Los Angeles Times
By Maeve Reston
March 20, 2014
For
Republicans roaring into the midterm election, the last few weeks have
brought a wave of good news. President Obama's poll numbers continue to
hover in the 40s. Democrats'
hopes of holding the Senate look slimmer by the day. And the GOP
heralded last week's win in Florida's special congressional election as
evidence that their anti-Obamacare strategy is working.
But
some Republican strategists and donors fear that buoyant mood spells
trouble for the party down the road — by masking the long-term problems
that were so evident after
the 2012 election. Chief among them: the GOP's abysmal performance
among Latinos and the growing influence of minority voters in
battleground states that will create a steeper climb to the presidency
for Republicans with each passing year.
In
the short term, Republicans have a reprieve: The makeup of the
electorate in November is expected to favor the GOP, because
nonpresidential elections draw lower concentrations
of the kinds of voters that they have struggled to win over.
In
2012, exit polls show Mitt Romney beat Obama by 20 percentage points
among white voters, which made up 72% of the electorate, while losing
resoundingly among all other
racial groups. In this November's midterm election, whites will
constitute a higher percentage of the electorate than in 2012, about
75%, according to GOP pollster Whit Ayres.
But
that is a very different reality from the one Republicans will face in
November 2016. If the GOP does well this fall, "it gives you a false
picture about the health
of the party heading into a presidential election year," Republican
strategist Steve Schmidt said.
"The
long-term problem for Republicans is that in every demographic that is
growing in the country, Democrats are gaining market share," he said,
and "in every demographic
group in the country that is shrinking, Republicans are gaining market
share."
But
with trends going in their favor this year, some Republicans in
Congress saw no need to get bogged down in a party fight over
immigration legislation stalled in the
House. Their argument: It might be an easier sell among Republicans in
2015, when this year's fractious party primaries are behind them and
they might have control of the Senate.
Absent
any movement on that front — and despite frustration over increasing
deportations under Obama — Latinos gave Democrats far higher marks in a
survey released by
the Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project in December.
In
the survey, about 72% of Latinos said the Democratic Party cared about
the issues facing their community, compared with 39% who said
Republicans did. The sentiments
were shared by Asians, whose voting strength is also burgeoning.
This
week, on the one-year anniversary of the post-2012 report by Republican
leaders that emphasized the need to reach out to Latinos, women and
young voters, GOP officials
were brushing aside questions about a comprehensive immigration measure
whose passage the report had urged. Instead, they focused on a
$10-million initiative to engage with minority voters.
Under
the initiative, at least 20 paid staffers are working on Latino
outreach across 10 states, including California, Nevada, Colorado and
New Mexico. Many of the state
efforts are still in what the party calls "phase one": identifying
influential leaders and assessing events, festivals and gatherings where
they believe the GOP should have a presence.
This
Friday in Florida — where Latinos made up 17% of the electorate in
2012, up from 14% four years earlier — the Republican National Committee
will announce a new Latino
state advisory council in Miami, and on Sunday it will sponsor a float
in the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Orlando for the first time in more
than a decade. The party will have more than a dozen volunteers
surveying attendees as part of its voter identification
project.
"The
real purpose there is to listen to the community's concerns," said
Jennifer Sevilla Korn, the RNC's deputy political director, who was the
national Hispanic director
for George W. Bush's campaign in 2004. (His share of Latino voters that
year was the highest for a Republican recently.) "We want to know what
their top issues are, what would motivate them to go to the polls in
November, and what would motivate them to vote
Republican."
Sally
Bradshaw, one of the authors of the GOP report and a top advisor to
former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, noted that, in contrast to Republican
refusals to take up immigration
in Congress, Republicans in Florida are reaching out.
The
Florida House on Thursday approved legislation that would allow certain
students in the country illegally to pay in-state tuition rates. Its
final prospects in the
Legislature are uncertain, but it's a priority for the House speaker
and some other Republicans. A similar measure narrowly passed a state
Senate committee this week.
"In
the states, you're starting to see more and more engagement on issues
affecting immigrants," Bradshaw said. "I don't think you can just look
to federal immigration
reform. Look to the states where Republicans are leading on this
issue."
But
states like Florida and Texas — where the GOP has made inroads with
Latinos — remain the exception. Most Republicans in Congress oppose
immigration measures that might
be seen by party regulars as going easy on lawbreakers. The party's
presidential primaries and caucuses in recent cycles have been driven by
conservative activists who are the most strident opponents of
comprehensive immigration measures, and 2016 seems unlikely
to be any different.
Texas
Gov. Rick Perry faced a backlash in the 2012 Iowa caucuses because he
had signed legislation allowing children of immigrants without legal
status to pay reduced
in-state tuition at public colleges. Romney, the eventual nominee,
sought to project a firm approach on the issue just before the Florida
primary by calling for the "self-deportation" of millions of immigrants.
(He won the primary but his standing among Latinos
never recovered.)
A year after Republican leaders sought to change the party's image, no consensus has yet emerged about how to do it.
"My
fear is that a good 2014 will disguise some of the fundamental problems
that Republicans need to address if they are ever going to elect
another president," pollster
Ayres said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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