As the Senate Gang of 8 prepares to roll out an immigration bill, CBS News today had this post on the immigration and the Latino vote–that is, why there is so much support for immigration reform in the first place (because it matters electorally). In 2012, Mitt Romney engaged in an immigration-bashing strategy, supporting “self-deportation” and vowing to veto the DREAM Act. There are some in Congress, like Senator Jeff Sessions and Rep. Steve King, among others, who still want to pursue those anti-immigrant policies.
This is a map of the Hispanic population of the US–concentrated in the Southwest and Florida, but with pockets of concentration in Illinois, North Carolina, and Georgia. The strength of the demographic is what helped Obama defeat Romney by more than a 3-1 margin in last November’s presidential race. And it’s a population in which a majority of its voters (58%) rank immigration reform as a top concern, and a near-two-thirds majority (64%) blame Republicans for previous failures to pass immigration reform.
Even more interesting is this chart, which shows the growth rate of Hispanics from 2000-2010. The demographic grew almost everywhere, including in a bunch of swing districts and swing states.
Which leads to this map, showing a handful of GOP-held House districts with sizeable Hispanic populations that help make the district competitive.
That means that the Republicans below–and really the whole party, if it’s interested in its demographic future–should think seriously about supporting this upcoming immigration reform legislation:
- Jeff Denham (CA-10)
- David Valadao (CA-21)
- Buck McKeon (CA-25)
- Gary Miller (CA-31)
- Darrell Issa (CA-49)
- Scott Tipton (CO-3)
- Mike Coffman (CO-6)
- Randy Hultgren(IL-14)
- Kevin Yoder (KS-3)
- Frank LoBiondo (NJ-02)
- Scott Garrett (NJ-05)
- Steve Pearce (NM-2)
- Mark Amodei (NV-2)
- Joe Heck (NV-3)
- Peter King (NY-2)
- Michael Grimm (NY-11)
- Charles Dent (PA-15)
- Joseph R. Pitts (PA-16)
- Frank Wolf (VA-10)
