Republican Brand Deeply Damaged Among Hispanics
A post-election poll from Republican polling firm Resurgent Republic shows that the GOP’s problems with Hispanic voters go well beyond immigration:
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Majorities of Hispanic voters say that, regardless of how they typically vote, the Republican Party does not respect the values and concerns of the Hispanic community. Combined with the overwhelming view that the Democratic Party, rather than the Republican Party, better understands the needs and concerns of Hispanic voters, the results of this question should be sobering for Republican candidates at every level. Hispanic voters say the Republican Party does not respect the values and concerns of the Hispanic community by 51 to 44 percent in Florida, 54 to 40 percent in New Mexico, 59 to 35 percent in Nevada, and 63 to 30 percent in Colorado.
The Democratic Party fares much better, with Hispanic voters saying the party does respect the values and concerns of Hispanic voters by 67 to 28 percent in Florida, 72 to 23 percent in New Mexico and Nevada, and 76 to 20 percent in Colorado. These results are a stark illustration of the challenge the Republican Party faces among Hispanic voters, and show the importance of quality outreach efforts and a respectful tone, along with attractive policy ideas, when trying to win votes in the Hispanic community.
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The Republican Party has net unfavorable ratings among Hispanic voters in each of these states. The Republican Party as a whole is unpopular among these voters – its favorable to unfavorable rating in Florida approaches a split, but is still a negative 44 to 47 percent, compared to 35 to 53 percent in New Mexico, 33 to 58 percent in Nevada, and 30 to 61 percent in Colorado. In Colorado, 43 percent of Hispanic voters have a “very unfavorable” view of the party.
The Democratic Party, by comparison, has favorable to unfavorable ratings of two-to-one or better in each state – 60 to 30 percent in Florida, 66 to 26 percent in New Mexico, 69 to 24 percent in Nevada, and 72 to 23 percent in Colorado. President Obama outperforms even these numbers, with favorable to unfavorable ratings of 64 to 34 percent in Florida, 72 to 26 percent in each of New Mexico and Nevada, and 78 to 20 percent in Colorado.
There’s much more at the link, all of which makes clear that the GOP’s problem with this growing group of voters isn’t limited to the issue of immigration and won’t just be solved by putting someone like Marco Rubio on the ticket.
Well, just look at the talking heads on the conservative side… without exception (as far as I’ve seen) they continue to see the GOP’s problem as one of perception rather that product. They still truly seem to believe that if they just explained their positions better – had better PR or sales gurus – then every single person would naturally vote for them. They can’t seem to grasp that more people are recognizing that every single, solitary Republican policy is geared towards making themselves and their closets friends richer. That’s all. That’s the only thing the GOP stands for anymore. You can’t sell that to poor people, no matter how you package it – all you can do is grift the rubes.
What is interesting to me is that, here in the Bay Area, I have family friends who came here illegally from Mexico and Guatemala respectively, and they became legal during the Reagan immigration amnesty of 1986. They registered Republican and voted Republican until Prop 187 was on the ballot here in California. After that episode they became reliable Democratic voters.
Since 2004, the GOP has refused to change its tactics with respect to illegal immigration – even a sensible “path to legal status’ is too much for base Republicans to handle. If the GOP had taken a blended approach to illegal immigration – stronger border enforcement with a path to legal status for illegals with families here – they might have avoided the electoral meltdown with hispanic voters.
Sadly Miguel Estrada was unavailable for comment.
Speaking of which, do you want to know the amazing irony with that sort of polling result? You could take that exact survey but limit it to New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Texas, and the overall results basically would be the same. Then in the next breath you could ask the same respondents for their respective opinions about Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, not to mention the likes of Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, etc. And not only would crickets chirp the irony would be lost on those respondents. You’d have to explain it to them. Seriously.
Politics by racial identity quickly and inevitably leads to total political cognitive dissonance. And this bodes extraordinarily ill for the Hispanic community at large. The likes of East Los Angeles are nothing to which to aspire.
