Last month, Presidential hopefuls Senator Marco Rubio of Florida & Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced that they would be pursuing the Republican nomination for the 2016 Presidential Elections. Since the pair announced their plans, there has been a heighten interest to pull the Latino vote. However, Rubio & Cruz face quite the competition trying to win the Latino vote compared to their opponents.
Considered to be the key demographic in the U.S. to impress when it comes to attaining votes within the electorate, Latinos are the “it” card any running candidate wants to have on their side next to women and young Americans. And as of now, particularly in any election really, Democrats have always had the Latino vote meanwhile the GOP has struggled when it comes to connecting and swaying the Latino vote for one of their candidates.
And it is not exactly a mystery why Latinos do not favorably vote GOP.
On issues like immigration there tend to be more Democrats who are in favor of reforming this country’s immigration policy. One of the Democratic presidential hopefuls is Hilary Clinton who among Latinos is largely favored because of her politics and how she does favor such initiatives like path to citizenship that largely effects Latinos.
In comparison to Rubio, there was stiff competition among Latinos when it came to picking either one of the candidates…however, that fell and Clinton earned some leeway after Rubio decided to rescind his approval for immigration reform and path to citizenship because it wasn’t largely accepted by members of the GOP and Republican citizens he represented in Florida.
While Rubio tends to jump back and forth between policies that are favorable towards Latinos, but not so by his and his party’s constituents which can be one key silver bullet in him not earning the Latino vote, what is the issue regarding Cruz not obtaining the Latino?
Ignorance.
While Cruz is of Cuban origin, and has acknowledged the struggles his father—as an immigrant in this country—has faced when it came to finding a job and so on, Cruz has also shown his lack of understanding or insensitivity regarding Latinos who economically suffering in poverty.
When asked himself how he planned on attracting the Latino vote, Cruz stated that Latinos are “fundamentally conservative” and that they hold strong values like faith, family, patriotism, hard work, and pride. All very good answers, and somewhat true, but sadly what Cruz is known for doing is he continued talking and ruined his very scripted response.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hispanic panhandler,” said Cruz, “And the reason is in our community it would be shameful to be begging on the street,
Now if you want people to work their fingers to the bones, hard work, you’ll have Hispanic men and women lining up to work hard and provide for their families. Those are all conservative values.”
While begging for help is not only something Latinos may feel shameful about doing, but others outside of the group as well, Cruz’s statement—although intending to sound empowering—does the opposite to a degree by expressing the continued forced labor for very little pay many Latinos are forced to embraced in this country either due to their citizen status or because they are unable to attain college to further their degree because of the skyrocketing tuition.
While it is still early to outright say Cruz and Rubio will fail to earn the Latino vote, according to some sources Republicans and the Republican party are hopeful when it comes to earning the Latino vote due to President Barack Obama‘s handling of the immigration reform and the high number of deportations that have occurred in his term as President. However, what Republicans do not understand is that Latinos will not only blame the president or Democrats but Republicans as well since Republicans within the Congress have been the strongest nuisance when it come keeping comprehensive immigration reform from happening.
Again, it is still early to see what will happen in the upcoming elections but it is sure to be interesting.
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