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By Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, NBCLatino

It’s no secret that the Republican Party has a serious problem with immigration.  But in this instance I’m talking about their problem with Latinos migrating out of their own party.  Republicanos are trading in the elephant for the donkey, or at the very least just going without a party vehicle.

This week a high profile Latino Republican, the former head of Hispanic outreach for Florida’s RNC, publicly left the party.  For Pablo Pantoja the straw that broke the camel’s, or in this case the elephant’s, back was the Heritage Foundation’s anti-immigrant report and its co-author’s public defense of Latino’s as a group having low IQ scores.  In his public farewell letter Pantoja references the general harshness of the Republican rhetoric toward immigrants, then points to a specific racist exchange at this year’s Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), and concludes with a rejection of the likes of Dr. Jason Richwine (author of the Heritage study) as a voice for the GOP.  To sum up his rationale, Pantoja simply states that his former party had resorted to “intolerance and hate.”

He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.

Another high profile Republican departure occurred close to two years ago, half way across the country in Arizona.  Dee Dee Garcia Blase had helped establish the Somos Republicans.  A national organization for Latino Republicans based out of Arizona.  But in the wake of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 she also publicly rejected her party.  Though a fiscal and social conservative, she simply could not synthesize the GOP’s anti-immigrant rhetoric into her politics.  So she left the Republican Party and Somos Republicans and became officially “unaffiliated.”  Not too long after her departure the organization itself, Somos Republicans, took a similar route officially abandoning the GOP and became Somos Independents.

The departures of Pantoja and Garcia Blase made the headlines because they were public partisan figures.  However, thousands of other Latinos have taken the same path of migrating out of the GOP.  Their decision is just not public, but rather taken in the privacy of a voting booth.

The out migration is especially stark when we compare the most recent presidential election with George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election.  The 2004 election was the Republican Latino high water mark.  At that time half of Latinos identified as being Democrats, 27 percent Republican, and 24 percent Independent.  Democrats clearly were the preferred party of Latinos, but slightly more than half did not identify as Democrats.  Moreover, in his re-election, Bush received 40 percent of the Latino vote.

Fast forward to President Obama’s re-election.  In 2012 the percentage of Latinos identifying as Democrats jumped to 57 percent and the number of Republicans decreased by half with only 14 percent of Latinos claiming a GOP affiliation.  The group that had the least movement was Independents or those unaffiliated.  In 2012 they rose to 29 percent.    But the biggest shift came in presidential vote choice, with Romney receiving only 27 percent of the Latino vote.

The correlation between the GOP’s Latino communications and outreach strategy is linear.  The harsher and more racially negative the messaging, the fewer Latinos will stand by your label and vote for you.  It’s not a complicated concept.

The Republican National Committee has publicly discussed its intention to not just retain but actively recruit Latinos.  However, mixed messaging will not staunch the out migration.  Being a Latino friendly party will require all segments of the party, not just the moderate ones to put aside harsh rhetoric, or what Pablo Pantoja pointed to as intolerance.  No one wants to stick around where they’re not welcome.

This atricle was first published in NBCLatino.

Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is an NBC Latino and MSNBC contributor, Senior Analyst for Latino Decisions and Fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, at Austin.

[Photo by AFH3]

By Jamelle Bouie, Washington Post

Given the current scandal-mania, it’s no surprise this went under the radar, but in Florida, the GOP’s state director of Hispanic outreach, Pablo Pantoja, has resigned his position, left the Republican Party, and changed his party identification to “Democrat.”

The combination of right-wing rhetoric and figures like Jason Richwine have created theperception of racialized opposition to immigration reform, where attempts to kill the legislation stem from anti-Hispanic bigotry. If the immigration bill fails, it could damage the GOP’s relationship with Hispanic voters even further for another generation. Which means — for Republican supporters — that it has to pass. There’s no other option.

Click HERE or on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo by Truthout.org]

By Adam Peck, Think Progress

When Republicans appointed Pablo Pantoja to State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, they hoped he would be able to bridge the sizable gap that only expanded during the 2012 elections, when the state’s 4.3 million Hispanic voters supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 20 percent margin.

