National Journal
By Josh Kraushaar
May 12, 2015
The
most important moment of Hillary Clinton's campaign so far came last
week in Las Vegas, when she placed a huge strategic gamble this early in
the race. Without much
serious primary competition, she veered to the left of President Obama
on immigration, pledging to legalize additional illegal immigrants and
use executive orders to expand the scope of his measures. It's a
telltale sign of how crucial the Hispanic vote is
to her campaign, and how dependent she is on re-creating Obama's 2012
coalition to win.
That
presents both an opportunity and a risk. Her decision to call out the
Republican presidential field on the subject demonstrates how confident
she is that, no matter
how much certain GOP opponents run as centrists and appeal to Hispanic
voters, no one will be able to outflank her on immigration reform. It
was no coincidence that Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who are both hoping to
make significant inroads with Hispanic voters
as the GOP nominee, remained silent in the wake of her red-meat
remarks. Without notable improvement on Mitt Romney's dismal 27 percent
showing among Latinos in 2012, it's awfully tough to see a GOP path to
the presidency. (Marco Rubio's pollster, Whit Ayres,
has set the GOP's Hispanic benchmark in 2016 around 45 percent, though
if black turnout levels decrease and/or Republicans make inroads with
Asian-American voters, the magic number would be lower.)
At
the same time, Clinton's move can be seen as a defensive maneuver,
especially so early in the campaign. Maintaining Obama's overwhelming
margins with Hispanic voters
is something of a necessity for her to win the White House. She needs
to figure out a way to excite the Hispanic base beyond what Obama's
done, which is no small task. And that overreach reduces her prospects
of making inroads with the white working-class
vote, which abandoned Democrats en masse in the past two elections.
Clinton's
stated support for citizenship towards illegal immigrants "with deep
ties and contributions to our communities" goes beyond the Obama
standard of those with
family connections, and is bound to generate opposition among
non-Hispanics. Obama deliberately avoided issuing any executive orders
legalizing illegal immigrants during the 2014 midterm campaign because
his advisers knew it was a major political loser. Clinton
is going even further, with her team expressing unusual confidence that
the country has taken a permanent progressive turn over the past
several years. She will now need to offset the opposition by mobilizing
Hispanics to show up to the polls and support her—even
as their turnout rate has historically lagged well behind other
demographic groups. She's giving herself little wiggle room to maneuver
in the face of changed circumstances, such as the 2014 border crisis
that raised fresh skepticism of immigration reform
among the American public.
So
while her move is based on the premise of a rising American electorate,
it's also an implicit concession that she's unlikely to improve much on
Obama's weak performance
among white voters. And when you consider that even small GOP inroads
with Latino voters could make a big difference— or unexpectedly lower
turnout levels—Clinton doesn't have much of a choice but to pander to
that constituency.
Put
another way: Clinton is betting that it's easier to maintain Obama's
44-point margin of victory with Hispanics than it will be to improve by
several points among white
voters. That lesson was underscored in last year's midterms, when
more-moderate Democratic Senate candidates in former Clinton
strongholds, such as former Sen. Mark Pryor and Alison Lundergan Grimes,
performed as poorly as Obama did.
This
month's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll suggests that there's more
potential for Republicans to pick off Hispanic voters than for Clinton
to make inroads with whites.
Against Bush, she receives 40 percent of the white vote (one point
higher than Obama's total against Romney) and 66 percent of the Hispanic
vote (five points behind Obama). Against Rubio, Clinton receives 41
percent of the white vote, but her support with
Hispanics drops eight points from Obama's 2012 performance.
If
those demographic combinations held, it still should be enough for
Clinton to prevail, even as it's awfully close for comfort. But the bet
on Hispanic voter preferences
and enthusiasm to remain constant is awfully risky, given how volatile
their voting record has been lately. It was just over a decade ago that
George W. Bush carried 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in his
reelection. In last year's midterm elections, when
the fate of immigration reform was on the line, Hispanic voters stayed
home and swung key races in Colorado and Nevada into GOP hands. A
similar expectation that Obama's enthusiasm will translate to
Clinton—and Latino population growth will automatically translate
into a larger share of the electorate—is far from guaranteed.
"Many
Hispanics don't embrace the political process. Half of them think the
Democrats don't care about their community. These non-voters are very
suspicious about most
politicians," said David Damore, an analyst with the liberal-leaning
polling firm Latino Decisions. "[Clinton] learned her lesson from 2008.
She assumed that just because she has high name recognition with
Hispanics, they're going to vote for you. They want
to hear about their issues."
For
good reason, the GOP's struggles with effective outreach among
Hispanics—and the awkward dance in catering to the base on immigration
while expanding the party's appeal—has
been under the spotlight. But the flip side of the equation also
presents a challenge for Democrats. Clinton needs to maintain
overwhelming support and engagement from Hispanics—or risk giving
Republicans a critical advantage. The fact that she feels the need
to run to Obama's left on an issue her party should have in the bank is
a warning that putting back together his winning coalition isn't as
easy as advertised.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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