> In recent weeks, I’ve spoken with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic pollsters, consultants, strategists, and party leaders. From those conversations, it is clear to me that neither party has a firm grasp of the ways in which Latino communities are evolving. Republicans argue that Democrats pander to Latinos, casting them as an aggrieved racial minority in an effort to bind them together as members of a group, and focus too much on immigration, whereas their side delivers an aspirational message of upward economic mobility, and affirms Latinos’ desire for security and religious liberty. Democrats, for their part, cannot figure out why any Latino would be drawn to a party that promises to round up immigrants, and argue that Republicans fight only for the rich.
> The Republican strategy of folding Latinos into a new working-class coalition has yet to be proved. But, if that approach—with its harsh rhetoric about the threat posed by immigrants—succeeds, it could supplant decades of thinking about Latino-voter outreach and mobilization.
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> In recent weeks, I’ve spoken with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic pollsters, consultants, strategists, and party leaders. From those conversations, it is clear to me that neither party has a firm grasp of the ways in which Latino communities are evolving. Republicans argue that Democrats pander to Latinos, casting them as an aggrieved racial minority in an effort to bind them together as members of a group, and focus too much on immigration, whereas their side delivers an aspirational message of upward economic mobility, and affirms Latinos’ desire for security and religious liberty. Democrats, for their part, cannot figure out why any Latino would be drawn to a party that promises to round up immigrants, and argue that Republicans fight only for the rich.
> The Republican strategy of folding Latinos into a new working-class coalition has yet to be proved. But, if that approach—with its harsh rhetoric about the threat posed by immigrants—succeeds, it could supplant decades of thinking about Latino-voter outreach and mobilization.