The Republican presidential candidates have run aggressively anti-immigrant campaigns — and it has hurt them with Latino voters, the fastest growing voting demographic. Now, those GOP candidates have ignored the warnings about just how problematic their ugly rhetoric has been.
But, maybe they’ll heed this poll, since it comes from FOX News. And, the numbers for Republicans are bad. Really bad. Consider the first paragraph:
Despite growing disappointment in his handling of immigration issues, Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll conducted under the direction of Latin Insights and released Monday.
Yes, a six-to-one ratio. That means:
The poll shows that the overwhelming choice among likely Latino voters is President Obama. In head-to-head match-ups none of the GOP candidates would garner more than 14 percent of the Latino vote come November, the poll said.
And immigration is a key factor:
The shift in Latino voter leanings may reflect a growing divergence with the GOP over issues — in particular, over immigration.
Although immigration came in fourth among issues cited as important by likely Latino voters –to jobs and the economy, education, and health care– voter responses on immigration show a wide discrepancy with the positions of GOP hopefuls.
The Fox News Latino poll show likely Latino voters across the country overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act (90 percent), favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (85 percent), and believe undocumented workers help to grow the U.S. economy (82 percent).
Again, they can’t say they haven’t been warned. Republicans have brought this on themselves by sidling up to immigrant bashers (like Romney did with Kris Kobach) and pushing mass expulsion strategies.
We’ve noted many times, as have leading political pundits, that no Republican can win without garnering 40% of the Latino vote. They are not even close.
