For Colorado GOP, Outreach to Latinos Isn't an Option, It's Essential

U.S. News & World Report

By Lauren Fox

September 11, 2014

For Colorado GOP, Outreach to Latinos Isn't an Option, It's Essential 

In 2011, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., demanded English-only election ballots. Now, he spends several hours a week practicing his vocabulary in preparation for a televised Spanish-language TV debate.

“Even though my Spanish isn’t that good yet, they just really appreciate that I am trying,” Coffman says.

Back in 2008, voters first sent the 59-year-old congressman to Washington with a markedly different tone on immigration than he projects today. Running to replace would-be Republican presidential candidate and border-security hawk Tom Tancredo in Colorado’s Sixth District, Coffman was a hardliner on immigration; during his first term, he voted against the DREAM Act and stayed far away from the kinds of immigration reform efforts on Capitol Hill he supports today.

After redistricting in 2010, however, the demographics of Coffman’s district changed. Though his former district had a small Latino constituency, the new boundaries swept in suburbs of Denver and a much larger bloc of Latino voters — nearly 20 percent of his district.

Coffman faced a choice: evolve on immigration, or risk losing re-election.

The three-term congressman embodies a much larger shift within Colorado Republicans. Once led by nativists like Tancredo, the state party is now being shepherded by people like chairman Ryan Call, a fluent Spanish-speaker with ties to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and an eye for ways to engage a constituency he admits GOP national leaders have left behind.

After President Barack Obama nearly swept Colorado's Hispanic vote in 2012, Call said the state party recognized its only choice was to step up its appeals for Latino votes.

In coordination with the national party, Colorado Republicans hired three full-time staffers to coordinate outreach in its 13 regional field offices. The Colorado GOP orchestrated a simple, three-pronged campaign to win over Spanish-speaking voters: It built up a database of the state's Latino community leaders, created a calendar of important Latino events in the state and urged candidates — and incumbents — to show up.

Coffman says he was encouraged to start visiting supermercados in his district and reach out to leaders among his constituency.

“In the immigrant communities there is just this narrative of Republicans being opposed to immigration,” Coffman says. “You have to break that narrative in those communities. You do that by showing up.”

Yet the national party's missteps with Latinos and immigration reform — especially among Coffman's colleagues — remain in clear view.

Despite releasing a set of immigration reform principles, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and the Republican majority hasn't acted on any of them so far this year. Moreover, several House Republicans argued against a White House-backed initiative allowing young undocumented immigrants to qualify for permanent residency. Before going on a month-long recess in August, the House approved only $659 million of President Barack Obama's $3.7 billion funding request to address the crisis of unaccompanied immigrant children on the US-Mexico border. And a YouTube video of DREAMers confronting an argumentative Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. dashed away went viral on the Internet.

Perhaps that is why national polling shows Latinos are far more likely to identify as Democrats than as Republicans. If the Republican party is going to succeed, there is recognition — at least in Colorado — that it has to make changes in the policies it promotes..

That is why this year, the Colorado GOP softened its party platform on immigration. The party voted at its assembly to support a path to legal residency for some immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally — a move Congressional Republicans seem unwilling to make.

“There is a lot of evidence that [party] attitudes have been changing,and we’ve been putting into practice the core values of what we believe as Republicans,” Call says. “I believe that if an elected official wants to truly represent the people they are called to serve then they have to listen, and they have to learn and sometimes that means in some cases changing a previously held position.”

Jennifer Korn, Deputy Political Director and National Director for Hispanic Initiatives at the Republican National Committee, says Colorado stands out as a place where aggressive Latino outreach could make a real difference in the midterm elections in 2014. Latino voters, which represent 14 percent of the electorate in the state could not only determine whether Coffman gets re-elected but could make the difference in the state's tight Senate and gubernatorial races.

“Colorado is definitely a competitive state for us,” Korn says. “It is always great when you have a state chairman, a congressional candidate, a gubernatorial candidate and a senate candidate who are all making Hispanic engagement a priority. That is definitely a move in the right direction.”

Korn knows what a successful Latino voter outreach operation looks like: She was on the front lines of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign when the former president won more than 40 percent of the Latino vote. But even though the Bush campaign built an effective grassroots campaign and made inroads with the Latino community, Korn says, the Republican Party changed its campaign strategy.

“For awhile, we saw the party raise a lot of money, parachute in five months before the election and then leave. That worked for a long time. Then, it stopped working,” Korn says. “That might work with the base, but you are talking about a constituency that you need to make lasting connections with. Otherwise it’s pandering.”

Democrats in the state, however, argue that Colorado Republicans won't make the gains they want among Latinos until they change their party's national platform.

“It does seem that they their commitment to outreach has been more consistent lately, but it is just a waste of time. It is a joke,” says Patty Kupfer, managing director of America’s Voice, a progressive group focused on immigration reform. “What policies are they talking to voters about and how will they ever convince Latino voters to support them?”

In June, America’s Voice released polling data that showed the Republican Party’s past and current positions on immigration reform is still an obstacle for them, and for Latino voters the issue isn't abstract. More than 60 percent of Latinos in Colorado know someone who is an undocumented immigrant, and roughly one third said that immigration is the most important issue for them this election cycle.

Yet, Obama’s decision to delay executive action on immigration reform until the midterm elections are over — after promising Latinos in 2008 he would address the issue during his first term — could also affect turnout in the state. Another broken promise on immigration by the Democrats might not send Latino voters into the arms of the GOP, but it could convince them to stay home on Election Day — or lead them to give Republicans a second look. The Colorado GOP Is counting on it.

“Democrats don’t really have a lot to show for their rhetoric on this issues," Call says."Voters are starting to wise up to it,”

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