Donald Trump rose to the top of the pack of Republican presidential candidates with his inflammatory rhetoric about Mexican immigrants. It looks like Hispanic Americans haven’t forgotten about that.
Registration among Hispanic voters is skyrocketing in a presidential election cycle dominated by Donald Trump and loud GOP cries to close the border.
Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials, projects 13.1 million Hispanics will vote nationwide in 2016, compared to 11.2 million in 2012 and 9.7 million in 2008.
Many of those new Hispanic voters are also expected to vote against Trump if he is the Republican nominee, something that appears much more likely after the front-runner’s sweeping primary victories Tuesday in five East Coast states.
A whopping 80 percent of respondents in a poll of registered Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada said Trump’s views on immigration made them less likely to vote for Republicans in November. In Florida, that number was 68 percent.
Note that the 80% of registered Hispanics in those states said they are less likely to vote for Republicans…not just Donald Trump. So his rantings are not only affecting the presidential race, but could also have an impact down ballot.
As November looks likely to be a contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there are whispers of a possible landslide election in the making. It is interesting to note that the Republican Party had a moment of sanity immediately following the 2012 election when they published the infamous “autopsy” suggesting the need to do better outreach – specifically with women and Hispanics. But Donald Trump is succeeding in the Republican primary precisely because he is so intent on alienating those two groups (among others).
There are those who expect that Trump will somehow “pivot” during the general election and increase his appeal beyond the angry white male Republicans who are the base of his support right now. What is important to keep in mind, however, is that Trump is incapable of assessing his candidacy beyond the frame of a dominant white male perspective. That’s why he continually suggests that women, Hispanics and African Americans “love” him despite reality. He won’t feel the need to pivot because he honestly thinks he’s already arrived. In other words, he is living in a delusional world that reinforces his narcissism.
