An editorial this week in the Dallas Morning News, “GOP misread the Latino vote in South Texas” highlights some of the Republican Party’s missteps and miscalculations when it came to messaging geared towards Latinos in Texas during this midterm election:
“The Texas GOP expected big wins with Latino voters in the midterm elections. Instead, they lost two out of three key congressional races in South Texas, where they invested heavily. So what happened?
… Republicans got the messaging wrong, said Jason Villalba from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation. They thought that Trump populism would appeal to these voters and paid a price for it
…Nationwide, Latino voters remained solidly Democratic, with 64% reporting that they voted for a Democratic House candidate, compared with 33% who voted for a Republican, according to the 2022 Midterm Election Voter Poll.
…South Texas voters rejected extremism in favor of more moderate candidates … In the end, the GOP overestimated the rightward shift from the Hispanic electorate in South Texas. “The data never showed that,” Villalba said. “Data showed an opening for Republicans with kitchen table issues. It did not mean Hispanics were becoming Republicans, it meant they were interested in the messaging.”
According to Vanessa Cardenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Republicans have a choice: continue to let hateful anti-immigrant voices define their party or start to find real solutions that the American people demand. GOP anti-immigrant rhetoric doesn’t play well, especially to Latino voters, young voters, and other fast-growing segments of the electorate who in the midterm elections largely rejected Republican extremism in South Texas and in many places across the country. These voters are overwhelmingly pro-Dreamer, pro-immigration and pro-solutions and are turned off by the ugly and politicized stunts that too many Republicans keep pushing. While a broad group of voices is calling for a bipartisan fix before the end of the year to resolve Dreamers’ status and deliver on a point of American consensus, the GOP seems intent on following the lead of Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik and continuing to sow division and block solutions. McCarthy is heading to the border today for another in a series of photo ops and political stunts that move us farther from real solutions favored by the American people.