But after months of inaction by Congressional Republicans on comprehensive immigration reform and stiff resistance by Republican-leaning groups like the Heritage Foundation, Pantoja has had enough; on Monday, he announced via email that he was leaving the party and registering as a Democrat:

Click HERE or on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo courtesy Think Progress]

By Dr. Henry Flores, NewsTaco

Well there, I’ve said it publicly!  I think the GOP will come to an end as a presidential party for sure, a U.S. senatorial party maybe, within a decade.  Before you start complaining, the reason I make this “prediction” is that they just can’t help themselves.  The GOP wants to be a minority party.  They are doing everything they can to achieve this aim.  Think about it!

According to all the political chisme out there it appears that the two GOP front runners for the 2016 presidential nomination (can you believe we are talking about that already) are Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.  Can you imagine?  Paul for all intents and purposes is a libertarian and cannot find a good reason for the government to get involved in anything, setting him apart from the military and diplomatic interventionists that make up the mainstream of the Republican Party.  Members of his own party have called the other potential candidate a “wacko.”  In a past column, I pointed out that Senator Cruz acts and sounds like the late, infamous Senator Joe McCarthy when he insinuates such crazy notions as that of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel taking monetary gifts from North Korea.  Although let me say that Ted’s candidacy may be in doubt given that he may be Canadian by birth anyway.  I think Donald Trump needs to unleash his “birther army” on Canada and get some real research on this issue.  We certainly don’t want any foreigners becoming President of the United States.

A major issue with both Rand and Ted is obviously their electability.  Where Rand lacks credibility outside Tea Party circles, Ted lacks charm.  Both candidates are celebrities within the Tea Party and among the groups populating the right wing of the GOP.  Although the right wing represents a significant percentage of all voters who participate in Republican primaries, they are, by themselves, not strong enough to win their party’s presidential nomination.  The overall GOP nomination process is tightly controlled by the mainstream of the party leaving the Tea Partiers in a position where they simply end up being a very vocal and well-organized large numerical minority within their party.

The ideological split within the Republican Party has been forthcoming since the 1980s when the unlikely coalition that brought us the Reagan and subsequent regimes was formed.  Interviews with many folks who attend GOP conventions during the years when the presidential nomination is sought have revealed the strange gatherings that take place in different venues serving the convention, for example prayer meetings on  some hotel floors, “whiskey drinking and cigar smoking” on others.  Eventually, as the differences between these disparate groups became evident a split began to form.  And the extremists felt that they could begin putting forth their own presidential candidates, thus the arrival of Ted and Rand.  The rise of extremist candidates such as Rand and Ted is a “red light” for party elders.

The mainstream of the GOP has been able to hold off the extremists for several decades but it is getting more and more difficult given how Rand and Ted have openly challenged the traditional party leadership.  Mainstream candidates such as John McCain and Mitt Romney were forced to appease the extremists just to gain the nomination.  I just don’t know how long this can continue.

Extremists are at the forefront of the other problem the GOP faces as well, and that is, the position that party politicians continue taking in areas such as immigration reform and gun control, issues that do not resonate with the general population.  The failure of background checks on the gun control was even found abhorring by many GOP mainstreamers.  Extremists, led by the NRA even went so low as engineering the defeat of background checks in the face of the mourning Newtown families who were openly lobbying the Senate.  You can bet that President Obama and other Democratic Party leaders are going to use this in the forthcoming mid-term elections.

Immigration reform is also on its deathbed and it will cost Republicans the Latino vote for sure.  This may be the last straw for Latinos who were on the fence ideologically, as it will solidify their presidential votes for the Democratic Party in future elections.

So, if I were part of the GOP mainstream and leadership I would seriously be thinking of switching parties, forming a new party or simply retiring from politics, because the Grand Old Party looks like it is on life support with no hope for revival.

[Photo by Donkey Hotey]

By Dan Boyd, Albuqueurque Journal

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appear to have struck up an unlikely friendship.

After receiving an invitation from Biden, the first-term Republican governor will travel to Washington, D.C., today to attend a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the vice president’s residence, the Governor’s Office said Wednesday.

The trip comes less than two months after Martinez traveled to Rome for Pope Francis’ inaugural Mass as part of an official U.S. delegation led by Biden.

