And not just because Democrats have less room for improvement. From the Georgetown Public Policy Review, we learn that in 2012:
a dramatic shift in Hispanic support toward Democrats would have yielded startlingly small gains in the House… A 20 percentage point shift would turn only six seats.
Conversely, shifts away from Democrats by Hispanics could be devastating… A 5 percentage point shift toward the GOP would have turned five races into Republican victories. A 10 percentage point shift to the right would have handed Republicans 12 seats, and a 16 percentage point shift would have flipped 21 districts.
Close races drove the difference. In 2012, Democratic House candidates tended to lose close races whether they got a lot of Hispanic votes or not, but Republican candidates lost many close races which they could have won had they had more Hispanic votes. That is a probabilistic statement about one election cycle, not an eternal law, but the implication is that given the way Congressional districts happen to be currently drawn, Republicans have much more to gain from spearheading immigration reform than Democrats do. They stood to gain several seats in the House in 2012, anyway.
Interesting that it’s not the Congressional races, but the Presidential race that caused the GOP to flip so quickly on immigration. As soon as Mitt Romney lost and his numbers were so bad with Hispanics (certaiinly much worse than conservative pundits had predicted), everyone from Sean Hannity to Romney himself change their tune on immigration. But really, the GOP’s political reward for pressing on with immigration reform is in the House.
A while ago I wrote (not exactly uniquely) that if the GOP really wants to win the hearts and minds of minorities, they need to change their policy, not just their rhetoric. Words are great, but action is better. That’s still true. Immigration reform is a relatively hopeful spot, but stories like this and conversations like this remind me that the GOP still has a long way to go if they want to claw minority voters from the Democrats in 2016.
This is not a policy platform.