.

  • Nevada’s Latino population grew by 81.87% from 2000 to 2010 – 46% of all population growth in Nevada during the decade and the primary reason why Nevada gained an extra seat in Congress after the 2010 Census.

  • Nevada’s Latino electorate is largely comprised of Mexican-American voters, who are more directly affected by immigration issues than Cuban voters in Florida.  As the Center for American Progress recently wrote, “In contrast to Florida, where Mexicans make up 15 percent of the Latino population, in Nevada, Mexicans make up 78 percent of the Latino population.”

  • Immigration is a key, motivating issue for Nevada Latino voters.  In Latino Decisions’ election eve polling in 2010, 38% of Latino voters in Nevada said that immigration was the most important issue in determining their vote and another 31% said that it was “one of the most important” issues.  Forty-four percent said immigration was the most important issue facing the Latino community that politicians should address.  In the same poll, 74% of Nevada Latino voters supported a path to citizenship for the undocumented while 76% opposed Arizona’s SB 1070.

2008: Obama flips Nevada and other states from red to blue, with help of Latino voters

  • President Obama got 55% of the vote in 2008 in Nevada, which was one of the four states in Obama’s column that George Bush won in 2004.  In each of those four states, which also includes Colorado, New Mexico and Florida, the Latino vote was a decisive factor in Obama’s win. 

  • Latino voters made up over 12% of the Nevada electorate in 2008 and Latino voter turnout there jumped over 164% between 2000 and 2008.  In 2008, 76% of Nevada Latinos voted for Barack Obama, helping him win a state that George W. Bush had won in both 2000 and 2004. 

2010: The immigration issue was key to erecting a “Latino firewall” in the West that led to Majority Leader Reid’s victory and ended the “Republican wave” at the Rockies

  • According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D), Latinos were the deciding factor in his close race against Republican Sharron Angle in 2010.  In October 2011, Senate Majority Leader Reid said, “I would not be the majority leader in the United States Senate today, but for the Hispanics in Nevada.” 

  • Immigration was a major factor in driving Latino voters to the polls for Reid.  In 2010, 38% of Latino voters in Nevada said that immigration was the most important issue in determining their vote, according to Latino Decisions’ election eve polling, and another 31% said that it was “one of the most important” issues.  The Las Vegas Sun quoted Gilberto Ramirez, a first-time, recently-naturalized voter from Reno, explaining why Sharron Angle’s anti-Latino ads motivated him to vote and to support Senator Harry Reid: “She was depicting me as a gang member.  I served seven years in the Marine Corps.”

2012: Top of the ticket Republicans are anti-immigrant – and that matters

  • Mitt Romney has already seared his image as an anti-immigrant candidate into the minds of Latino voters.  Romney’s vow to veto the DREAM Act and his continued calls for self-deportation of undocumented immigrants are reverberating in the Latino community – and will continue through November.  As noted below, DREAMers were protesting outside of Romney's Las Vegas office yesterday. We have a feeling he'll be seeing a lot more of them. Romney is also being advised by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070, which is strongly opposed by Latinos in Nevada.  Kobach is also a former attorney for the legal arm of the FAIR – which has been labeled an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

  • In the 2012 Senate race in Nevada, labeled a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, the appointed incumbent, Republican Dean Heller, has established his anti-immigrant credentials early, in stark contrast with the Democratic Senate candidate, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (who represents many of Nevada's Hispanic neighborhoods).  The issue is already playing out badly for Heller, who appears poised to make the same mistakes as Sharron Angle.  As the Associated Press wrote in early January, “Heller's appearance at a monthly Hispanics in Politics meeting was intended to be an olive branch toward the Hispanic community after he cancelled a meeting with the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce in October, prompting accusations from some Hispanic leaders that Heller was shunning the Latino community.  But the meeting quickly evolved into a debate on immigration, with Heller repeating his opposition to illegal immigration several times, even as Hispanic leaders warned him that the stance could alienate some Latino voters. Heller also reiterated his support for an overhaul of the 14th Amendment...”

  • Latinos are also poised to play key roles in House contests.  The Cook Political Report currently lists NV-4 and NV-3 as races to watch, and considers NV-3 to be highly competitive.  In NV-3, 13.67% of voters are Latino.  In the newly-created NV-4 district, voter numbers are not yet available, but Latinos comprise 27.26% of the district’s overall population. 

