When John McCain returns from his trip to Colombia and Mexico, he needs to clarify where he stands on the very important issue of how to best fix our broken immigration system. Once a great leader on immigration reform, his recent statements make clear that to win the Republican nomination and appeal to the anti-immigrant sentiment in his own party, he abandoned legislation that he himself authored and has now betrayed the immigrant community he once championed.

For someone like myself, who has worked hard, in a non-partisan way, to fix the broken immigration system these last few years, I find it incredible that John McCain would not just abandon his strong advocacy of comprehensive immigration reform, but attempt to mislead people about his record. This past weekend, we saw him - at a very important gathering of Hispanic leaders - misrepresent [3] his position on the last great immigration reform bill in 1986.

In this 2008 interview [4] with Tim Russert, McCain said his own legislation was dead. In this presidential primary debate [5] in Los Angeles, McCain said he would not vote for his own bill.

Once for comprehensive immigration reform, now against it. Once against the 1986 immigration bill, now for it. John McCain, when you come home this week from your travels, it is critical that you clarify just exactly where you stand on the important issue of immigration reform.

Florida's Hispanic community is changing. Waves of new Puerto Rican, Mexican, Central and South American immigrants have made the historically powerful Cuban-American community a minority of the statewide Hispanic vote. And the Cuban-American community itself is changing, with many more post-1980 immigrants and 2nd generation American-born Cuban-Americans entering the electorate.

These changes have made the Florida Hispanic electorate much more Democratic, and much less open to the failed hard-line Cuban policies advocated by President George W. Bush and McCain. In 2006, a majority of those Hispanics who voted in Florida voted Democratic. New registration numbers from Florida show that there are now more registered Hispanic Democrats than registered Hispanic Republicans.

In a comprehensive poll [8] of the Cuban-American community conducted by NDN in 2006, an overwhelming majority of Cuban-Americans favored negotiation with a Cuban government led by Raul Castro, and a majority of those who arrived in the United States after 1980 favored the relaxation of travel and remittance restrictions imposed by Bush and supported by McCain. The poll did not find deep support in the Cuban-American community for McCain's current Cuba policy, and there is a great deal of openness to the policy advocated by NDN and Obama that begins with the relaxation of travel and remittances to the island but does not include elimination of the embargo.

Its changing population is changing Florida's politics. The reliance of McCain on a failed, hard-line policy toward Cuba will not carry the weight with a very different Florida Hispanic electorate it once did. It is an old play out of an outdated, 20th century Republican political playbook, and while it may excite a small and shrinking part of Florida's Cuban electorate, it will not be a terribly effective tool for McCain to reach the increasingly Democratic and non-Cuban Hispanic population of Florida.

For more on Cuba and the views of Cuban Americans, visit our Web site [9] to watch video of a forum we convened to discuss what a post-Castro Cuba would look like for the United States and the rest of the world.

The findings of our research confirm trends in the Hispanic community that we saw emerge in 2006 – Hispanics are trending very Democratic and voting in much higher numbers. So far this year, 78% of Hispanics who have voted in Presidential election contests have voted Democratic. In those states where Hispanics are tracked, results have shown a dramatic increase in their share of the overall vote, skyrocketing 67%, from 9% of the overall vote in 2004 to 15% in 2008.

These results are just the latest in a long line of evidence indicating that the anti-immigrant stance of the GOP, first adopted in late 2005, has turned the Hispanic community against Republicans and has encouraged them to vote in unprecedented numbers. The votes in 2008 so far confirm previous studies suggesting that Hispanics are now a very energized and very Democratic community.

These developments pose serious problems for John McCain and his Party in 2008. A recent report by NDN, “Hispanics Rising [13]”, quotes Mathew Dowd, the chief pollster for President Bush, as saying that for Republicans to win the White House they must garner between 38-40% In open ballot contests so far the GOP has received only 22% of the overall Hispanic vote, and McCain has received about half of that vote. Even in Arizona, Senator Obama received more Hispanics votes than Senator McCain.

