Mike Scruggs
New academic research from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)
confirms previous studies over more than two decades that Republicans cannot
win more Hispanic votes by supporting amnesty and other liberal immigration
legislation. Moreover, voting for liberal immigration policies hurts
them with non-Hispanic conservatives. Hispanics have a strong tradition
of Democrat Party loyalty and support because they favor big government
and liberal social-welfare and healthcare spending. According to a 2011
Pew poll, 75 percent of Hispanics favor big government with more services
versus only 41 percent for the general US. population. Support for big
government runs to 81 percent among immigrant Hispanics. Pew research
indicated that 69 percent of Hispanics favored Obamacare, and 71 percent
voted for Obama.
In October, Pew Research also found
that while 34 percent of Latino (Hispanic) registered voters say immigration
is extremely important them, immigration ranks only fifth in their priority
of issues. Education, jobs and the economy, and healthcare all ranked
much higher with over 50 percent seeing them as extremely important.
Even the Federal budget deficit was more important at 36 percent. Only
taxes, a Republican issue, ranked lower at 33 percent.
The recent CIS research paper,
Pro-Immigration
Congressional Republicans Do Not Perform Better Among Latino Voters,
by Dr. George Hawley of the University of Houston, was also published
in the academic journal,
Social Science Quarterly. Hawley used the 2006 Congressional
elections to study the relationship of voting records, based on NumbersUSA
grading of incumbent House Republicans with the percent of the Latino
vote they received in the 2006 General Election. NumbersUSA grades range
from F- to A+. The average Republican grade was B. (The average
Democrat grade is now D-.) Many other factors were considered in this
highly sophisticated statistical analysis, but the most understandable
presentation for non-statisticians can be seen in a simple comparison
of Republican incumbents’ NumbersUSA immigration grade with
their share of the Latino vote. Here are the Table 1 results for five
grade ranges:
Grade A=27.2% Latino support; Grade
B=26.5% Latino support;
Grade C=27.9% Latino support; Grade
D =19.9% Latino support
Grade F, representing only a few
Republicans got 25.7% Latino support.
The results were slightly the reverse
of what one would expect but not statistically significant. However,
the small reverse effect may reflect a consistent conservative Republican
support of 20 percent or more among Hispanics. Many in this conservative
Hispanic minority have strong negative reactions to amnesty. One bottom
line of the study is that a conservative immigration voting record did
not hurt Republican incumbents with Hispanics. More importantly, those
with liberal voting records were not helped one whit. Although many
Hispanics describe themselves as independents, overwhelming loyalty
to the Democrat Party is an enduring cultural fact.
The Hispanic vote is primarily determined
by this traditional loyalty and strong Hispanic preference for generous
big government welfare and healthcare policies. They are also unresponsive
to Republican calls for lower taxes.
On the other hand, the study indicates
that Republican support for amnesty and other liberal immigration policies
hurt them with non-Hispanic whites at a level that is not only statistically
significant but potentially disastrous. Simplifying and condensing Table
2 of the report, my own comparison of Republicans with A and B grades
with those with C and D grades suggests a substantial penalty for Republicans
going liberal on immigration. The drop from A & B to C & D indicates
an almost 10 percent drop in the support of non-Hispanic whites or 4.0
percent of the total vote. In a close election that would be equivalent
to dropping from 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent of the vote. The
statistics in Table 2 of the report seem a bit low to me, but the message
is clear and perhaps understated. The penalty for Republican support
for amnesty and other liberal immigration policies is significant. Institutional
Republican leadership support for amnesty and other liberal immigration
policies risks massive Republican defeats and long-term alienation of
the Party’s conservative base.
The new CIS report supports three
highly probable results of Republican support for amnesty and other
liberal immigration programs. (1) Republicans would not gain Hispanic
votes. (2) It would result in millions of new voters leaning three to
one or better toward the Democrat Party, compounding annually with new
illegal immigration encouraged by amnesty. (3) It would significantly
diminish conservative support for Republicans, resulting in millions
of conservative voters staying at home.
An August 2001 CIS report by Karen
Kaufmann and James G. Gimpel reached similar conclusions. This report,
entitled
Impossible Dream or Distant Reality? Republican
Efforts to Attract Latino Voters, should have been sobering
news for the Bush administration, which formulated its immigration policies
based on anecdotal myths rather than statistical reality. The Bush policy
of negligible internal and workplace enforcement earned no Hispanic
respect, resulted in a doubling of illegal immigration, hurt American
workers and taxpayers, and accelerated the growth of a strongly Democrat
voting bloc that threatens eventual Democrat dominance in national elections.
One of the myths is that Hispanic
voters are social conservatives receptive to Republican appeals. This
is about three generations out of date as a result of the increased
secularization of both the Hispanic and American cultures and the massive
inflow of largely un-churched new immigrants.
According to Pew Research,
Hispanics are more conservative on abortion with only 43 percent thinking
it should be legal compared to 54 per cent of all Americans. But according
to the Guttmacher Institute, they have more of them, 28 percent, versus
only 11 percent for whites.
According to Manhattan Institute Scholar
Heather MacDonald, a majority of Hispanics now accept gay marriage.
In addition, the Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about
twice that of whites. Moreover, conservative Hispanic social opinions
do not translate into conservative votes.
Republicans cannot out-liberal Democrats.
So why are Republicans stampeding to vote for an amnesty worse than
the disastrous 1986 amnesty? It is Republican suicide—stupid Republican
suicide.