Click on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo by Albuquerque Public Schools]

By Garaldo L. Cadava, The Atlantic

The debate over an immigration-reform bill has given us a glimpse into the emerging war within the Republican Party. On one side are those sensitive to the party’s demographics problem, who support a compromise. On the other are those who continue to oppose any bill that includes tens of thousands of work visas and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants.

Since Mitt Romney’s defeat in November, Republicans have worried about how to woo Latino voters. In a postmortem analysis of the election, the RNC concluded that the Republican Party needed to be more “inclusive and welcoming.” Many conservatives looked nostalgically back to 2004, when more than 40 percent of Latinos voted for George W. Bush, compared to Romney’s 27 percent. They believe that Latinos are naturally conservative, and are sure to line up in the ‘R’ column if the party can just fix its image with them.

But how?

Click on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore]

By McKay Coppins, BuzzFeed

For the Republicans in Washington who hoped a new bipartisan push for immigration reform would give their party a fresh start, a new face, and a second chance with Latino voters, 2013 is instead reviving some of their worst memories.

The legislation currently winding through the Senate with the help of party superstar Sen. Marco Rubio is still very much in play, and could well become the first law in a generation to address the country’s immigration morass. But as conservative criticism of the reform effort grows louder, many Republican operatives, donors, and consultants are bracing for an outcome that would be even worse, politically, than the demise of the bill: a fierce, national, right-wing backlash that drowns out the GOP’s friendlier voices, dominates Telemundo and Univision, and dashes any hopes the party had of making inroads to the Hispanic electorate by 2016.

“We are really balanced here on a little precipice, and if this, pardon the pun, goes south, we could be in very serious trouble,” said Republican media strategist Paul Wilson, citing the increasingly intense attacks on the immigration bill coming from the right.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by nerdcoregirl]

Victor Landa, NewsTaco

It’s 844 pages long. It’s been a long time coming. And it’s a compromise.

So it’s a daunting read, a sigh of relief and…better than nothing.

I’m not a big fan of compromises, because both sides lose something in the process. I’m a fan of innovative thinking, where two opposing sides see a common goal and invent a new way to achieve it that wasn’t there before; that honors and understands both sides and helps each side grow.

The immigration bill presented in the U.S. Senate by the fabled “gang of eight” is not that.

Still, it’s the best we could hope for, given the present political circumstances. So in that sense one step, in compromise, is better than no step at all.  But because it’s a compromise there will be folks on both sides who will find things to hate about it. You can take that to the bank.

Make no mistake, this bill is not about immigrants, it’s about politics, and votes – it’s easier to understand what’s written in the 844 pages if we go into it from that point of view. Republicans see the demographic trend and want to soften their image among Latinos, and Democrats see a potential blue wave rising across the country. They both think that immigration reform is the key to their aspiration – straight to the heart of the Latino voter.

And if the issue were that simple congress would vote on it soon and we’d be done with it, and that would be that. If the problem were that easy to resolve, it would have been fixed long ago. It happened today because the political atmosphere was right – that’s just the way Washington politics works.

But this political compromise will have economic and cultural repercussions for generations to come. Latinos have known this all along.

So if the votes are ever cast and counted on this thing, if we’re able to get passed the argument that is sure to erupt in the next days, politics will be changed in a definite way.

In the mean time, we have a bill that’s 844 pages long. You can click HERE or on the image above to read it. Have at it.

By William Saletan, Slate

Mandatory background checks are a terrible idea. They burden law-abiding citizens and don’t catch criminals. The databases they rely on are riddled with errors. We don’t even prosecute people who flunk the checks. That’s why Republicans are against imposing such checks on gun buyers.

On the other hand, if you want to catch illegal immigrants, forget everything I just said. Running everybody through a database is a terrific idea. Republicans are all for it.

How did the GOP end up in this position?

Click on the picture to read the full article.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore]

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By Media Matters

Dick Morris is working with Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on a new television advertisement that will include Preibus seeking to attract Latino voters, Morris revealed during an appearance in New York City Thursday.