RESOURCES

Posted 02/02/12 at 06:03am By Maribel Hastings

The Cuban vote and the Latino vote: not the same thing, and not the same size

voz y votoNote: America's Voice's Maribel Hastings, who wrote this post, is in Nevada covering the GOP caucus. She'll be filing regular reports on the campaign as part of our "Voz Y Voto 2012" series.

MIAMI-To many, the winner of last night's primary in the Sunshine State has practically guaranteed himself the Republican presidential nomination. Erasing his loss four years ago, Mitt Romney, the improbable candidate, won Florida on the way to his coronation as Barack Obama's opponent this November.

His triumph in Florida also marked the official start, in some respects, of the fight for the Latino vote at the national level -- even though there's still some way to go before the end of the primary process.

And while some Republicans understand that they'll need to adjust their message on immigration in order to be competitive in the fight for the Latino vote in a general election, others, including Romney himself, continue to promote hardline positions on the issue.

In Florida the issue of immigration wasn't predominate in a Republican primary where the central voters were Cuban and Cuban-American, concentrated primarily in Miami-Dade County in South Florida. 

Romney got 54% of Latinos who voted in the Republican primary, according to exit polls.

But this percentage shouldn't be taken as an indication that Romney has locked up the Latino vote at the national level.

In 2008, Romney lost the Florida primary to John McCain, who won a high percentage of the Latino vote. McCain became the nominee, but lost Florida to Obama in the general election and only won 31% of the Latino vote nationally, after he distanced himself from his immigration reform bill and started promoting hard-line policies.

Romney won in Florida backed by Cuban-American Republican leaders like brothers, Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a congressman and an ex-congressman respectively, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. All of them are defenders, advocates and authors of proposals for immigration reform and the DREAM Act; Romney, meanwhile, has rejected both of these proposals, and instead promotes "self-deportation" policies and the military component only of the DREAM Act.

Arguing that the economy is the central issue of this election cycle, some believe, erroneously, that the issue of immigration won't play a role in the general election, and that it won't influence whether and for whom Latinos vote in November.

But the Romney campaign would be making a big mistake to think that its triumph in Florida, with the support of Cuban and Cuban-American voters, means it has the national Latino vote on its side-especially without changing the candidate's immigration positions.

Bear in mind that Cuban-Americans make up only 5% of all Latino voters nationally, and that not even within Florida is the Latino vote monolithic. Bear in mind also that to be competitive against Obama and eventually recapture the White House, Republicans need 40% of the Latino vote-and that recent polls of Latino voters, like one last week from Latino Decisions, Univision and ABC News, have found that in an Obama-Romney matchup, the Republican frontrunner would win only 25%.

The primary campaign is now moving to states out west, where the Latino vote is different from that in Florida. In these states, the negative tone that has dominated the debate among Republicans, combined with Republican support for anti-immigrant state bills and the failure to pass sensible solutions like immigration reform and the DREAM Act, are resented by a Latino electorate for whom immigration is a defining issue.

Even Republican strategist and analyst Alex Castellanos declared last night on CNN that the primary in Florida (which was limited to registered Republicans) was dominated by Cuban-American voters, but now the process moves to states in the West, where "It's a very different story. These are a different kind of Hispanic voter. So all of a sudden, the tone, I think, does make all the difference in the world."

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has already warned that if Republicans don't change the tone of their message on immigration -- and I would add their substance -- it will mean bad news for Republicans in the general election when they try to win over Latino voters.

On Sunday, we asked former congressman, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, if after Romney won in Florida and began to look toward the general election, he anticipated the candidate would soften the tone of his message and his proposals on the issue of immigration to fight Obama more effectively for the Latino vote.

The ex-congressman, a defender of immigration reform, assured us that "my point of view will always be heard."

If true, it's now incumbent on Romney's campaign, when they talk about strategies to court the national Latino vote, to open their ears wide.