As Michael Gerson, President Bush’s former chief speechwriter recently wrote [14]:

I have never seen an issue where the short-term interests of Republican presidential candidates in the primaries were more starkly at odds with the long-term interests of the party itself. At least five swing states that Bush carried in 2004 are rich in Hispanic voters -- Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Bush won Nevada by just over 20,000 votes. A substantial shift of Hispanic voters toward the Democrats in these states could make the national political map unwinnable for Republicans ... Some in the party seem pleased. They should be terrified. (Washington Post, 09/19/2007)

Key Findings

• Of the Hispanics who have voted in the Presidential primaries and caucuses, 78% have voted for the Democratic candidates, 22% have voted for the Republicans.
• The share of the Democratic primary audience in those states with Hispanics populations that is Hispanic has skyrocketed, increasing from 9% of the overall electorate in 2004 to 15% in 2008, a 67% increase.
• The number of Hispanics voting in the Democratic primaries more than tripled from 2004 to 2008, passing the 3 million mark.
• In the recent Texas Democratic Primary, the electorate was majority minority (54%).

To view the full report click here [15].

NDN [18] sources confirm that Senator McCain will be meeting with Spanish Language marketing guru Lionel Sosa [19] this week to help his campaign court Latino voters.  Lionel Sosa has been credited with successfully helping President Bush garner a significant percentage of the Latino vote in 2000 and 2004.  This is a very interesting development on several fronts.  One, it notes that McCain understands he is not as popular among Latinos as many assume, and needs to bring in the "big guns" to help him with Latinos. Two, it signals that the battle for Latinos will be very competitive and that Democrats cannot take for granted any gains made among Latinos this cycle.  More importantly though, is what this development means to the immigration debate and McCain's ever evolving position on this issue. 

Travis posted earlier that Senate Republicans are pushing for the most extreme immigration measures this week.  Read the post here [20].  If these measures happen to be scheduled for a vote, it will force McCain to take a stand on the issue.  Lionel Sosa, is an ardent opponent of these anti-immigrant proposals, and recently started a new organization, MATT [21], to help promote a solution to the immigration issue that will provide citizenship to the undocumented immigrants here in the US.  MATT plans on funding an aggressive media campaign to encourage support for this philosophy.

I posted earlier, Luring Latinos #4 [22], that McCain has painted himself in a corner.  He has betrayed the Latino community by turning his back on them when they needed him most and walking away from the immigration battle.  He has acknowledged to conservatives that he needs to change his position on immigration in order to appease them.  So the question continues, does McCain grab a hold of the life line that Sosa has provided him to win back Latinos, or does he sacrifice Sosa and embrace the conservatives?  Either way, McCain is going to have to pick sides, and I can't wait to find out his decision.

So much excitement and it is only March.  I usually only get this excited over March Madness.  Stay tuned.

So the results are in, and March 4th certainly proved to be a memorable night. Latinos were active in every contest, but they made a loud statement in Texas. I am listing the percent of voters that were Latino according to exit polls in each of the Democratic contests last night. (Results were not available for each of the Republican contests, and we will discuss their results later.)

Latinos were clearly the deciding factor in Clinton's victory last night in Texas. It was a competitive election, and Obama invested about double the amount that Clinton invested in paid media and specifically in Spanish language media. Despite his aggressive efforts, Obama performed worse among Latinos in Texas than he did in California, the last major state where they competed for the Latino vote, dropping from 32% to 31%. The trouble for Obama is, that this means his message is not resonating among Latino voters, and that Clinton's campaign team has implemented a far superior strategy in courting Latinos. The Clinton campaign employs Sergio Bendixen who is considered one of the best Latino strategists in the country, and has a proven track record for implementing successful campaigns in courting Latino voters. In full disclosure, Bendixen was formerly with NDN and helped NDN implement an award winning campaign targeting Latino voters in 2004. Obama's strategy among Latinos in simply not working, and his campaign needs to assess how to change their outlook. After all, they are the campaign about "Change." So enough with all this babble, let the numbers talk for themselves. I am providing you the results for Texas, and how each candidate performed in each category. You will note that Clinton loses the state of Texas without Latino voters.

As you can see, Clinton's performance among Latinos virtually eliminates Obama's advantage among African American voters. Latinos have now delivered for Clinton in several key wins that have kept her going in this campaign. From winning in Nevada on January 19th to her win in Tsunami Tuesday in California, and now Texas, Latinos are participating in record numbers and providing Clinton the support she has needed to continue. Regardless, of who the nominee will be in the General election, Latinos have spoken. They are ready to engage and they want a seat at the table. The question is will the Democratic Party take notice and say Bienvenidos?

