TRUMP AND THE LATINO VOTE ‘YOU CAN’T CALL SOMEONE UGLY AND EXPECT THEM TO GO TO THE PROM WITH YOU’
TRUMP HAS ALIENATED MILLIONS OF HISPANIC VOTERS WITH HIS FAR-RIGHT, ANTI-IMMIGRANT RHETORIC. US CORRESPONDENT ANDREW PURCELL INVESTIGATES WHETHER THE BILLIONAIRE CAN WIN THE WHITE HOUSE WITHOUT THIS KEY AMERICAN CONSTITUENCY
IN DECEMBER 2012, in the wake of Mitt Romney’s comprehensive Presidential election defeat, the Republican National Committee commissioned an autopsy report. Among the conclusions, there was a blunt warning about the dangers of pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment: “If Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.”
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey employed a folksy metaphor. “You can’t call someone ugly and expect them to go to the prom with you,” he said.
Four years on, the Grand Old Party has chosen Donald Trump as its leader, a candidate who announced his Presidential aspirations with a speech about the dangers of unchecked immigration and a promise to deport 11 million people and build a wall between the USA and Mexico.
Romney won 27 per cent of the Latino vote. In a recent Latino Decisions poll of more than 3,000 Hispanic registered voters, conducted just before Trump’s latest vehemently anti-immigrant speech in Phoenix, the Republican nominee’s support stood at 19 per cent. “We may very well be looking at his high water mark,” observed pollster Sylvia Manzano. The figure represented a rise from his nadir of 11 per cent in April.
Assuming Trump wants to win, he appearstobecountingonturningoutenough white voters to offset inevitable losses among ethnic minorities. This appears unlikely, but is not impossible. In the key swing state of Nevada, where more than a quarter of the population is Hispanic, Hillary Clinton leads by just 2.3 per cent.
In Florida, home to almost five million Hispanics, the margin is slightly wider at 2.7 per cent but still well within striking distance for Trump. Florida’s Cuban-American émigrés have tended to vote Republican, but immigrants fleeing the economic crisis in Puerto Rico and a growing Colombian community in and around Mi- ami have tipped the balance.
“The old Dixiecrat Florida voter is now pretty solidly swinging to the Republican party,” says Brent Wilkes, National Director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Which move is more significant: the move of whites away from the Democratic party in Florida, or the move of Latinos towards the Democratic party?”
Between 2006 and 2016, the number of Hispanic registered voters in Florida increased by 61 per cent. Hispanic television network Univision has set a goal of registering three million new voters nationwide this year, and anecdotal evidence suggests Trump’s candidacy is motivating record numbers of Latinos to participate.
“We’ve seen the number of people requesting registration forms or pursuing citizenship has roughly doubled from previous election cycles,” says Wilkes. “People are telling us that they can’t stand Donald Trump and that they haven’t voted in the past but they’re going to vote this time.”
Latino Republicans have been urging Trump to moderate his stance on immigration. At the party convention, the Republican National Committee’s Director of Hispanic Communications, Helen Aguirre Ferre, told reporters that Trump “has already said that he will not do massive deportations.” After a well-publicised meeting at Trump Tower, members of his National Hispanic Advisory Council pronounced him “humble” and in favour of “humane” immigration reform.
On his recent trip to Mexico to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump tried a softer tone, describing Mexican-Americans as “spectacular, hard-working people”. He claimed that the two men didn’t discuss the border wall, though Peña Nieto said they did – but overall, the visit was deemed a success by the media.
The New York Times was so convinced that it printed a front page story reporting that Trump had made “an audacious attempt… to remake his image on the divisive issue of immigration” – ignoring the red meat that he tossed out at a campaign rally in Phoenix later the same day.
“We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration,” Trump told supporters. “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation.” He promised to round up and expel all immigrants with a criminal record and anyone who has overstayed their visa.
“Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone,” he said. Hard-right pundit Ann Coulter tweeted: “I hear Churchill had a nice turn of phrase, but Trump’s immigration speech is the most magnificent speech ever given.”
Three members of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council resigned in protest. “He used us as props,” lawyer Jacob Monty complained. “We thought we were moving in the right direction… we feel misled,” said Alfonso Aguilar, of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. Pastor Ramiro Peña described Trump’s earlier promises of a more compassionate policy as a “scam”.
All three had appeared on television to defend Trump’s stance on immigration. In their absence, the campaign was left to rely on Marco Gutierrez, co-founder of Latinos for Trump, who said: “My culture is a dominant culture, and it’s imposing and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks [on] every corner.”
Clinton’s campaign rushed out an advert mocking Trump’s visit to Mexico. It also announced that it would be running television commercials in Arizona, a solidly red – or Republican – state. Trump has an average lead of 2.7 per cent in the latest polls, but the fact that Democrats are expending resources there is an indicator of how the growing Hispanic population and Trump’s deep unpopularity with Latinos is altering the electoral map.
Ishare N 1980, 16 per cent of Arizona’s population was Hispanic. That figure is now 31 per cent. Because many are undocumented immigrants, Latinos only make up 22 per cent of the state’s registered voters, but their of the electorate is growing fast.