What’s the phrase? “In your dreams…” Donald Trumps contention that if he gets the GOP Presidential nomination he’ll get the Hispanic vote just begs for that phrase. He’s gone down so far in the polls with Latinos it’s clear the GOP would face a major route (unless some Republican-governed states’ efforts to keep Latino and other voters from the polls worked) if he’s the party’s Presidential candidate. The Washington Post’s The Fix notes a new poll:
Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that his now-infamous comments about illegal Mexican immigrants will not hurt him with Hispanic voters. First, he declared that he would win the Hispanic vote in a general election simply by virtue of his ability to create jobs in America. (A new Reuters report documenting his companies’ efforts to hire immigrant workers on temporary visas to fill hundreds of jobs doesn’t exactly bolster that case.) Then, he repeatedly pointed to a poll showing that he was the top choice of Hispanics in Nevada — a poll that included the responses of only a few dozen Hispanic Republicans — and thus cannot be looked at as a reliable gauge of anything.
But, then, that’s the way our politics works: non-facts are touted by partisans and politicians as facts, as if by mouthing something that’s not true it becomes true.
But, hey, some DO think it’s true so they gain votes, traction, and lots of media attention.
The new poll provides a better sample — and I fully suspect it’ll be echoed in future polls by Gallup and other organizations in case (note I do NOT say in the “unlikely” event) Mr. Trump becomes the GOP nominee:
And now: More cold water. The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, in contrast to the Nevada poll, included a large group of Hispanic voters — 250 in total. And overwhelmingly, that group viewed Trump negatively. Three-quarters saw Trump in a negative light, with more than 60 percent of them viewing him very negatively.
AND:
Trump’s comments on immigration actually did slightly better than Trump himself, according to NBC. Only (“only”) 55 percent of Latino respondents think that his reference to immigrants as rapists and criminals was “insulting and racist.” Twenty-nine percent said that he was raising an important issue but “should have been more careful with the language he used.” Another 14 percent said that Trump had “guts” in raising an “important problem.”
If Trumps is nominated the GOP has a major problem. Trump’s previous statements (no matter how he tries to soften them later, which I doubt he’d seriously do) would be run on Spanish language media. Second, the word gets out among groups people who seem to be biased against them. Andthe GOP debates hammering on illegal immigration will be fully noted and absorbed by the country’s Latino community. Not all voters vote alike, so it’s wrong to conclude that every Hispanic voter would vote against Trump (the polls don’t show that). But he and the Republican Party would lose a big chunk of a growing part of the electorate and news reports would fully document stories of people who tried to vote but couldn’t in Republican states.
Here’s how some other news oulets led this story.
Donald Trump’s outlandish comments about Mexican immigrants are undermining Latinos’ view of the Republican Party, according to a poll by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and Telemundo released Monday.
The real estate mogul and Republican presidential hopeful may be polling well in a more general sense, but his insistence that Mexico sends rapists and other criminals to the United States is hurting the GOP brand among Hispanics, said 69 percent of Latino adults in the 250-person survey. Only 12 percent said that Trump’s comments were helping the party.
Some 75 percent of Latinos have a negative view of Trump, according to the poll.
Three in four Latinos say they have a negative view of Donald Trump, and more than half believe that his comments about Mexican immigrants were racist and inappropriate, according to a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal/ Telemundo poll.
The poll of 250 Latinos found that 75 percent view the real estate mogul and GOP presidential front-runner unfavorably, with 61 percent saying that their view of him is “very negative.” Just 13 percent of respondents said they have a positive view of Trump.
The Republican presidential candidate has claimed that Latino voters “love” and support him, citing some state-based polls. But the new national oversample of Latino adults found that more than half believe his rhetoric about immigration is offensive.
On the other hand, in a column in USA Today, Ruben Navarrette Jr. says Trump’s Hispanic support cannot be dismissed as easily as the media (and I would add common sense) assumes:
There are at least three reasons that Trump is likely to make a decent showing with Hispanic voters:
What’s the Republican alternative? Will Hispanics flock in droves to Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, or much of the rest of the GOP presidential field? Not likely. Only two of the other 15 “also rans” could get in Trump’s way with Hispanics in the GOP primaries: Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. And instead of speaking forthrightly about issues such as immigration, the Floridians often seem cautious and reserved in their comments as if they’re afraid of alienating white people. Here’s a warning to them, and politicians everywhere: When you flinch, Hispanics notice. Trump’s immigration hard line is not a deal killer with all Hispanics, many of whom want stricter border security. More than half of all Border Patrol agents — about 52% — are Hispanic. Moreover, the closer you get to the border, the more likely you are to find Hispanics who worry about the issue that Trump brought to light: the alleged criminal element coming across the border. That was true in Arizona, where a controversial immigration law requiring police to check the legal status of anyone with whom they came in contact found pockets of support among those who lived on the front lines. Hispanics are just like other Americans. And why not? In New Mexico and Arizona, some trace their family histories back seven or eight generations. Thus what appeals to many other people about Trump also appeals to them. Hispanics have been deceived and manipulated by both parties. And they’re hungry for a candidate who says what he thinks, doesn’t back down, hammers the news media, and doesn’t sugarcoat differences with opponents. Apart from substance, Trump will get points for his style which — during a hot summer — seems as refreshing as a cool breeze.
Hispanics for Trump? Oh yeah. Get ready. That’s a thing.
Read his column in its entirety.
P.S. I’d still say that if Trump got the nomination it’s easy odds in Vegas that among Hispanic voters his candidacy would be a disaster for the Republican Party in the short and long term.
But the party’s branding among Hispanics may be totally cooked by the end of the debates, as candidates fall all over each other trying to show who can take the hardest line on illegal immigration and fall into the trap of negative stereotyping.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.