Phyllis Schlafly has been getting some strong pushback – including from the conservative Commentary Magazine – for remarks she made this week urging the Republican Party to abandon attempts to win back Latino voters and instead focus exclusively on turning out “the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election.”
But Schlafly’s far from alone. In a press release today, the prominent anti-immigration reform group Center for Immigration Studies echoes Schlafly’s advice, urging the GOP to abandon comprehensive immigration reform and instead pour its resources into increasing white turnout.
Citing new census data, CIS warns Republicans that “one of their biggest problems in the last presidential election was that so many less-educated whites sat home.”
“It seems likely that by supporting the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, GOP legislators would further alienate these voters,” CIS Research Director Steven Camarota adds.
Camarota’s warning, like Schlafly’s, is not far removed from Pat Buchanan’s call for the GOP to create a new Southern Strategy, pitting white voters against Latino immigrants rather than trying to expand the party’s base.
“As Republicans think about how they can expand their voter base, the new data suggest that one of their biggest problems in the last presidential election was that so many less-educated whites sat home,” said Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research and author of the report. “These voters, who have been hard hit by the recession, have traditionally supported Republicans. It seems likely that by supporting the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, GOP legislators would further alienate these voters.”
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The president received five million more votes than Governor Romney. What would have it taken for Romney to have won at least a plurality of the popular vote?
— If Romney had increased his share of the women’s vote by four percentage points, from the 44 percent he actually received to 48 percent, then he would have won the popular vote. Each percentage point of the female vote equaled 714,000 votes.
— If Romney had increased his share of the black vote by 15 percentage points, from the 6 percent he actually received to 21 percent, then he would have won the popular vote. Each percentage point of the black vote equaled 172,000 votes.
— If Romney had increased his share of the Hispanic vote by 23 percentage points, from the 27 percent he actually received to 50 percent, then he have won the popular vote. Each percentage point of the Hispanic vote equaled 112,000 votes.
— If Romney had increased his share of the white vote by three percentage points, from the 59 percent he actually received to 62 percent, then he would have won the popular vote. Each percentage point of the white vote equaled 980,000 votes.
