Conservative Hispanic activists fear a win by
Republican frontrunner
Donald Trump in
Florida's presidential nominating contest next week will deal a major setback to efforts to widen the party's appeal beyond white voters, potentially dooming hopes of retaking the
White House from
Democrats in 2016.
Some of the activists said in interviews they feared a
Trump win could prompt many
Latino Republicans, angry at his anti-immigrant rhetoric, to stay home on Nov. 8,
Election Day, or worse, support the
Democratic nominee.
"Sadly, the damage is going to be felt by the
Republican Party for years," said
Javier Palomarez, president and
CEO of the
U.S. Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce, of a possible Trump win in
Florida on March 15.
"This is a turning
point," he said.
Trump has dominated opinion polls and early nominating contests, in large part because of his pledge to build a wall along the border with
Mexico; his labeling of
Mexicans as criminals and rapists; and his accusations that immigrant workers steal
American jobs.
That kind of talk is well received by many white Republican voters, but not by minorities, polls show.
That's a problem for the party, because while the
American electorate has become more diverse in the last three years, Republican support among Hispanic likely voters has shrunk, from 30.6 percent in
2012 to 26 percent in
2015, according to an analysis of Reuters/Ipsos polling data.
Meanwhile, Hispanic Democrats grew by 6 percentage points to 59.6 percent. (
Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/1Oj9SPi)
Trump's campaign declined to comment, but he has consistently argued he can win the
Latino vote, in part because his companies have employed thousands of Hispanics.
“They’re incredible people. They’re incredible workers. I love them. I love them,” he said at a debate in February.
Much of the establishment wing of the
Republican party has thrown its weight behind Florida
Senator Marco Rubio, a first-generation
Cuban American.
Rubio, however, lags Trump by 15 points in polls in Florida and may be forced out of the race if the
New York businessman bests him.
For
Mark Gomez, a 20-year-old Cuban-American student at the
University of Miami and a Rubio volunteer, the differences between
Rubio's and Trump’s approaches hit home when earlier this month on Twitter, a Trump supporter called him an “anchor baby.” Gomez was born in the
United States of Cuban refugee parents.
Immigration critics sometimes use "anchor babies" to describe U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, usually from
Latin America. Immigration groups say the phrase is offensive.
Trump, Gomez said, “is just playing into people's fears."
Rubio has toured Florida's Latino enclaves in recent weeks, switching easily between
Spanish and
English at his rallies, while his allied super
PAC, or independent fundraising group, has outspent all rivals combined in ads to boost him and erase Trump's polling lead.
Among Rubio's challenges in besting Trump, however, could be drawing in younger generations of Florida's Hispanics.
Unlike conservatives of the past, who could take the Cuban-American vote in Florida for granted if they aggressively criticized the
Castro government in
Cuba, candidates are dealing with a new generation that is leaning more heavily to the
Democratic Party.
A decade ago 64 percent of Cuban registered voters nationwide identified with the Republican party. That's now down to
47 percent, according to the
Pew Research Center. And among young
Cubans, from 18 to 49, more than half now identify with or lean toward the Democrats.
"A lot of those Cubans who come from the island, that resentment, that pain, that hurt has really driven how they’ve reacted politically. Our generation is a generation removed from that in a lot of ways," said
Gabriel Pendas, 33, of
Miami. He called Rubio "so outdated from how a lot of people feel."
"
IDEAL CANDIDATE"
Following Mitt Romney’s defeat as the Republican party’s presidential nominee in 2012, in which he received just 27 percent of the
Hispanic vote nationwide, the
Republican National Committee underwent an extensive and painful self-examination to determine the root causes of its failure.
One thing was clear from the autopsy:
The party needed to expand a voter base skewing too white and too old.
The hope among party leaders, like
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus, was that a young, dynamic field of candidates like Rubio,
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and others, would position the party well to reclaim some share of Latino vote from the Democrats.
Rubio stood central to those hopes.
Young, telegenic, bilingual, and armed with a compelling backstory, he seemed made-to-order.
“
Rubio’s tone, his aspirational message, his shared language and culture, makes him an ideal candidate,” said
Daniel Garza, director of the LIBRE
Institute in Miami, a conservative Hispanic advocacy group.
- published: 12 Mar 2016
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