Speaking at the Poli Conference, a political consulting event for Latin American campaign professionals, Morris said the ad will feature Priebus reaching out to ”those Latin Americans who’ve come to the United States to help us build our country, to help harvest our food, to help make our economy work and [Priebus'] message is ‘welcome, we need you, you’re making our country younger, more prosperous, harder working and we need you for the future.’”

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo screenshot courtesy DickMorris.com]

By McKay Coppins, BuzzFeed

As the Republican Party gears up to launch a concerted, well-funded outreach effort aimed at attracting elusive minority voters, it’s not just battling dismal poll numbers and tough demographic trends — it’s working to overcome its own overwhelming whiteness.

There is not a single racial minority among the 20 most senior officials who run the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senatorial Committee — the three wings of the GOP apparatus charged with promoting candidates and winning elections. And a range of former Republican staffers told BuzzFeed that this lack of diversity has paralyzed the party’s ability to connect with minority communities.

Click on picture top read full story.

[Photo by DonkeyHotey]

By Matt Barreto, Latino Decisions

Recently there have been a series of high profile endorsements for comprehensive immigration reform from the Republican Party. Immediately after the November 2012 election Bobby Jindal made a plea for more civility and and less stupidity on the immigration issue. Before too long, it was the Gang of 8 in the U.S. Senate which included four prominent Republican Senators who introduced their framework for an immigration bill.  Then the RNC released a lengthy report calling for stronger outreach to Latinos, starting by passing an immigration reform bill. And now Tea Party favorite, Senator Rand Paul, has changed his own position and is now in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.  Can Republicans really draw more Latino support if they back a path to citizenship? The answer is unequivocally ‘Yes’. Or if they fail to support immigration reform with a path to citizenship, they could do even worse than Mitt Romney’s all-time low among Latino voters in 2012.

Even President Obama acknowledged that the Republican Party can make gains with Latino voters if they support this issue.  Republican Scott Rigell from Virginia told the AP: ”He said that actually implementing immigration reform would actually benefit Republicans more than it would Democrats.”  Looking at the data, Mr. Obama is right.  In a recent poll of Latino registered voters on the topic of immigration reform, we asked a couple of different versions of the question “will Republican support for immigration reform make you more likely to vote Republican.”  In the past weeks we have released the full set of results, and here we focus just on the possible gains (or losses) Republicans can make, by reporting results just among Latinos who said they had voted for Obama in 2012, or just among Latino Republicans.

In a hypothetical election match-up with a Republican candidate who supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, against a Democrat who opposes citizenship and calls it ‘amnesty’ we find that 61% of Obama voters would actually choose the pro-immigration Republican.

When asked if they would be more or less likely to vote for a Republican candidate in the future if the Republicans take a leadership role in passing comprehensive immigration reform including a pathway to citizenship, we find that 43% of Obama voters say more likely to vote Republican.

When we explain the current bipartisan efforts in the U.S. Senate with four Republicans working alongside four Democrats, and ask if the Republican commitment to the bipartisan plan makes them more or less likely to vote Republican, we find 26% of Obama voters say they are now more inclined to vote GOP.

Finally, when we ask Latinos to consider all elections they have voted in for local, state and federal office, and ask if they have ever voted for a Republican candidate we find that 41% of Obama voters say yes, they have voted Republican at some point.

While there are clear opportunities for the GOP to make gains among Democratically-leaning Latinos, there are also pitfalls if they fail to support immigration reform from within their own ranks.  When asked how important it is that Congress passes an immigration reform bill in 2013, 64% of Latino Republicans said “very” or “extremely” important. When given the argument that immigration reform should wait until later and Congress should focus only on the economy now, 69% of Latino Republicans disagreed and said Congress should focus on both immigration reform and the economy right now. Finally, when asked which immigration policy they would prefer, 66% of Latino Republicans said they wanted an immigration plan with a clear pathway to citizenship, and only 32% of Republicans said citizenship should wait until after the border is deemed secure.

The data are clear that Latino Republicans expect to see movement on an immigration bill, with a path to citizenship in 2013.  But if the bill stalls, or House Republicans block the effort or prevent a path to citizenship, can the Republican party actually do worse among Latinos than Mitt Romney did in 2012?  Yes.

When asked if they approve or disapprove of the job Congressional Republicans are currently doing handling immigration policy, 40% of Latino Romney voters said they disapproved (only 46% approved).

