DCCC Blowing The Trump Advantage With Incomprehensible Recruitment In Latino-Rich Districts

Trump has certainly been a catalyst for increased voter registration among Hispanics. A national poll of Hispanic voters indicates that Latino voter participation in November is going to break all records and that, overwhelmingly, it's because of animus towards Trump and the Republican Party. What Pete Wilson did for the California Republican Party in 1994 with his viciously anti-Hispanic Prop 187-- which basically made the GOP uncompetitive in most of California-- is what Trump is doing in congressional districts coast to coast. There are 30 congressional districts currently held by Republicans where between 25% and 76% of the citizens are Hispanic. We'll come back to that in a moment-- but don't get too excited; the startling incompetence of the DCCC will save most of those seats for the Republicans. But first let's look at more of the implications of the LatinoDecisions.com polling:

In 2012, Latinos voted in record numbers and were pivotal in helping President Obama win the presidency. In our 2016 tracking poll respondents were asked, “Thinking ahead to the November 2016 presidential election, would you say that you are more enthusiastic about voting in 2016, or that you were more enthusiastic about voting back in 2012?” Nearly half (48%) said they were more enthusiastic about the 2016 election. In a follow up question with respondents who said they were more enthusiastic about the 2016 election, we asked, “What is different about 2016 that makes you more enthusiastic to vote this time?” A plurality of respondents (41%), essentially noted that it was to stop Trump.

The survey also finds that Trump’s campaign has severely damaged the Republican Party brand among Latino voters. Nearly three out of four Latino voters believe the GOP has shunned Latino voters, with 42 percent agreeing that the party “doesn’t care too much about Latinos” and 31 percent agreeing the party is “sometimes hostile toward Latinos.” While Trump may fall short of securing the nomination, the damaging effect of his campaign on Latino voters is unlikely to be repaired before November.

Even Florida Hispanics, historically the most Republican-leaning Hispanics in the country, loathe Trump. Hispanics account for 14% of Florida general election voters and only 10% of them view Trump favorably. The GOP brand is in the toilet among Florida Hispanics and if the election were held today, Hillary trounce either Trump or Cruz in Florida. Writing for the Miami Herald last week, CNN en Español host, Andres Oppenheimer points out that Trump's 87% disapproval rating among American's of Hispanic descent will sink his general election chances.

Despite having been told a thousand times that his narrative about an avalanche of undocumented Mexicans coming to the United States is inaccurate-- in fact, U.S. Census figures show the flow of Mexicans is significantly down from 2008-- Trump is repeating his fear-mongering tale in almost every speech.

He calls for the mass deportation of more than 11 million undocumented migrants, proposes to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and wants to slap a 35 percent import tax on Mexican products. So far, his audiences love it.

But, remember, he has been talking to a limited audience of right-wing Republican primary voters. In a general election, he may come to regret his Mexico-bashing and anti-immigrant tirades.

The Latino vote will be critical in the November election. The percentage of Latino voters nationwide is projected to skyrocket from 3.9 percent in 1992 to nearly 10 percent in 2016, according to a recent study by City University of New York and CNN en Español.


More importantly, Latinos are concentrated in 10 states that have the largest number of votes in the electoral college. They will exceed 10 percent of voters in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York and Texas.

And Clinton is doing much better than Trump among Hispanics: 61 percent of those polled nationwide say they have a favorable opinion of Clinton, while only 9 percent have a favorable opinion of Trump, the Latino Decision survey shows.


...Trump’s xenophobia-- if not racism-- is likely to mobilize Latino voters like never before, because they will feel threatened by him. Hispanics will vote in record numbers in November. And, rather than being a threat to America, they will save America from Trump.

