It's time for GOP to decide if it is serious about attracting Latino voters

The support among Latino voters for immigrant rights stretches well beyond Mexican Americans and Democrats. But many in the Republican Party seem ready to give Donald Trump another try.

Por:
Matt Barreto.
Publicado el 3 dic 22 - 07:30 AM EST. Actualizado el 3 dic 22 - 08:42 AM EST.
In this June 30, 2021, file photo former President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to an unfinished section of border wall with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in Pharr, Texas.
In this June 30, 2021, file photo former President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to an unfinished section of border wall with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in Pharr, Texas.
Imagen Eric Gay/AP

Donald Trump’s meeting with White supremacist leader Nick Fuentes and presumptive-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s recent visit to the border sent a clear message to voters: the GOP is willing to double down on racial division and “invasion” rhetoric despite this approach’s clear failure the past two midterm cycles.

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The poster child of this failed strategy was the race between Blake Masters and Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona. During the campaign, Masters constantly evoked dark images of shady individuals sneaking through the border and the “invasion” rhetoric was a constant talking point in his speeches. His ads zeroed in on the issue, even falsely accusing immigrants of bringing drugs into the country when the overwhelming majority of drug seizures are occurring at legal ports of entry.

The result couldn’t have been more disappointing for Republicans. Not only did Masters lose to Kelly, but Arizona voters also approved Proposition 308, which will grant in-state tuition to undocumented students.

That pattern was evident in the 2022 Midterm Election Voter Poll - a large exit poll survey of more than 12,200 voters nationwide and in 11 key battleground states. On the immigration questions, 63 percent of all voters said they support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When the question concerned whether to help Dreamers, immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age, support rose to 68 percent, with 82 percent of Latino voters supporting.

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As my mom worked and parented, all in one breath, she instilled in us the values that I carry with me today: “por la familia, todo.” Lee este contenido en <a href="https://www.univision.com/noticias/opinion/por-la-familia-todo-ruben-gallego-sobre-su-candidatura-para-ser-el-primer-senador-latino-de-arizona" target="_blank" link-data="{&quot;cms.site.owner&quot;:{&quot;_ref&quot;:&quot;00000147-f3a5-d4ea-a95f-fbb7f52b0000&quot;,&quot;_type&quot;:&quot;ae3387cc-b875-31b7-b82d-63fd8d758c20&quot;},&quot;cms.content.publishDate&quot;:1726508089253,&quot;cms.content.publishUser&quot;:{&quot;_ref&quot;:&quot;0000017b-d1c8-de50-affb-f1df3e1d0000&quot;,&quot;_type&quot;:&quot;6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc&quot;},&quot;cms.content.updateDate&quot;:1726508089253,&quot;cms.content.updateUser&quot;:{&quot;_ref&quot;:&quot;0000017b-d1c8-de50-affb-f1df3e1d0000&quot;,&quot;_type&quot;:&quot;6aa69ae1-35be-30dc-87e9-410da9e1cdcc&quot;},&quot;link&quot;:{&quot;target&quot;:&quot;NEW&quot;,&quot;attributes&quot;:[],&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.univision.com/noticias/opinion/por-la-familia-todo-ruben-gallego-sobre-su-candidatura-para-ser-el-primer-senador-latino-de-arizona&quot;,&quot;_id&quot;:&quot;00000191-fbe6-d0b9-a3df-ffee82b60000&quot;,&quot;_type&quot;:&quot;ff658216-e70f-39d0-b660-bdfe57a5599a&quot;},&quot;linkText&quot;:&quot;español&quot;,&quot;_id&quot;:&quot;00000191-fbe6-d0b9-a3df-ffee82b10000&quot;,&quot;_type&quot;:&quot;809caec9-30e2-3666-8b71-b32ddbffc288&quot;}">español</a>.

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&quot;What a sad reflection that the Republican Party has moved from Abraham Lincoln, who <a href="https://www.lincolncottage.org/lincoln-and-immigration/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.lincolncottage.org/lincoln-and-immigration/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722615259799000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1h4-6RbvpglrZVIbOjgpuE" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">said </a>immigration was a ‘source of national wealth and strength’ and Ronald Reagan, who <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/farewell-address-nation" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/farewell-address-nation&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722615259799000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3smYQcjpnK2Yg75NSEOBUf" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">called </a>for his ‘city on the hill’ to be ‘open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here,’ to Donald Trump, who <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-immigrants-are-poisoning-blood-country-biden-campaign-liken-rcna130141" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-immigrants-are-poisoning-blood-country-biden-campaign-liken-rcna130141&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722615259799000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1u4LrDvU2tKeNxJCdbz96i" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">says </a>immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country&quot;.

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Chuck Schumer and Pete Aguilar

&quot;This month comes at a special moment in our nation’s history. For the first time, we have more Latinos serving in Congress than ever before. In the Senate, the Democratic Majority has confirmed a historic number of Latino judicial nominees and recently confirmed the first Latina to serve on the Federal Reserve in the Board’s 109-year history&quot;.

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Tom Perez.

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Opinion
5 mins

The support among Latino voters for immigrant rights stretches well beyond Mexican Americans and Democrats. In fact support is strong and constant across ethnic origin with 83% of Mexican, 82% of Puerto Rican, 81% of Cuban, 86% of Central American and 79% of South American Latinos who support passing the Dream Act now in the lame duck. Likewise, 60% of Latino Republicans

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And support for immigrant rights is clear across states. In Arizona 83 percent of Latino voters supported Dreamers and in Pennsylvania the support was 79 percent and in Nevada 77 percent. Even in Florida– an outlier to national trends– the support for Dreamers reached 78 percent.

These numbers held despite a barrage of anti-immigrant commercials throughout the cycle. According to America’s Voice, a poll sponsor and an immigrant advocacy group tracking anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout the electoral season, there were 3,200 anti-immigrant attack ads through 2022. And, there was an average of 4,000 negative mentions of immigration in conservative media through the last five months of the cycle.

Despite the barrage of anti-immigrant messaging, the general electorate was not persuaded. Rather, what our research among 2022 Midterm voters showed was a clear rejection of the GOP’s divisive messages. Two out of three voters in our research said they were worried that “if Donald Trump becomes president again, he will promote hate and division.”

Further, 70 percent of Latino and 74 percent of Black voters expressed concern about “elected officials who stay quiet and do not speak out against White nationalists and extremists who promote hate and attacks against minorities and immigrants.”

Yet despite these clear and sobering numbers, many in the Republican Party seem ready to give Donald Trump and his new White supremacist friend Nick Fuentes another try. For his part, Kevin McCarthy has outsourced his future speakership’s agenda to the extremists in his party who stand ready to deport Dreamers and separate families once again as Trump did during a very dark period of our history. Only this time, they also intend to target American citizen children.

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It is clear that after three cycles– 2018, 2020, and 2022– of seeing voters of color turned off by the GOP’s divisive rhetoric that they have only succeeded at scaring voters of color, such as Hispanics, who vote Democrat at a 2-1 rate. The GOP’s schizophrenic strategy will not work. They continue to pump millions of dollars into immigrant attacks, and hope that running a few Latino GOP candidates will win them votes, while their party leaders fail to speak out against hate speech and xenophobia.

If they were to consider that their immigrant-bashing strategy hasn’t worked three times in a row they would recognize that a fourth attempt is unlikely to produce a different result. If this is the GOP strategy headed into 2024 they will continue to lose Latino voters.

The Midterm Election Voter Poll was conducted by the African American Research Collaborative and executed by BSP Research. Matt Barreto is president and co-founder of BSP Research and José Dante Parra is CEO of the firm Prospero Latino.

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