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By Catharine Skipp
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On Sunday night the Republican presidential field sought to reach out to Hispanic voters by participating in a debate on Univision, the Spanish-language network. They weren't in the friendliest territory. The often harsh rhetoric many GOP hopefuls have used in discussing illegal immigration has soured many Latinos on the party, reversing significant gains made under President George W. Bush. Last week a survey released by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters call themselves Democrats or lean that way, while only 23 percent align themselves with the Republicans. That 34-point gap is a marked increase from July 2006, when it was only 21 points, and similar to the 33-point difference back in 1999, before Bush was elected. To learn more about Latino sentiment as the campaign heats up, NEWSWEEK's Catharine Skipp spoke to Paul Taylor, acting director of the Pew Hispanic Center and one of the authors of last week's report. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: To what extent does the immigration issue explain the dropoff in Hispanic support for the Republican Party?
Paul Taylor: We are careful not to assert, "Here is such-and-such a trend." We would need more trend data than we have on the question about illegal immigration and see assessments of what kind of job the parties are doing on that issue. What we can say is, in the past 16 months there has been a significant shift in party allegiance among Latinos away from the Republican Party and to the Democratic Party. This is a reversal of the trends we have been observing throughout this decade, when the movement had been toward the Republican Party.
What accounts for the Latino drift to the Democratic Party?
The data finds that a very small percentage of Latinos think that the Republican Party shows more concern for Latinos. Forty-four percent think the Democratic Party shows more concern, compared to 8 percent Republican. We asked which party is doing a better job dealing with illegal immigration. Forty-one percent said Democrats; 14 percent said Republicans. Finally, we asked Latinos whether they thought the policies of the Bush administration were helpful, harmful or had no effect on Latinos. Forty-one percent said harmful, 16 percent said helpful and 3 percent said it had no particular effect.
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Why were Republicans able to make such significant inroads with Hispanic voters in the past decade?
I can't comment from the survey, since we didn't ask the question. I would note in the two Bush elections you had a border-state governor who was familiar with some of the issues of interest to and concern for Latinos, and more so than in the past, one who made explicit outreach to Latino voters. We know from press accounts that the political arm of the Bush White House placed a high value on trying to attract for the long haul Latino voters, realizing that they are a very significant and fast-growing part of the population.
How do Latinos view the parties' handling of the illegal immigration issue?
When we ask Latinos specifically to assess the kind of job the political parties are doing dealing with the issue of illegal immigration, we find that they rate the Democratic Party much more favorably than the Republican Party. However, a significant share of Latinos don't think it makes much difference. They don't see much difference between the parties on that issue.
Do Latinos view Republicans as anti-Hispanic?
We know from the survey—we didn't ask the question explicitly that way—but a plurality felt that the policies of the Bush White House had been harmful.
How deep or lasting do you think the damage is that the GOP has suffered with Latino voters?
Only time will tell. There is still a year to go until 2008, and in politics that is an eternity. A lot can happen between now and then. These findings represent a worrisome set of early signals to the Republican Party as they think about their prospects of attracting Latino voters next year.
How central a role is the immigration issue playing in the 2008 election cycle?
Obviously, it has become a prominent issue in the discussion and debates by candidates, pundits and commentators. Other polling that we do in the general population finds that the issue is more important to Republican voters than Democratic voters nationally. The issue has become more important to Latino voters since the last time we asked, just before the 2004 election. We asked the same questions, asking if it is very important or extremely important. Immigration still ranks behind education, health care, the economy and crime, but illegal immigration is the only one that has gone up sharply with the Latino voter. It is 3.5 percent more important since 2004 among Latinos.
Is that increased Latino concern due to their worrying about illegal immigrants or their worrying about the government's treatment of illegal immigrants?
We have data from other questions that will be released later this week which suggests that the source of their concern and their focus is more on government enforcement than on illegal immigrants themselves.
How much sway will Latino voters have in the 2008 elections?
The Latino population is large and growing larger. Currently Latinos are 15 percent of the total U.S. population. However, their electoral clout is less than that because a relatively high percentage are ineligible to vote, either because they are not citizens or not 18 years old. From our demographic projections, it appears Latinos will be about 9 percent of the eligible electorate next year. And if past turnout trends persist in 2008, then Latinos will be 6.5 percent of those that actually turn out. That is significantly smaller than the 15 percent of the population that they represent. One of the additional factors is that despite their modest numbers of likely voters, Hispanics loom as potential swing voters because they are statistically larger on the electoral college map. They constitute sizable shares in four of the six states that Bush carried in 2004 by a margin of 5 percent [or less].
What are those four states and how sizable is the Hispanic voting population in them?
The size of the Hispanic electorate eligible to vote in New Mexico is 37 percent, 14 percent in Florida and 12 percent each in Nevada and Colorado. All four of those states voted for Bush in 2004, but by a margin of 5 percentage points or fewer.
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