No, Herr Trumpf Is Not Being Embraced By "The Hispanics"

From the Herr Trumpf standup comedy routine

So that whole silly thing about Herr Trumpf winning among Hispanics in Nevada Tuesday was just another example of Herr consciously misleading "the poorly educated" on which his campaign rests. A report from Latino Decisions lays it out in the simplest terms. Most important to remember when Herr says he won "the Hispanics," is that he's "only talking about the very small percent of Nevada Latinos who are Republican today. An overwhelming majority of Nevada Latinos are Democrats. In a recent poll asking about party identification, 55% of Latinos said they were Democrats, 29% said Independents and just 16% said they were Republicans.  Assuming the entrance poll is correct (a very big assumption) and Trump won 44% of Latino Republicans, that means he was supported by about 7% of Latinos in Nevada (44% of 16 = 7.04). What that mean is that most likely, 93% of Latinos in Nevada did not vote for Trump... [T]here were an estimated 16,500 Latinos who participated in the Democratic caucus and cast a Democratic ballot. On the Republican side it was about 6,000 and Trump came away with an estimated 2,600 Latino votes, or only 11% of all Latinos participants in the caucuses.

Latinos in Nevada have been consistently moving away from the Republican party. Recall that in the 2010 general election when Republican Sharon Angle embraced an anti-immigrant platform for her campaign she won only 8% of the Latino vote, to 90% for Harry Reid. In a detailed analysis of the demographics and political profile of Latinos in Nevada Brookings Mountain West summed it up this way:

"In sum, based upon analysis of survey data from the 2012 election it appears that within Nevada’s Latino community there are few if any sub‐populations where the Republican Party has much traction. Much of the Republican Party’s struggles with Latino voters in Nevada stems from the inconsistency between the GOP’s policy agenda and the preferences of most Latino voters in the state and the perceived insensitivity of the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, towards the state’s Latino community."

...In a poll of Latino voters in general election battleground states (which included Nevada), impreMedia and Latino Decisions found that 80% of Latino voters said Trump’s statements about Mexicans and immigrants gave them a less favorable opinion of the GOP overall. This has been corroborated by Gallup’s monthly tracker and NBC polling, and reported by CNN in their headline “Latinos see Donald Trump as hurting GOP brand“and most recently by Political Science professor Lynn Vavreck writing for the New York Times Upshot who called him “damager-in-chief to the party reputation” among Latinos.

Sorry Donald, you are not #1 with Hispanics in Nevada.

Prof. Vavreck points out in her Times column that it didn't take long for Herr Trumpf to both weaken the party signal and make the GOP "less popular, especially among groups that the party needs to court. Many of his rivals were naturally positioned to fight his destruction of the party brand: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are both the sons of immigrant parents who fled Cuba; Jeb Bush has said illegal immigration is often an “act of love” to provide for families; and John Kasich has termed himself the party’s 'prince of light and hope,' in an effort to distinguish himself from the dark talk of the last few months. But none of these story lines have saved the party from Mr. Trump’s language."

Dan Balz and Scott Clement reported for the Washington Post yesterday on a new poll for their paper and Univision that shows that Herr Trumpf's racism and xenophobia have "earned him the highest negative ratings among Hispanic voters [of all presidential contenders]... 8 in 10 Hispanic voters have an unfavorable view of Trump. That includes more than 7 in 10 who have a 'very unfavorable' impression of him, which is more than double the percentage of any other major candidate."

Republican officeholders and candidates in areas with heavy Hispanic populations are panic-stricken. Republican House Members likely to lose their seats because of Herr Trumpf's racism include Cresent Hardy (R-NV), David Valadao (R-CA), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Steve Knight (R-CA), Daniel Webster (R-FL), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Mike Coffman (R-CO). These 7 Republicans are going to face an energized and determined electorate with a lot more Hispanics than have ever voted in their districts before.

State Senator Ruben Kihuen is the strongest Democratic candidate running against Cresent Hardy in Nevada's 4th congressional district north of Las Vegas. "As an immigrant and an American," he told us a few weeks ago, "I can tell you that Donald Trump's rhetoric and Congressman Hardy's actions offend me. I believe both Trump and Hardy will lose the Hispanic vote and their hateful views on immigration will hurt them with all Americans. But beyond the politics, this is not who we are as a people."

Lou Vince, the progressive Democrat running in CA-25 (Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley), sees it the same way. "We've been dealing with our own Donald Trump in the 25th District for the past two years. Steve Knight has repeatedly demonized immigrants, insulted the hard-working families of our district and voted against the best interests of the 25th District's residents. Whether it's voting to repeal Obamacare countless times after pledging not to, reneging on his campaign promise of supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or voting to repeal the estate tax when there isn't a single qualifying estate in the district, Steve Knight has come down on the wrong side of nearly every issue in Congress. Not only do we need to dump Trump, we need to dump Knight in the 25th District. Trump's, as well as Knight's, hateful rhetoric surrounding the hard-working immigrant families in my community has mobilized the Latino community in the Antelope Valley like never before. It's in this community that we will win the election and flip every seat in the Antelope Valley from Republican to Democrat and win this vital seat. That's why Latino activists in the Antelope Valley have organized a 'Latinos for Lou' committee and they have been a loud voice for ensuring Latinos get a representative that will stand for their interests. As their slogan goes, 'Mi voto es mi voz!' (my vote is my voice)."

