2012 Presidential elections and the Hispanic vote
2012 Presidential elections and the Hispanic vote
Latino voters will be extremely important to the upcoming presidential election. During the Primaries, Republican candidate, Mitt Romney was forced to take a hard stand against illegal immigration, a strategy that may have helped him at the time. Now facing the prospect of the General Election, however, Romney must mend his relationship with Latino voters in order to have a shot at winning.
Rumor has it he has a plan, and not the self-deport notion he argued in the primaries. (In a nutshell, Romney claimed upon his election, illegal immigrants would “self-deport.”) Many people have speculated that Romney may try to entice Latino voters by choosing a Hispanic running mate, particularly FL Senator, Marco Rubio.
While a Rubio running mate has the potential to drive Hispanic voters into the Romney camp, some say the move wouldn’t create enough impact to overcome Romney’s anti-immigration posturing during the primaries. Even with a Hispanic VP (Rubio is Cuban-American), it might be difficult for Romney to convince Latinos to vote for the Party who has been for the last several years trying to deport them, profile them and scape-goated them. If only Romney had a fiscally conservative, half Latina, half African American female VP pick, he could widen his margin by a lot!
Obama has meanwhile made progress recently with Latino communities with an Executive Order similar to The Dream Act, which stays deportation of immigrants with clean criminal records who entered the U.S. under 16 years old and are either: enrolled in school, earned high school diplomas or enrolled in the military. The move immediately improved his polling numbers and greatly increased his approval rating. It’s also an order Mitt Romney promised to undo, and then possibly redo.
It’s not all smooth sailing for Obama, though. Despite his progress, many voters still have not forgotten the record high number of deportations in Obama’s early administration, or that he’s dragged his feet for nearly 4 years on pushing comprehensive reform.
Right now, the Latino vote is leaning in favor of Obama, though Romney still has 4 months to entice Latino voters. And they will be a strong force in the 2012 elections.