By Eric Hershberg and Robert Albro
Photo credits: Iprimages, Michael Vadon, Gage Skidmore / Flickr / Creative Commons
Remarks about immigration made by flamboyant New York billionaire and aspiring presidential candidate Donald Trump have embarrassed many Republicans – and angered many Latinos – but also opened the way for several of his competitors to appear more moderate on the issue. Echoing comments he made in a televised debate on 6 August, Trump on Sunday issued a policy paper claiming, “For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been … using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries).” He demands that Mexico pay for an impenetrable wall along the border and that Washington deport many migrants, beef up border patrols and narrow opportunities for legal immigration. Although Trump has often claimed he could win the Latino vote, a poll by Huffington Post/YouGov in June found that 82 percent of Latinos don’t take Trump seriously as a candidate, and subsequent surveys indicate that his rhetoric has damaged the Republicans’ image among them. (Other polls indicate that Democrats’ immigration proposals, in contrast, have the support of some 60 percent of Latinos.) The views of the country’s fastest-growing demographic group are significant when considering their prominence in “swing” states such as Florida (24 percent of the population and 14.6 of registered voters), Colorado (21 and 14.2), Nevada (27 and 16) and Virginia (8 and 5).
Most of the 15 other major Republican candidates have tried to ignore Trump’s remarks and the immigration issue overall. Texas Senator Ted Cruz said he “salutes” Trump and, eschewing “Republican-on-Republican violence,” refused to criticize his views. But two others – former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio governor John Kasich – have staked out somewhat more moderate positions.
- Bush stresses the need for more aggressive border enforcement and a crackdown on undocumented residents of “sanctuary cities,” but he also called for an immigration policy that included “documented status” – but not citizenship – for an unspecified number of them. Having a Mexican-born wife and mixed-race children also sets him apart.
- Kasich last week noted that undocumented migrants are “people who are contributing significantly” to the United States. He said, “A lot of these people who are here are some of the hardest-working, God-fearing, family-oriented people you can ever meet,” and he said he favors a pathway to legal status for people already in the country, adding that such provisions could be part of an immigration reform package.
- Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was ostracized by his Republican colleagues in 2013 for proposing reforms along the same lines, has appeared reluctant to criticize Trump, Bush or Kasich – making him possibly the biggest loser on the issue for now.
The elections are still 14 months off, and electoral dynamics change. Latinos don’t figure in the Republican primaries, and it’s too early to speculate how their voices will play until next year – at which point Donald Trump probably will be seeking celebrity through other endeavors. Republican strategists have already said that their candidates won’t try hard to court Latinos – and risk alienating the roughly 20 percent of their base in swing states who hold hard-core anti-immigration positions. Nonetheless, Bush and Kasich’s rhetoric, while still vague on actual policies, may give the party a chance to claim to Latinos that not all Republicans are out to get them. No Republican on the front line today appears likely to attract majority support among Latinos, but a moderate-sounding approach to immigration could take the rough edges off the party’s image, reduce Latino opposition to it and diminish the issue as a Democratic Party advantage.
August 18, 2015
AULA Blog 
David E. Dreyer
/ August 19, 2015Apologies: My earlier comment dropped a word crucial to the meaning.
The blog post saying “a moderate-sounding approach to immigration could take the rough edges of the [Republican] party’s image, reduce Latino opposition to it, and diminish the issue as a Democratic Party advantage,” seems aspirational to say the least.
The Republican party started the 2016 cycle in a very deep hole with Hispanic voters. As the party committee conceded after the 2012 election in its GOP Growth and Opportunity Project report, “Hispanic voters tell us our Party’s position on immigration has become a litmus test.”
A June 2015 survey by Bendixen & Amandi of Hispanics found the Republican Party’s favorability rating at 36% and the Democratic Party’s favorability rating at 68%. Respondents said the Democratic Party’s view of immigration was more in line with their views than the Republican Party by a 60% to 20% margin.
At the same time, demographic changes in the electorate – with 50,000 Latinos turning 18 years of age every month – are increasing the share of the Latino Vote that Republicans must win in order to have a chance of winning the White House. An analysis by Latino Decisions, reported by the Los Angeles Times, says that the Latino Threshold for the Republican Presidential candidate has moved from the 40% level that existed in 2012 to 47 percent nationally, and varies from 42-47% in battleground states.
I agree that electoral dynamics can change over the next 14 months, and I certainly agree with the authors that “No Republican on the front line today appears likely to attract majority support among Latinos.” But, majority support is not a realistic hurdle. The question is, however, when the party has a favorability of 36% and and loses to Democrats 60% to 20% on immigration, the issue that RNC says is the litmus test, what are the Republicans realistic chances of winning 47% of the Latino vote when Mitt Romney was able to capture just 27% in 2012 – long before Donald Trump poisoned the waters?
Eric Hershberg
/ August 20, 2015I appreciate David Dreyer’s comment on our blogpost. The term “aspirational” is well chosen, much more elegant than our use of the conventional “may” and “could.” Having said that, I think that the tone with which Bush and Kasich have addressed the immigration debate, and their making explicit that a path to legal status for some undocumented immigrants is needed, signals their desire to not win the primary through a path that guarantees defeat in the general. Rob and I are skeptical that the Republicans can pull this off – he perhaps even more than I – and all of their candidates’ inability to jettison calls to “build a bigger wall” suggests that it is indeed a long shot. But particularly for our Latin American readers who follow American politics at a distance, we wanted to call attention to the balancing act that we see being carried out by some of the candidates most likely to ultimately win the nomination. The one other point I would add is that while as best I can tell Latino Decisions provides the gold standard in polling of Latino populations in the U.S., I’m not convinced that 47 per cent is the portion of the Latino vote that the GOP needs in order to win the presidency in 2016. That strikes me as high, though of course it depends on their margin of victory in the white vote, and on turnout, which the party continues to try to suppress through voter id laws that are equal part draconian and cynical.