But this is even going to spill over into Democratic primary races. Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, a stalwart, proven progressive, is taking on right-wing Democrat Gene Green in a Houston area district that includes Pasadena, South Houston, Galina and Aldine. He didn't mince words: "Donald Trump is a race-baiting, immigrant-bashing misogynist, who knows exactly what he is saying. He is speaking to the worst impulses of our country, instead of offering ideas to bring America together and to keep our economy moving forward. Trump is trying to insult his way to the Presidency, but our community simply won’t stand for it. Every time he plays for the easy laugh or cheap applause, he is making a huge mistake-- we’re not getting mad, we’re getting organized." TX-29 is a primarily working-class district that is 77% Latino-- but is represented (poorly) by an old white guy, first elected in 1992, and consistently serving the special interests and voting with the Republicans on issue after issue after issue. Hopefully, the Hispanic political awakening that is going to sweep away a number of conservative Republicans, will sweep away conservative Democrats like Gene Green as well.

If you'd like to help Ruben Kihuen, Lou Vince and Adrian Garcia, you can find their three grassroots campaigns all on the same Act Blue page. Good investment for a progressive Congress!

In September Colorado state Rep. Joe Salazar, who endorsed Bernie for president this week, shared what was happening in the suburbs south and west of Denver and north of the Denver Airport, the 6th district, which includes Aurora, Centennial, Littleton, an area where about a fifth of the population is Hispanic. State Senator Morgan Carroll is looking likely to replace Coffman in Congress, at least in part, thanks to Herr Trumpf.

Congressman Mike Coffman was a loud supporter of the extreme anti-immigrant agenda long before Donald Trump rode his xenophobia to the top of the Republican polls.  Trump may be hogging all the attention and crowding out his rivals, but his outrageous views towards immigrants and Latinos are common in the Republican Party. In fact, it is fair to say that Trump is Tancredo/Coffman 2.0.

Unlike Trump, within the past few years Mike Coffman has been awkwardly running/stumbling away from this anti-immigrant legacy as fast as he can.  In fact, he started learning Spanish-- I know because he attempted to speak with me in Spanish during an event we both attended in 2013.  But, despite his newfound bilingualism, the truth is that Coffman is alarmingly similar to Trump.  Let us take a closer look at the facts:

Birther Movement: Trump and Coffman both questioned whether or not President Obama was born in America.  Coffman was even so bold as to declare that “in his heart” President Obama is “not an American.”  Three years later, Trump is still trumpeting the same sad rhetoric.

Ending Birthright Citizenship: Trump and Coffman both want to end birthright citizenship.  Interestingly, then-District Attorney Ken Buck held a similar position in 2010 when he challenged Senator Michael Bennet for the U.S. Senate seat.  I wrote an op-ed piece on Buck’s patently unconstitutional position by citing an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court case that firmly held that a U.S.-born son of Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.  The case stemmed from a purely racist attack on Chinese immigrants.  Trump and Coffman’s position is a purely racist attack primarily on Mexican immigrants.  How sad is it that an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court is more forward thinking than these 21st century representatives of the Republican Party?

Building the Wall: Trump and Coffman want to build a wall or fence along the 1,954 mile US-Mexico border.  Coffman actually made a big deal of introducing legislation to complete a fence, which he called an “effective” defense.  This position is laughable for too many reasons to list.  But, let us keep in mind that while Coffman wants to build a 1,954 mile wall, he cannot even manage a disastrous VA project in his own district.

Offensive Rhetoric: Trump and Coffman use hyperbolic and offensive rhetoric towards immigrants to make you believe that all of your troubles are because of somebody else.  The real troubles, however, start and stop with the worst Congress in U.S. history wholly controlled by Coffman’s party.  Maybe Coffman should actually do some work that helps the people.

Although Mike Coffman believes that learning Spanish would endear him to immigrant communities, his rhetoric and record only demonstrate that he is now effective in offending good, hard-working people in two languages.  Let us not forget that he also fought to change the Voting Rights Act to ban multilingual ballots in areas with large populations of non-proficient English speakers (telling people they ought to grab a dictionary).

Redistricting threw Coffman into a Congressional district where he had to face the same people he stoked xenophobic fears against.  Since then, Mike “Tancredo is my Hero” Coffman has been bottling up his true positions, leaving minority communities in the 6thCongressional District feeling concerned that his xenophobia will soon uncork itself.

The Denver Post once said that it has been “difficult to pin him down on specifics.”  The reason why Coffman does not want to give specifics is because it will require him to show his poker hand-- a hand that has a joker in it with the face of a Trump.