Today, in his Washington Post column, Greg Sargent noted that Republican elected officials are making matters even worse with Latinos, this time over Puerto Rico rather than Mexican and Central American immigrants. Paul Ryan failed to line up enough Republican votes to restructure Puerto Rico's debt. Puerto Ricans have been moving to Florida in droves-- endangering Republicans there (like Daniel Webster, who fled his newly Puerto Rican voter-heavy district), not to mention statewide races. There are a million Puerto Rican voters in Florida now, overwhelmingly Democrats. And if the GOP can't win Florida, they can't win the presidency. Puerto Rico, basically went bankrupt today. Despite Ryan's efforts the hard right who still controls "his" conference refers to the attempts to allieve the situation, as their wealthy campaign donors demand, as a "bailout."

“My party is bad at math right now,” GOP pollster Glen Bolger tells me. “We can’t win a national election with 59 percent of the white vote, which is what Romney got, so we need to improve elsewhere. Florida is a perfect example. It, along with Ohio, is ground zero for the presidential campaign. Republicans have to understand that sticking a finger in the eye of Latino voters is a way to guarantee electoral losses.”

These are the GOP-held congressional with a quarter or more Hispanics:

• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen- 76%-- DCCC willfully failed to recruit an opponent
• CA-21- David Valadao- 74%
• FL-25 Mario Diaz-Balart- 71%-- DCCC is ignoring a grassroots progressive, Alina Valdes
• FL-26- Carlos Curbelo- 69%
• TX-23- Will Hurd- 68%-- DCCC recruited a corrupt, right-wing Blue Dog already rejected by the district in 2014, Pete Gallego
• NM-02- Stevan Pearce- 53%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• TX-27- Blake Farenthold- 52%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• CA-22- Devin Nunes- 47%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• CA-10- Jeff Denham- 42%
• CA-08- Paul Cook- 39%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• CA-23- Kevin McCarthy- 38%-- DCCC is hostile to the grassroots candidate, Wendy Reed
• CA-25- Steve Knight- 38%-- DCCC has recruited an outsider & sabotaged the local grassroots candidate, Lou Vince
• WA-04- Dan Newhouse- 38%-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• CA-42 Ken Calvert- 37%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• TX-11- Mike Conaway- 37%-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• CA-39- Ed Royce- 34% + 29% Asian-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter- 31%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• TX-07- John Culberson- 31% + 13% Black + 11% Asian-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• TX-02- Ted Poe- 31%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• TX-21- Lamar Smith- 30%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• NV-04- Hardy Cresent- 29% + 14% Black
• TX-05- Jeb Hensarling- 28%-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• TX-10- Michael McCaul- 28%-- DCCC is ignoring the district
• AZ-02- Martha McSally- 28%
• TX-32 Pete Sessions- 26% + 12% Black + 8% Asian-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• TX-19- Randy Neugebauer- 26%-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• TX-13- Mac Thornberry- 26%-- DCCC is ignoring the district; no Democrat is running
• TX-17- Bill Flores- 25% + 13% Black + 5% Asian- DCCC is ignoring the district
• CO-03- Scott Tipton- 25%
• CA-49- Darrell Issa- 25%--DCCC is ignoring the district

So, of the 30 districts with a Latino population of 25% or more currently held by Republicans, the DCCC goes into the cycle having written off at least 22 of them. Get your head around that. Ten Trumps could be running but as long as Nancy Pelosi insists on putting her corrupt, incompetent cronies in as DCCC chairs, the Democrats will never take back the House. The Democrats were handed a gift in the form of Trump... and they already blew it. The incumbents they arel most likely to defeat are David Valadao, Carlos Curbelo, Jeff Denham, Hardy Cresent and possibly-- if Lou Vince manages to overcome their sabotage-- Steve Knight. And that's far from even half of the seats they should win back just based on the Hispanic demographic upsurge in registration.

If you'd like to help Democrats take advantage of the upsurge in Hispanic registered voters and enthusiasm to punish the GOP, please consider contributing to Lou Vince and Wendy Reed in California and Lucy Flores in Nevada, all on this page for progressives who have endorsed Bernie and are running on his package of issues: