The point is that some Hispanic people, now and in the future, just like some black people, are amenable to conservative ideas – but being extremely anti-immigration means that in the future, for decades, Hispanic people may view the Republican party as anti-Hispanic, and it wouldn’t matter that they might agree on several policies. Most black conservatives still vote Democrat today.
They are actually people, just like the rest of the electorate. They have diverse beliefs and interests and values, just like the rest of the electorate. What forms them into a voting bloc is an attack on their rights and their humanity.
This is what I came in to add. Latinos tend to be more socially conservative than you think. Abortion is just one of the issues that most conservative Catholics agree more with the Republican side of the argument. Pope Francis actually preaching about love from the pulpit in Rome may have a greater effect on moving Latinos permanently into the “D” column.
My point is mathematical; if one had to place a wager, “If illegal immigrants were given citizenship through a jointly passed Democrat+Republican initiative, would they be more likely to vote Republican or Democrat?,” the smart money would be on the Democrats.
The factors simply point to that outcome.
Yes, but that’s not the only issue in this calculation. And it’s not just about citizenship – imagine if all Republicans came forward and said “we support permanent residency and work authorization for all non-felon, non-violent illegal immigrants, but not citizenship unless you’ve lived here at least 15 years”. That would be a much, much more moderate policy, and would give them 15 years to try and sell their ideas to these future citizens.
Is there any chance such a policy would happen?
This is my personal view based on Hispanic relatives that are very conservative.
There is indeed a good chunk of Hispanics that are conservative and vote Republican, A close relative did told me how he dismisses a lot of what the Democrats offered, but in the latest years that relative told me that what the Republicans did with the dreamers was very unfair and ugly. (On top of the opposition in congress, locally the Republican Governor Jean Brewer has denied driving licenses to the local dreamers).
So for that and with other issues related to immigration he is having second thoughts about voting Republican.
IMHO it is true that not many Hispanics will vote Republican now, but once they see a change among Republicans it will make a good chunk of conservative Hispanics to move quickly to support the Republicans as they did before.
Yeah, the loss of the Hispanic/Latino vote is a recent thing, and it coincides very closely with aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric.
The problem with a lot of analyses of Hispanic voters is that they fail to consider that people of Hispanic descent come from different countries and that difference is often reflected in how they vote. Until recently, Cuban-Americans were heavily Republican, Puerto Ricans were Democratic, and Mexican-Americans voters could go either way. Now, mostly because of the nasty anti-immigration rhetoric of many Republican candidates and office-holders, Mexican-Americans have mostly shifted their support to the Democrats.
Possibly, but if GOP-supported citizenship for illegal immigrants increases the Democratic vote advantage by 3 million, then the Republicans would have to find 3 million votes to counterbalance or else GOP-supported citizenship for illegal immigrants represents a net mathematical backfiring move.
3 million votes is not likely to be found by the GOP in this scenario.
There are many moderate immigration policies that the GOP could support that would not cause an immediate boost for Democrats.
As a hispanic i find it kind of hilarious to hear my parents and older relatives sprouting nearly tea party level beliefs and voting straight democratic every single time. They view the Republican party as the party that hates them, stopping republicans is basically the only reason they even show up to vote. I think if they had embraced Bush’s immigration plan they could have won their vote, even the gang of 8s plan might have done. At this point whatever happens with immigration will look like it was forced on Republicans so they are not going to win any “points” with current latino votes.
Latino voters poll conservative on certain social issues, such as abortion, and increasingly they’re joining evangelical Pentecostal churches. Polls show the economy to be a bigger issue for them than immigration. Kansas governor Sam Brownback is as conservative as it gets (particularly on fiscal issues), and he outpolled his Democratic opponent among Latino voters. Other GOP [del]guberno[/del] [del]gubrena[/del] governor candidates polled near or even above 40%. Cory Gardner performed better than expected among Latino voters in Colorado. This suggests that there is room for solid gains among Latino voters as a whole without necessarily making a major shift on immigration writ large.
Here’s the idea behind GOP support for immigration reform. You remove it as an issue so that Latinos vote based on well, non-Latino issues. The GOP wins when voters don’t vote based on racial issues. The existence of 12 million illegals is an open sore in the Latino community, and to a lesser extent, the Asian community.
However, in the short term the GOP loses because most of these new voters are going to be poor, and poor people don’t vote GOP much. In the long run, full assimilation and economic progress would turn the Latino community more GOP. And sure enough, at least in my experience, middle class second generation Latinos don’t tend to vary much in their voting habits from whites. Although I wish there was solid polling data on that. But regardless, it seems to be the assumption Republicans are working off of: as they assimilate and grow more prosperous, they will vote GOP about as much as white voters do. Which means we win.
This, I think is more true for Democrats than Republicans. A very favorable electorate for the Republicans actually voted for the Democrats in a big way in 2006. Republicans don’t just grin and bear it. They will vote Democrat if the Democrat seems reasonable enough, and in 2006 the Dems ran a lot of moderate candidates who were good on issues like guns and energy. I don’t think the Democrats are as at risk of having their voters turn on them. Their voters express their displeasure more by staying home. It’s a lost vote, which sucks, but it’s worse when a voter turns. Then it’s like two lost votes.
The only way I see supporting citizenship for illegal immigrants helping the GOP at all is if the Catholic priests in the Hispanic areas stress the “problems” the church has with the Democrats, starting with same-sex marriage. However, now that Pope Francis seems to be slightly more tolerant of same-sex couples than his precedessors, even this may not work.
A big part of the problem is that you think Latinos won’t vote for you because of welfare and affirmative action, you probably think that’s why blacks don’t vote for you either. Why do you think gays don’t vote for you? welfare? affirmative action? no, because your platform is based on hating them, latinos and blacks are no different.
The very platform is based on hating them? Well, gays maybe. There is nothing in the platform that is against Latinos or African-Americans though.
The problem is one of outreach. Republicans have proven they can win Latinos or at least come close when they actually try. With Latinos, it’s more about making the effort. With African-Americans it’s a tougher problem, but we don’t lose African-Americans because we hate them. It’s because we fail to even attempt to explain why our policies are better. We cede the debate entirely to Democrats. They tell African-Americans that we hate them, that voting Republican means dead black men in the streets. Republicans respond by saying nothing. So of course we lose.
Hi adaher, I’m John Q. Blackman, a resident of Innercity, USA. I don’t really give a damn about gay marriage, abortion, guns or the capital gains tax rate. Please, if you would, explain to me why Republican policies are better for me.
Do you work hard and pay taxes? Are you trying to start your own business? The answer is pretty obvious. We won’t take as much of the fruit of your labor. We also do a better job of controlling crime. Rudy Giuliani has saved more black lives than anyone in the country.
In the short term the mathematics of the proposal as presented are not favorable to the Republicans. But as has been mentioned it need not be done that way. We could be a great potential swing vote, and both Presidents Bush were seen as trying to tap that potential. But after '08 that idea became a dangerous thing in the face of the Tea Partiers. The fear is that the hardline “base” will punish you in the primary.
Heck, for some of us “immigration” should be a non-issue, e.g. Puerto Ricans like me; but we hear the undertone, the general vibe that somehow living visibly Latino is a danger to the survival of America itself, and it gives us pause. So, “values” includes feeling threatened by the likes of me? I’ll take the high taxes and clunky health plan, thank you very much.