Mitt Romney is attempting to attract Hispanic voters with a
new campaign advert specifically targeted towards Hispanics. The advert is in
Spanish and is Romney’s first serious attempt to woo Hispanics. Recently
released census information shows that currently there are more babies of
minority background (such as black and Hispanic) than whites for the first
time, the Republicans and Romney needed to begin wooing such voters or they
could find themselves locked out of the White House for a long time.
Some polls put Romney at a distant 14% amongst Hispanic
voters, even the highest estimates put him below 30%. The main reason for this
poor performance is due to the Primary campaign for this year’s Republican
nomination, the campaign was the first since the Tea Party took hold of the
House of Representatives. The campaign saw each of the candidates attempt to
run to the right of each other. The result was that they were all very
anti-immigrant, Romney himself opposing the American Dream Act which would have
enabled children of illegal immigrants to go to college and praising Arizona’s
controversial “papers please!” law, which many view as racist.
The hard right turn taken by the Republicans this year is
not the only reason for poor polling amongst Hispanic voters. The Republican
Party has long struggled to take their votes, in the USA Hispanics tend to be
poorer than their white counterparts, for this reason they tend to be more
Liberal on issues such as welfare and the role of government.
If Romney is to win the general election in November he will
have to take a significant proportion of the Hispanic vote or it is difficult
to see him win.
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