@Tsar Nicholas:
As opposed to New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, and Colorado, the four states they did poll??
It’s hardly surprising that you are puzzled…let me spell it out for you…Hispanics, much like blacks, are far too smart to vote for or be swayed by tokens…rather, they vote for politicians who best represent their interests and who aren’t openly hostile to them…these are the reasons why these groups don’t like and don’t vote for the GOP…and this concludes another episode of simple answers for simple people…
@Tsar Nicholas: Ahh, all Hispanics can be easily stereotyped by East Los Angeles. Nice.
Not a new low for you, but close.
What’s even more interesting is that Republicans do even worse among Asian Americans , the “model minority” with “naturally Republican values”.
What Republicans still don’t understand is that “tokens” don’t matter-what matter is policies.Republican policies just aren’t attractive outside certain categories of voters, regardless of skin color. It will take at least one more big election defeat before the message sinks in.
@Tsar Nicholas:
As someone who proudly grew up in East Los Angeles (I’m old enough to remember crusing Whittier Boulevard), and who went to Garfield High School and East Los Angeles College (ELAC), let me be the first to go tell you to f**k yourself.
You’d be surprised how many successful people came out of East Los Angeles.
East Los Angeles is still in, you know… Los Angeles…
There are lots of opportunities. It’s not like you’re in Bumble Woods, Alabama.
I’m pretty sure the GOP issue with Hispanics can be boiled down to Tsar Nicholas’ attitude towards them.
“We are giving you savages some token appointments in exchange for civilization” hasn’t worked for 1,000 years or so. Neither has pointing out a Hispanic or two (Republican of course) as “one of the good ones”.
But keep hammering home the “but we gave you Ted Cruz and two whole Cubans from FL”. it doesn’t just scream condescension, tone-deafness and tokenism at all.
@stonetools:
Of course. Doug and James pretty clearly don’t care about policies (See James’ post about why he voted for Romney as evidence), it’s only natural that they vote for people who feel the same way. And they do.
@swbarnes2:
(See James’ post about why he voted for Romney as evidence),
Happily I never read this but it was the basic reason I took a 9 month sabbatical from OTB. I couldn’t stand months and months of endless rationalisations and spinning of reality from JJ and Doug. At least the outcome of the election seems to have served as a welcome reality check for Doug who is being entirely realistic about the hole Republicans currently find themselves in.
@Gromitt Gunn:
As opposed to New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, and Colorado, the four states they did poll??
You don’t expect Nicko to read AND comprehend do you…..that would be a bridge too far.
@Tsar Nicholas:
Do you mean “sadly” in the sense of Clarence Thomas, or “sadly” in the sense of Robert Bork?
@MM:
Cruz is Cuban too, so they actually offered up three Cubans.
Nevermind that Hispanics are not some monolithic racial bloc that moves in groupthink. They have the same prejudices and ethnic segmentation as any other demographic.
Helpful hint to the GOP – Mexicans, generally speaking, don’t like Cubans, and they can tell the difference, so you’re going to have to do a little better than “Sí, soy moreno como tú!”
* rolling eyes … *
@Tsar Nicholas:
Do you ever get tired of being a flaming asshat?
@stonetools:
How does open borders, free movement of individuals, poorer public schools, higher taxes, more sprawl, more crime, and higher insurance rates help Asians. My guess is that the Asians have correctly interpreted that the Republican Party is just a mechanism for the Bush Clan to look out for themsleves and their friends and will never go anything else. Thus, the Asians know to get in with the one dominant political power in the future much like the Chamber of Commerce types are all Democrats in places like Chicago.
@Harvardlaw92:
@Tsar Nicholas:
Do you ever get tired of being a flaming asshat?
It’s a love affair he’s having.
Is there any indication given as to what the values and concerns are of the Hispanic community that Republicans don’t respect? The bitter, cynical reactionary part of my brain is wondering whether what this really means is “Democrats promise us more taxpayer funded goodies.”