Between 70 to 75% of Latino voters chose Barack Obama as their leading man for president. Whether or not it had something to do with the many Spanish language ads produced by the Obama campaign some weeks ago (as mentioned in the past blog), one thing is for certain: Latinos support Obama! In fact, Mitt Romney this year received only 29% of the Latino vote, which is lower than what Republican candidates in the past four elections have gotten. In the ever important swing states, such as Colorado and Florida, Latinos chose Obama, something the Republican party was working strongly to attain.
As the United States is becoming more and more diverse, with Hispanic, African American and Asian communities increasing, this is likely to work against the Republican party whose often conservative views do not always bode well with said communities. Currently, employment, education, and healthcare reign as the strongest concerns among many first and second generation Latinos in the United States and it seems that many feel that the Republican party is ignoring or uninterested in what the Latino community is passionate about. Another topic important to many Latinos is of course, immigration rights. Mitt Romney called for vetoing the legislation of the Dream Act, a bill put into play by Barack Obama. The bill is in place in order to “provide conditional permanent residency to certain undocumented residents of good moral character who graduate from U.S. high schools, arrived in the United States as minors, and lived in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment” and in fact Mitt Romney embraced the idea of “self-deportation”, a claim that many Latinos felt was incredibly demeaning and cruel. According to a poll conducted by ImpreMedia/Latino Decisions (via La Opinión), the Republican stance on immigration is likely the main reason why Latinos voted in favor of the Democratic party.
With all that in mind, do you think the Republican party expressed themselves correctly to persuade other ethnic groups? What brought you to your decision?