Posted 02/01/12 at 02:11pm By Pili Tobar

2012 by the Numbers: 10 Things To Know About the Latino Vote and What it Means

romney wins floridaWith Mitt Romney’s resounding victory in Florida’s Republican primary yesterday, bolstered by 54% support from Latino voters, it is important to put Romney’s victory in context.  What does it mean for the general election competition for the Latino vote, in Florida and beyond?  Below are 10 numbers that provide that context: 

  • 2008 -  The 2008 elections illustrate the limited predictive value of Florida’s Republican primary – both among Latino voters and overall.  Bolstered by 54% support from Latino Republican primary voters, John McCain won the 2008 Florida Republican primary.  However, Barack Obama won majority support from Florida Latinos in the general election, 57%-42% over McCain, helping to deliver Florida’s electoral votes to President Obama.  In 2012, Romney won the same percentage of Latino votes in the Republican primary that McCain did, but is currently polling behind Obama among Latinos in the state.  Per Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions, President Obama is currently polling ahead of Mitt Romney among Florida Latino voters by a 50%-40% margin.
  • 3% - Only 3% of Florida Republican primary voters listed “illegal immigration” as their top voting issue in yesterday’s Florida exit polling.  The same was true in other early voting states such as Iowa.  As we look toward the general election, it remains true that Latino voters are the sole voter group for whom immigration is a defining, voting issue – and that Latino voters are adamantly opposed to Romney’s hardline immigration policies.
  • 64% - The percentage of 2012 Republican primary voters in Florida exit polling who believe that the “best policy toward illegal immigrants” does not involve deportation.  A plurality of respondents (38%) stated, “apply for citizenship” and an additional 27% supported “stay as temporary workers.”  Meanwhile, only 30% of Florida Republican primary voters supported “deport,” the policy approach that most closely mirrors Romney’s.  Romney’s hardline stance continues to make little political sense given the overwhelming favor for non-deportation options even among Republicans, and the salience of this issue for Latinos.   
  • 32% - As many have recently noted, Cuban-American voters are more Republican and less animated by immigration issues than other Latino voter demographic groups, both in Florida and across the country.  Additionally, Florida’s Latino electorate is diversifying, as today Cuban-American voters only comprise 32% of all registered Latino voters in Florida’s electorate. 
  • 112,000 - As Florida’s Latino electorate diversifies, it is growing more Democratic.  Currently, there are approximately 112,000 more registered Latino Democratic voters in Florida than registered Latino Republican voters.  Even Cuban-Americans are growing more Democratic, especially among the U.S.-born second generation.
  • 36% vs. 49% - In the latest Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions poll, 36% of Cuban-American voters labeled immigration as the most important issue facing the Latino community for Congress and the President to address, compared with half of Mexican-American voters in the poll.  As Victoria DeFrancesco Soto of Latino Decisions explains, Cuban-Americans “simply are not as personally affected by the issue as Mexican immigrants.”
  • 31 - The combined Electoral Vote total provided by the Latino-vote heavy – and Mexican-American vote-heavy – swing states of Arizona (11 EV), Colorado (9 EV), Nevada (6 EV), and New Mexico (5 EV).  Add in Florida (29 EV), whose Latino voter population is split three ways among Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other Latinos more directly affected by immigration, and the total climbs to 60 Electoral Votes up for grabs in major Latino swing states.
Posted 01/31/12 at 01:55pm By Maribel Hastings

In Florida, Romney finds the “lucky corner”

They call Casa Marín, “the lucky corner” (“La Esquina de la Suerte” in Spanish), and the restaurant’s owner assures me that candidate Mitt Romney’s visit to his establishment on Sunday guarantees his triumph in today’s Republican primary.

“He’s already won,” declared Diosdado Marin. Marin’s restaurant is located in the heart of Hialeah, called “la Ciudad de Progresa” or “Progress City.”

On the eve of the Republican primary, numerous polls favor Romney over former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Both campaigns have adjusted their message to appeal to Cuban, Cuban-American voters and other Latinos, particularly Puerto Ricans in Central Florida.

Hispanic voters constitute 11% of all registered Republicans throughout the state of Florida, but here in Miami-Dade County in the southern part of the state, where the Cuban and Cuban-American vote reigns supreme, they constitute 72% of Republican votes. Spanish-language television and radio ads are the order of the day.

And in Florida, which will play a central role in the triumphs and defeats of candidates from both parties, the Latino vote is anything but monolithic.

Pollster Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions calls them “the three Latino electorates” within Florida: the Cuban and Cuban-American voters in the South; Central Florida’s Puerto Ricans; and other Latinos, who also live in the central part of the state. There’s some diversity of positions among Cubans and Cuban Americans due to their experiences: those who arrived here more than 50 years ago; those who came in stages during the Mariel boatlift and similar efforts; those who have recently arrived; and the generations born here in the United States, whose politics tend to be more moderate. The rest of the Latino vote consists mostly of Puerto Ricans in the central part of the state, but there are also Mexicans, South Americans and Central Americans.

 If anything unites these groups, it’s the economy.

