While prevailing wisdom has pointed toward demographic changes in the United States favoring Democrats, according to GOP pollster Curt Anderson, that's not what polling is showing.
In a slide presentation to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Anderson presented the findings of an NRSC survey of Hispanic voters in battleground states showing they are leaning Republican.
The top line from his 34-page slide deck? “The coalition of the ascendant is descending.” The proof? The two senators sitting at the table who won election in a Sun Belt state that has become “substantially less white and more Republican.”
The moment for their multiethnic, multiracial working-class coalition has arrived, Republicans hope, and Hispanic voters are the key. “They said how well Marco [Rubio] would do because he is of Cuban descent,” [Sen. Rick] Scott said, noting how Rubio won 48% of those voters in his 2016 race, “but when I did it, they said, ‘Well, there is something different about Florida.’ If you look at these poll numbers, it is not. If you look at these poll numbers, Hispanics across the country are Republicans.”
The GOP theory of the case ahead of the midterms, where Republicans must not only defend 20 of their own seats but also flip at least one Democratic seat to retake the Senate, sounds simple. “If Republicans reach out to them,” Scott said of Hispanics, “we are going to win.”
The survey of 1,200 Hispanic likely voters in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, conducted by OnMessage Strategies, is welcome news to a party that went, in just four years, from unified control of Washington to banishment in the electoral wilderness. It shows an increasingly conservative Hispanic population open to the culture wars that Donald Trump waged. (Real Clear Politics)
The survey found these voters overwhelmingly rejected socialism while favoring the free market, 63 percent to 17 percent. They also have concerns the U.S. is in decline, 67 percent to 28 percent, meaning they're concerned that their children will not experience the same opportunities in the country. Other concerns include the quality of public schools, cancel culture, and the loss of traditional American values.
"The argument from the Left is that this country is a place that has not been good for people, other than the majority, over much of our history," Rubio said, reports RCP. "And Hispanics just don't buy it. And the reason why they don't buy it is very simple: They know what life is like in another country."
He added: "When you have come from somewhere else, and you know what life is like in another country, you know how special this country is. You sure as hell don't want to live in a second country where those things are lost."
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