The White House and Univision are just two of the entities pushing initiatives that will increase the number of Latino voters in 2016. But frankly, the biggest assist for groups working to grow the Latino vote is coming straight from Donald Trump himself, reports Julia Preston.
A legal immigrant from Mexico, Ms. Villegas is a mother of two who has been living in the United States for nearly a decade but never felt compelled to become a citizen. But as Mr. Trump has surged toward the Republican nomination, Ms. Villegas — along with her sister, her parents and her husband’s parents — has joined a rush by many Latino immigrants to naturalize in time to vote in November.
“I want to vote so Donald Trump won’t win,” said Ms. Villegas, 32, one of several hundred legal residents, mostly Mexicans, who crowded one recent Saturday into a Denver union hall. Volunteers helped them fill out applications for citizenship, which this year are taking about five months for federal officials to approve. “He doesn’t like us,” she said.
Beyond the anecdotal evidence, 2015 naturalization applications were up 11 percent from 2014, spiking 14 percent in the six months ending in January. Advocates say the application rates are growing by the week and might end at around 1 million for 2016, around a 200,000 boost over recent averages.
So how might all this affect this year's race for the White House? Francis Wilkinson reminds us that in 2008, Latinos were divided over John McCain, with one Wall Street Journal/NBC poll in June 2008 finding 49 percent had a favorable view of him while 47 percent viewed him negatively. Barack Obama won the Latino vote that year by a 36-point margin over McCain (67-31 percent).
In a poll last month by the same group, Donald Trump's favorable-unfavorable rating among Hispanics was 15-75. Where McCain's rating had been a wash, Trump's is negative by a 5-to-1 ratio. In a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton, Hispanics preferred Clinton over Trump by 70 percent to 21 percent.
That's before the barrage of advertising that will surely reach Latino voters in states like Nevada and Florida. And btw, Ted Cruz isn't doing much better with Latinos, with 20 percent viewing him positively while 46 percent view him unfavorably.