Yahoo News [27] posts an AP [28] article "Young Latino voters on the rise" [29] that focuses on young Latinos and their involvement in the presidential election. It quotes our good friend Maria Teresa Petersen and cites the work that Voto Latino [30] has been conducting to engage and mobilize young Latinos in the electoral process.

For years, Hispanics have lagged behind other voters in their political clout, in part because so many of them were under 18.

But now, 400,000 U.S.-born Latinos a year are joining the voting-age population by turning 18. More than 5 million Latino citizens, either U.S.-born or naturalized, were ages 18 to 29 as of September 2007, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Yahoo News also posts a good article on how the Texas Primary/Caucus system will work. For those of us who are still confused about the process, learn more by reading here [31] or by watching this video clip [32] courtesy of CBS [33] affiliate KHOU [34].

During my years as a political organizer, I engaged in several heated discussions with my co-workers about the Latino electorate. I always felt that Latinos were treated as unwanted stepchildren of the political elite, and would complain about the lack of investment and inclusion of Latino voters in the overall campaign strategy. Usually, they would respond to my complaints by saying that they don't invest resources into mobilizing Latinos because Latinos don't vote. These responses would usually only further enrage me, and lead to more heated discussions and sometimes severed relationships.

The problem that I had was, that having walked so many doors, made so many phone calls, and attended countless events, I knew there was a hunger among Latinos to engage in the political process. They just needed a little pushing, and most of all a little respect. I would work on shoestring budgets, and was expected to make miracle happen. I couldn't understand why campaign managers were so opposed to investing resources in the Latino community, when I knew that a small investment would make all the difference. My arguments would usually end with me saying, "how do you know that Latinos won't vote if you have never invested anything in that community?"

As many of you know, in the spring of 2007 I accepted a position with the Nevada Democratic Party [37] to help educate voters about the Democratic Presidential Caucuses [38]. Nevada was selected as the second state in the nation to hold a caucus in large part to give Latinos a voice in the process. I knew that this would be a historic opportunity to prove once and for all that Latinos could be a determining factor in a major election. Of course, I think that in part I was offered the job to get me to shut up about the lack of engagement of Latinos. This was an incredible experience that allowed me to implement some innovative approaches [39] with Latino voters.  As you know, Latinos did indeed participate in record numbers [40] and proved to be a deciding factor [41] in Senator Clinton's victory.

Since then, it has just been incredible for me to watch what has developed in this presidential election cycle. Now working at NDN [42], I am able to participate on a national level to educate people about the Latino electorate (Read more about our research [43]).  From California to Illinois to New York, Latinos are voting in record numbers, and we still have Texas coming up on March 4th. Less than a year ago, the pundits were still questioning [44] if Latinos would play a role, and candidates were still deciding how much of an impact Latinos would be to their campaign. Today, there is no question about turnout, Latinos have proven to be a force, the questions are about how much candidates are investing to court Latino voters as we learned about in Ad Age [45]. Just as important to me, is not just that they are participating in record numbers, but they are making a political statement as well. We learn from Samuel Rodriguez [46] that religious Latino voters are holding Republicans accountable for their demonization of immigrants. Even conservatives like Geraldo Rivera [47] are taking a hard stance against candidates and their anti-immigrant rhetoric. Latinos are not just blindly getting involved because somebody asked them to vote, they are participating because they have something to say. Our report Hispanics Rising [48] documents in detail the links between the immigration debate and Latino elecoral participation.

There is still a long way to go in changing the mindset of many in the political arena, but this election cycle will certainly change the way we look at engaging people in the political process. I know that Novemberis still far away, but trust you me when I tell you that references to the "Sleeping Giant [49]" are as outdated as last year's Swim Suit edition [50].

On a final note, I mentioned to you yesterday [51] that Paul West's article was very similar to what NDN has been mentioning on our blog, and today I read on MSNBC [52] an article [53] that also sounds a lot like what we have been saying.  Even shared a similar title, Texas Two-Step [54].  I guess at least two people are reading the blog.  Keep reading and I will keep writing. Adios!