Party Risks Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Latino label

Last night in major primaries for Senate and Governor in Nevada and California, the GOP nominated candidates who campaigned on anti-immigrant and anti-Latino policies. Meg Whitman, the GOP’s nominee for Governor of California reiterated the same failed so-called border security first policies espoused by the national GOP and by her campaign Chair, anti-immigrant Pete Wilson.  For her part, GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina sounded like a broken record and parroted the tired border security first rhetoric and expressed support for Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law. In Nevada, Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle, the GOP’s choice to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, offered more of the same window-dressing immigration measures and patchwork quick fixes that have characterized unserious GOP candidates: more troops on the border, support for Arizona’s new law, and sponsoring legislation to make English the official language of Nevada. None of these will solve our broken immigration system and none of them will remove the incentives that create illegal immigrants.

What these proposals are sure to do, however, is drive Latino voters to the Democratic Party. A slew of polling data confirms the case. A recent study put together by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) of the California electorate found that:

“Latino voters who registered after the 2006 midterm election are significantly less likely to be Republican than those who registered in the two previous periods. Only 16% of those Latinos are Republican, compared to 23% of those who registered between 2002 and 2006. About 56% are Democrats, which is a higher percentage than those registered between 2002 and 2006, but lower than the Democratic percentage of those registered before 2002…. These voters registered in the wake of a mass mobilization of the Latino community in reaction to our nation’s widely publicized immigration debate, which included protests throughout the country… As noted above, many Latino voters in the mid-1990s, including the newly-naturalized, believed the Republican Party was responsible for the tenor of the debate over Proposition 187 and federal anti-immigrant measures. This resulted in a significant increase in Latino support at the end of the decade for Democratic senate and gubernatorial candidates. A similar partisan realignment away from the Republican Party may be occurring with California Latinos who registered after 2006.”

Public Policy Polling conducted a survey in late may that indicated that Hispanics in the Mountain West have swung dramatically towards the Democrats:

“Hispanics in the Mountain West are leaning much more strongly toward the Democrats since the Arizona law was passed. The big question then becomes whether there are white voters who are going to go Republican this fall who wouldn’t have if that bill hadn’t been passed. We don’t see any evidence of that happening yet.”

According to Ali Noorani, Chair of the Reform Immigration FOR America, “While the frustration about illegal immigration is understandable, it’s not an excuse for GOP candidates to play political football with one of the most serious issues facing the country. Rather than offering serious solutions, candidates Whitman, Angle and Fiorina have offered band-aid, window-dressing measures that score political points but don’t solve the immigration problem. As a result, their party will pay a long-term political price. The GOP must decide whether they’re for solving the nation’s toughest problems, or are they for the status quo that has led to the crisis we now face? ”

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ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN: The Reform Immigration FOR America campaign is a coalition of more than 800 faith, labor, business, progressive, and immigration reform groups that have joined together to get comprehensive immigration reform passed.  For more information please visit www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org or www.reformamigratoriaproamerica.org