When asked if they perceived Republican Party as doing a good job reaching out to Latinos, or if the Party was ignoring Latinos or even being hostile to Latinos, 41% of self-described Republicans said the GOP was “ignoring or being hostile” to Latinos.

When asked if they would be more or less likely to vote for Republican candidates, if the GOP blocks immigration reform with a path to citizenship, 33% of Latino Republicans said they would be less likely to support their party.

Finally, when asked if they would be more or less likely to vote for Democratic candidates, if the Democratic party takes a leadership role in passing comprehensive immigration reform, 32% of Latino Republicans said they would be more likely to vote Democrat.

Reports out of Washington suggest the Gang of 8 may have a compromise bill ready by early April, which will no doubt bring tough questions from both the left and the right.  As the debate unfolds in both chambers of Congress, the latest polling data on Latino voters is clear – Republicans have the most to gain – and lose – among Latino voters on the issue of immigration reform.  Using our online electoral college vote tool developed with America’s Voice Education Fund, we can project presidential outcomes under different scenarios of the Latino vote going more heavily Republican, or staying heavily Democratic as in 2012.

If a Republican presidential candidate can increase their support from Latinos to an average of 42% nationally, six states would flip from Democrat to Republican (NV, CO, NM, FL, IA, VA), and give the Republican 274 total electoral college votes.

However, if the Republicans do not make gains among Latinos, and stay at the same low levels that they received in 2012 they will lose three large states that voted Republican in 2012 (AZ, TX, NC), due to growth in the Latino vote.  In 2012 Latinos accounted for 10% of all voters nationwide, however all projections point to rapid growth in the Latino vote.  If the Latino vote grows to 16% of all voters nationwide and the Republicans do not make gains among Latinos, they will lose Arizona, Texas and North Carolina and the Democratic candidate will capture 396 total electoral college votes.

About the poll

Latino Decisions interviewed 800 Latino registered voters via landline and mobile phone, across all 50 states, from February 15-26, 2013.  Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish, at the preference of the respondent, and all interviewing staff was fully bilingual.  The survey averaged 20 minutes in length and has an overall margin of error or +/- 3.5%.  On split sample questions the margin of error is +/- 4.9%.  Complete poll results are posted here and here and a slide deck summarizing the findings is posted here. For questions about the results, please contact Matt Barreto (matt.barreto@latinodecisions.com); Gary Segura (gary.segura@latinodecisions.com) or Sylvia Manzano (sylvia.manzano@latinodecisions.com). The poll was sponsored by America’s Voice, National Council of La Raza, and SEIU.

This article was first published in Latino Decisions.

Dr. Matt A. Barreto is an Associate Professor in political science at the University of Washington, Seattle and the director of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Barreto is a founding principal of Latino Decisions. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Irvine in 2005. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, and other peer reviewed journals. He is the author of the book, Ethnic Cues: The role of shared ethnicity in Latino political behavior published by the University of Michigan Press in 2010, and has just finished a book manuscript co-authored with Christopher Parker, Change We Can’t Believe In: Exploring the Sources and Consequences of Tea Party Support, under contract with Princeton University Press, to be published in 2012.

[Photo by The White House]

By Ashley Parker, New York Times

Republican opposition to legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants is crumbling in the nation’s capital as leading lawmakers in the party scramble to halt eroding support among Hispanic voters — a shift that is providing strong momentum for an overhaul of immigration laws.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Tea Party Republican, on Tuesday became the latest to embrace a more welcoming approach, declaring to the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants that if they want to work in America, “then we will find a place for you.”

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore]

By Brian Beutler, Talking Points Memo

The two biggest political stories of the day — the RNC’s release of its reaction to the party’s 2012 drubbing, and Tom Perez’s nomination to be President Obama’s Labor Secretary — couldn’t be more perfectly suited for each other. Two great tastes that taste great together.

The RNC report is called the Growth and Opportunity Project, and it effectively turns the GOP’s determination to avoid rethinking its economic policies — and to instead focus exclusively on making marginal inroads with minority voters —- into the party’s official strategy.

Enter Tom Perez.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by ryanjreilly]