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Republicans Lose Ground among Hispanic Voters
Cutting into the Democrats' traditional advantage among Hispanic voters was a key to both of President Bush's election victories. In 2004, when the president was at the top of the ticket, 44% of Hispanics surveyed after they cast their ballots said they voted Republican. This year, the figure dropped to 29%. The decline is significant because Hispanics are fast becoming a crucial voting bloc. Census figures show Hispanics make up at least 10% of the population in 11 of the 28 U.S. House districts that switched from Republican to Democratic hands on Tuesday. Strategists from both parties say the vocal opposition of some Republicans to a proposed immigration bill that would give an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship drove Hispanics back to the Democratic camp. "This time there is no doubt they felt Democrats were on the right side of the immigration issue," says Lionel Sosa, a Hispanic ad executive who has advised Republicans. One of the Democratic Party's top-ranking Hispanics, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, agrees. He says Bush's decision to bow to conservative pressure and sign legislation authorizing construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border "sent a terrible signal." Bush backs citizenship for many of the people who are here illegally, as do a number of potential 2008 GOP presidential candidates, including Sam Brownback of Kansas. But House Republican leaders blocked a path to citizenship in the immigration bill and GOP conservatives such as Indiana's John Hostettler made their opposition a campaign issue. Some members of the party believe that backfired. "There has been too much of an anti-immigrant tone," says Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a Cuban immigrant. He argues that Hispanics are "a natural" Republican constituency because they are entrepreneurial and socially conservative. But Diaz-Balart adds, "When people start to perceive that immigrants are being put in the same category as a threat to national security, it's hard to get your message across." In Hostettler's close race, the six-term congressman appeared with representatives of the Minutemen, a controversial citizens group that has been patrolling the border, and ran ads touting his opposition to "the nightmare of amnesty." In Arizona, Republican Randy Graf ran an advertisement showing a blonde-haired child walking toward a slowly opening door as a voiceover delivered statistics about crime and other problems caused by the nation's "open door" border. Both Hostettler and Graf lost, a point likely made by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi when she talked to Bush Thursday. She asked for his help in passing a bipartisan immigration bill when she and fellow Democrats start running Congress in January. "Those candidates who ran largely on immigration did not succeed," she says. Gabrielle Giffords, the Democrat who defeated Graf, also carried Cochise County, Ariz., along the U.S.-Mexican border where frustration with immigration is highest. Gifford says she believes voters there preferred her because "people want solutions, not slogans." Immigration could be key in a House race still to be decided. In Texas, GOP incumbent Henry Bonilla is in a runoff with Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, a former lawmaker, in a district where more than half the population is Hispanic. Bonilla is one of only two Hispanic lawmakers who backed a controversial House bill that would make it a crime to assist illegal immigrants. He says he's taking a get-tough approach to protect his border constituents from crime and illegal drug trafficking. But Sosa, who lives in the district and describes himself as Bonilla's friend, worries that some Hispanic residents may misinterpret his stand. "I have told him that in my opinion he should soften his position," Sosa says. He says the election results don't mean the GOP has lost the Hispanic vote. "It means Republicans need to have a much higher sensitivity about how Latinos feel about their worth and the worth of immigrants," he says. |
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