 And according to Latino Decisions’ most recent poll, conducted with Univision and ABC News, they’re also united in support of immigration measures such as the DREAM Act, which is supported by 75% or more of Latinos across all demographic groups. Barreto writes that “Likewise, when we examine comprehensive immigration reform, a majority of all Latinos in Florida support an earned path to citizenship, though U.S. born Cuban Americans, and Latinos in Central Florida are somewhat more likely to support CIR.”

Romney and Gingrich have taken harsh stances on immigration. Both oppose the DREAM Act in its current form, supporting only the military component of the bill—which is to say, they want a path to legalization to young people who serve in the armed forces, but none for those who want to pursue higher education.

Both also oppose comprehensive immigration reform, although Gingrich has spoken of some “humanitarian” relief—which wouldn’t include a path to citizenship—for people who have lived here for more than two decades and have established community ties. Even Gingrich has mocked Romney’s proposal of “self-deportation,” which assumes that undocumented immigrants will get their affairs in order, return to their native countries and try to reenter the United States by legal means—“getting in line,” he says, though no such line exists. Gingrich has called Romney “anti-immigrant.”

But for some Cuban and Cuban-American voters, the candidates’ immigration positions don’t dim their appeal. Neither does the tone of the debate, which many consider insulting to the whole community.

“That’s not true. This is a nation of laws,” declared Juan Carlos Santana, who hasn’t decided whether he’ll support Gingrich or Romney. “But realistically, to beat Obama, I think that Romney has a better chance of attracting the independent vote and conservative Democrats. Romney will beat Obama in Florida, and if Marco Rubio is on the ballot--checkmate.”

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Posted 01/30/12 at 05:04pm By Pili Tobar

Romney Poised to Win Cuban Vote in Florida Primary, Poised to Lose Latino Vote in General Election

i voted sticker

Mitt Romney is poised to win the Florida Republican primary and polls suggest he will win with virtually all key demographic groups – including Hispanics.  But given Romney’s controversial calls for “self-deportation,” his promise in Iowa to veto the DREAM Act, and his embrace of Arizona and Alabama immigration law author Kris Kobach in South Carolina, how can this be?

Ron Brownstein of National Journal explains: “Romney's surprising advantage reflects the unusual dynamics of the illegal immigration issue in Florida. The issue is of much less direct concern to Hispanic voters here than in probably any other state, especially those who participate in Republican primaries.”  Brownstein concludes, “…the issue of illegal immigration will likely create much more turbulence for the eventual GOP nominee among Hispanics in Florida and elsewhere, once it is debated outside of rooms that are filled mostly with conservative Cubans.” 

Victoria DeFrancesco Soto of Latino Decisions further explains of Cuban voters, “this group by and large is not personally affected by immigration because of their legal status. This is not to say that Cuban-Americans do not support immigration reform or the DREAM Act, they simply are not as personally affected by the issue as Mexican immigrants.  In the latest Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions poll, 36% of Cuban-American voters indicated immigration was the most important issue facing the Latino community, while half of Mexican-American voters named immigration their top concern.”

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “The Hispanic Florida primary voter is a Cuban American voter.  However, Cubans comprise only 5% of the nation’s Hispanic voters, and not all of them vote Republican in the general.  This share is a far cry from the 40% of Hispanic voters needed by any GOP nominee to win the White House.  If Romney becomes the nominee, his immigration positions will become a huge liability in the swing states out west, such as Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.  His hard line will also hurt him with Hispanic voters in Florida’s general election, a population that includes many Democratic-leaning Latin American immigrants and Puerto Ricans.”

Today, America’s Voice is putting out a timeline about the politics of immigration in Florida, which makes it clear that the Cuban American vote in a Republican primary is not the same thing as the Latino vote in a general election—in Florida or in other swing states. 

A recent Univision/ABC/Latino Decisions poll found that nationwide, only 25% of Latino voters said they would vote for Romney, while 67% were planning to vote for President Obama.  In another troubling sign for the presumptive GOP nominee, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R) decided not to endorse a candidate before Florida’s Republican primary.  As the New York Times reports, Bush made it “clear in television interviews and in conversations with friends that he is troubled by the sharpening tenor of the race, particularly on immigration.  He voiced his concern directly to Mr. Romney, two people close to him said, urging him to moderate his oratory and views to avoid a collapse of support among Hispanic voters in the general election.”   

Added Sharry, “Romney’s hard line on immigration may well be the end of the line for him with most Latino voters in America.”

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