Immigration debate sours Latino attitude toward GOP

Check out the poll at PewHispanic.org. -Angela

July 14, 2006, 12:18AM
Immigration debate sours Latino attitude toward GOP
Poll finds Dems making no inroads as voters grow more disenchanted with both parties

By PATTY REINERT
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Latinos to some extent hold the Republican Party responsible for what they perceive as the negative consequences of the national debate over immigration policy, a poll released Thursday concludes.

It was unclear, however, how the sentiment might play out in the November elections.

In a recent national telephone survey of 2,000 Hispanic adults in the United States, the Pew Hispanic Center found that party affiliation of Latino registered voters has not changed significantly since 2004. Slightly more than 40 percent called themselves Democrats; slightly more than 20 percent Republicans.

The survey's conclusion about Latino attitudes toward Republicans is based on erosion of support for the party's position on immigration.

The poll found that the portion of Latinos who believe the Republican Party has the best position on immigration dropped to 16 percent from 25 percent two years ago.

Virtually the entire decline of Hispanic support for the Republican approach comes from foreign-born Latinos, a growing pool of future voters, the poll showed.

But Gabriel Escobar, an author of the survey, said the results do not necessarily bode well for Democrats either.

The Democratic Party showed no significant gains among Latino registered voters and by some measures lost support from 2004 to 2006.

"The survey shows there's some disenchantment with both political parties," Escobar said. "The numbers are not good for anybody."

The survey, conducted from June 5 to July 3 with a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points, was the first major public opinion poll of the Hispanic population since this spring's massive pro-immigration marches in Houston and around the country as the Congress debated immigration reform.

The 2004 election was a watershed election for the Republican Party, with the Pew Center's polls at balloting locations showing 27 percent of Latino voters — a sample different from the Hispanic adults in the latest survey — identifying as Republican, the highest mark for the GOP recorded in any of the center's surveys.

"It's just not there now," Escobar said. "What this means for the November elections is unclear, but what it means to the long-term wooing of Latinos could be significant."

Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the San Antonio-based Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said the immigration debate galvanized and unified Latino voters as never before.

Her group is teaming up with other Hispanic organizations in hopes of registering 100,000 voters before the next election.

"This is all in response to seeing all those people coming out to march," she said.

patty.reinert@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/immigration/4046001.html