The mid-term elections have come and gone, and even though the predicted sweeping wave of the Republican Party in Congress did not fully materialize, they were able to gain dominance over the House of Representatives. There was also a string of Latino Republicans who won, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio who took the U.S. Senate by a wide margin. Other winners included Republicans Susana Martinez, elected as the first female Latin Governor in New Mexico, and Brian Sandoval, who became the first Hispanic governor in Nevada. Florida’s David Rivera was among five Republicans to win their races to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Even though national exit poll results showed that Democrats had a two-to-one advantage- 64% versus 34%- over Republicans in the U.S. House races among Latino voters, the majority of Latinos who won high offices were Republican candidates. The reality is that this was going to be a difficult election cycle for Democrats under the best of circumstances, just as 2008 was never going to be a Republican year after eight years of the Bush Presidency.
The Latin and Hispanic population are already considered the nation’s largest minority group; they comprise about 12% of the entire population, and are expected to have an 82% increase by 2050, meaning that they will comprise 19% of the nation’s population. In Florida, they are estimated to be 1.8 million, making up 15% of all eligible voters in the states; and while during this election the majority cited either ‘jobs’ or ‘the economy’ as their top concern, immigration also appeared to be of high concern as well. And while Latinos remain displeased that the present administration has not made immigration legislation a priority, polls have revealed that there is increased awareness of the Republican Party’s obstructionism of the Democrat’s efforts.
While Latinos acknowledge that immigration enforcement has gone up since Obama gained office, they also see the Democratic Party as having more concern for Hispanics than their political counterparts. The Republican Party’s intransigence with the proposed DREAM legislation, along with their promotion of Arizona-like legislation that induce racial profiling has definitely hurt and perhaps even alienated this demographic. As the Tea Party movement gained momentum with their “No Amnesty!” and “Seal The Borders Now!” slogans, the fact that the Republican Party supported served to further strain the ties.
As Marco Rubio said at his party following the Senate victory, “We make a grave mistake if we believe that tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party. What they are is a second chance.” Unless the Republican Party chooses to adopt a more welcoming message that embraces the vastly diverse population, as would befit a country that, at its inception, was colonized by immigrants, they will be inviting an unfavorable result that could sever ties with an ever growing community that is surpassing all expectations and is permanently headed in only one direction- forward.
