Hispanics wary of future in GOP

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By David R. Sands

Five years after former President George W. Bush attracted nearly half of the Hispanic vote in the 2004 presidential election, Hispanic Republicans are worrying that support for the party among Latinos is in a free fall.

The mood was distinctly downbeat at times at a recent Capitol Hill gathering sponsored by the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RHNA) on the "Future of Hispanics in the GOP." For some, the basic question was whether there was any future to discuss.

Leading Hispanic Republican strategists say the natural attraction the party should enjoy with churchgoing, socially conservative Latino voters is being overwhelmed by a single issue: the party's hard-line stance on illegal immigration.

"We know that the party will not recover its majority until we get this right," said RHNA Chairman Danny Vargas.

Conservative pundit and former Maryland Senate candidate Linda Chavez described how Ronald Reagan helped persuade her to vote Republican for the first time in 1980 and how the party's policy and rhetoric on immigration are driving her and other Hispanics away.

"I'm sitting back," she said. "I do not feel as at home with the Republican Party as I did in 1984-85, and that is a problem our party is going to have to come to terms with."

Party leaders say they recognize the need to mend fences. According to exit polls, Democrats scored a net gain of 13 percent in the presidential election and 15 percent in House races between 2004 and 2008. Republican defections have been particularly severe in states where Hispanics make up at least 30 percent of the electorate, including Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico.

President Bush received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, compared with Sen. John Kerry's 53 percent — a record showing for a Republican candidate. In 2008, Republican nominee Sen. John McCain received just 31 percent of the national Hispanic vote, compared to Mr. Obama's 67 percent.

In 2004, Republicans held five of the nine congressional districts along the U.S.-Mexican border; in 2009, all nine seats are occupied by liberal Democrats.

"That's not a trend. That's a bloody massacre," said Richard Nadler, president of Kansas-based conservative think tank Americas Majority foundation. Mr. Nadler has emerged as a leading voice calling for an overhaul of the Republican Party's stance on illegal immigration and what he calls the policy of "mass deportation."