GOP FEARS:
Fallout from Trump rhetoric may last years, leaders say
Republican leaders are openly fearful that Donald Trump’s divisive presidential campaign will drive Latino voters away from the Republican Party for a generation or more, much in the way Barry Goldwater alienated African-Americans during the civil rights era.
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders are openly fearful that Donald Trump’s divisive presidential campaign will drive Latino voters away from the Republican Party for a generation or more, much in the way Barry Goldwater alienated African-Americans during the civil rights era.
It was a similar lesson in California in the 1990s, when the state shifted from reliably Republican to bright blue in the aftermath of the heated 1994 antiillegal immigration campaign led by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. Many think that episode handed the Golden State over to Democrats.
Now Republicans worry that a similar shift is underway nationwide as Trump’s race-based campaigning repels even the most conservative Republicans, potentially marring the party as bigoted for years to come.
Among those most concerned is one who should know. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voted against Goldwater in 1964 because of the GOP nominee’s opposition to civil rights. He worries a half-century later that the story is repeating.
“My party has been struggling with African-American voters ever since,” McConnell said recently. “I don’t want to see that mistake made with Latinos.”
The Latino community, he said, is “a big, important part of America. For our party to be competitive, we have to be able to reach out to all kinds of people.”
Trump insists he is beloved by Latino voters. Last week, he argued that those who were angry over his racially tinged comments about a federal judge overseeing a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump University should just “get over it.”
But Republican leaders know the problem is a real one for the GOP, made up of both political optics and electoral math.
From the time Trump launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and vowing to build a wall along the Mexican border, his approach toward Latinos has upended Republican plans to portray the party as more inclusive and welcoming.
The rhetoric only intensified when Trump insisted he would deport not just immigrants here illegally, but also their Americanborn children, as a way to keep families together.
More recently he sparked outrage by insisting he could not receive fair treatment from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing the lawsuit against his now-defunct real estate school.
“We don’t have to guess that they’re going to lose Latinos for a generation because we saw it happen here in California,” said Matt Barreto, a UCLA political science professor and co-founder of the Latino Decisions polling firm. He is consulting for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Polling shows the California GOP’s embrace of Proposition 187 and an anti-illegal immigrant agenda in the ’90s accelerated a decline already underway because of shifting demographics. The state has voted Democratic in every presidential election since.
Republicans believe Trump’s race-based statements — including an initial refusal to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and a reference to a black supporter at a rally as “my AfricanAmerican” — are similarly limiting the party’s ability to attract a wider swath of voters than its core base of white Americans at a time when the GOP had hoped to be reaching out to Latinos and minorities.
Latinos are the fastest-growing part of an increasingly diverse electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. Nearly 1 in 3 eligible voters this fall will be Latino, Asian, African-American or other minorities.
When Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s, 85 percent of the electorate was white. By 2012, that number had dropped to about 74 percent, according to Pew.
Losing Latino voters is “a wellfounded fear,” said Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has withheld his support for Trump.
To understand the depth of the party’s potential loss, scholars point to the dropoff in black Republican voters after the civil rights battles of the 1960s.
Trump’s unfavorable rating among Latinos nationwide is 87 percent, according to April polling by Latino Decisions, versus Clinton’s 22 percent.
Trump may be able to stem his losses among Latinos by turning out more white voters, who fueled a record-setting GOP primary voter turnout.
But Republicans see little consolation for what has become a potentially irreversible slide.
Republicans have been losing Latino voters in every presidential election since President George W. Bush hit a high point in 2000 by winning more than 40 percent of the Latino vote.
Latino support dropped to 27 percent for Mitt Romney in 2012, stung partly by his suggestion that illegal immigration could be resolved with “self deportation.”
“I wouldn’t put it entirely on Trump,” Barreto said. “Mitt Romney, of course, did very poorly among Latinos. Now, Mitt Romney looks like a nice guy compared to what Donald Trump is saying.”