We’ve been warning the GOP for years, but they didn’t listen. Today, we are highlighting the GOP’s demographic demise in Colorado with a mock obituary, which will run as an online ad in the Aurora Sentinel. View the ad online here.
After the 2012 election, in which Barack Obama trounced Mitt Romney among Latino voters by a 75-23% margin, Republicans for a time understood that they needed to pass immigration reform or else continue losing the Latino vote — and their electoral competitiveness.
Two years passed. While the Senate took action on legislative immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for 11 million Americans-in-waiting, the House did not. Acting against all sense, they instead gave votes to extremists like Steve King on a bill to deport DREAMers.
This summer, it became crystal clear that the House GOP will take no action to reform our broken immigration system – a death knell for the Republican Party. They will now head into the 2016 presidential elections with only one thing to show Latino voters: voting to deport DREAMers.
Now President Obama has no choice but to use his existing authority to protect immigrant families who’ve been in the country for years.When he does, the distinction between the Democrats as a pro-immigrant party and the Republicans as a party of mass deportations will be cemented, and the GOP will find itself stuck for decades at the bottom of the demographic cliff.
Meanwhile, this year, the Colorado Republican Party is in particular trouble. It’s heading into the 2014 midterm elections in which GOP candidates like Rep. Mike Coffman and Rep. Cory Gardner will need support from Latino voters, but they’re unable to make the case as to why they should have it. Reps. Coffman and Gardner have stood with the extremists in their party in blocking reform and voting to end DACA, failing to lead on an issue their constituents overwhelmingly support. The Latino vote, in a state where Latinos make up 13% of the electorate, may well be the deciding factor in their races.
The Colorado GOP may think they dodged a bullet earlier this year by managing to avoid nominating arch-anti-immigrant zealot Tom Tancredo to run for governor. But the chosen GOP candidate, Bob Beauprez, has been nearly as bad, championing antiquated laws like Arizona’s SB 1070.
With a record like this, the Colorado Republican Party — and its national counterpart — is demographically doomed. View their obituary at the Aurora Sentinel today.
