opinion
By Bill King for RealClearPolitics
A University of Houston poll was released last week on the odds of the March primary and November general election in Texas. Not surprisingly, the poll predicts that Biden and Trump are headed for another showdown in November, and that Trump leads Biden in that rematch by 9% in Texas.
However, I think what the Biden campaign team found shocking was that Biden was losing to Trump with Latino voters by a margin of 47-41. Only 55% of Latino Democratic primary voters said they were committed to voting for Biden. The other 45% were undecided.
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For years I have watched pundits and political consultants from both parties, most of whom are white, make assumptions about how Latino voters feel about issues and how they are likely to vote. The almost universal mistake these consultants and pundits made for years was that immigration was the most important issue for the Latino community and that they wanted more liberal immigration laws. Both assumptions were wrong.
First, there is no homogeneous “Latino community.” Those of Mexican American heritage are the predominant group but there are also Americans from every other country in Central and South America. They all have very different views on every aspect of life, especially regarding politics.
Even among those whose families originally immigrated from Mexico, there are significant differences. I have a 6th generation Latino friend from Texas. He joked with me one day that he didn't know he was a “minority” until he went to college. I can assure you that his views on immigration are very different from those of a recent immigrant from Mexico trying to get other family members into the country.
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Immigration is not the only issue that Latinos care about. I had dinner with some members of the Texas House of Representatives a couple of years ago about the possibility of starting a new party in Texas. The group was evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. All but one of the Democratic members were Latino.
I walked around the room and asked each of them why they were unhappy with their current party affiliation. One Latino member told me that his family was devout Catholic and opposed abortion. He was tired of his party “belittling” him because of his faith. Another said: “Defund the police. Half my family is in law enforcement.” Another said his family was in the oil field services business, and he was concerned that Biden's green energy agenda would hurt his family's business and the economy of the region he represents. Immigration was never mentioned during dinner.
In a recent University of Texas poll, 71% of Latinos supported “tightening U.S. border security and providing the Border Patrol with more technology, infrastructure, and personnel.” That was not far behind whites at 85% and African Americans at 81%. It seems clear that Biden's lenient border policies are hurting him in Texas across all demographic groups, including Latinos.
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But there is a slight difference in polling. While Latinos generally feel the same way as their non-Latino neighbors about the border situation, their views on other immigration issues vary widely. For example, only 29% support the immediate deportation of immigrants here illegally, while 41% strongly oppose it. This compares to 51% of whites who support immediate deportation.
Likewise, 68% of Latinos support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants compared to 56% of whites. 61% of Latinos support harsher penalties for employers who hire workers here illegally compared to 82% of whites. Latinos also support the continuation of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, often referred to as DREAMers) at much higher levels than whites.
All of this suggests that a majority of Latinos, and at least a significant number of the rest of Americans, want the government to control the border but at the same time want a more rational system for dealing with new immigrants and those already here. Biden could get things moving on immigration, but for some inexplicable reason he has continued with his lax border policies.
I don't buy the theory that the president's intention was to bring new Democratic voters to the country, or even the more outlandish “white replacement” conspiracy theories. Those of us who have worked in elections know that trying to register and force noncitizens to go to the polls is virtually impossible, at least on any scale that could affect the outcome of the election.
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When a third of American citizens still do not vote in presidential elections, it becomes much easier to get eligible voters to the polls. By the way, most of those who don't vote are likely to prefer Democratic candidates. Many Latino immigrants coming to the country also have views on many issues, such as abortion, that conflict with the Democratic platform.
This New York Times story attempted to put a noble face on Biden's immigration political debacle. But even these Biden-friendly reporters have struggled to invent a rational explanation for his border policies. I think the simplest explanation is that every time party control of the White House changes, the new president feels the need to reverse all of his predecessor's policies, whether they were successful or not.
This is why we accomplish little or nothing. Trump was obsessed with repealing Obamacare, even though it was supported by a growing majority of Americans throughout his presidency, and most analyzes showed that it slowed the increase in health care costs.
Biden came to the White House with the same mentality. If he had simply acknowledged that some of Trump's border policies were working, and then pressed for some much-needed immigration reforms, he would not be in the mess he is in now. But as Thomas Paine insightfully observed, “The man who lives under the tyranny of party spirit is the greatest slave on earth, for no one but himself can deprive him of freedom of thought.”
Where is Thomas Paine when we need him?
Bill King is a businessman, attorney, former opinion columnist and member of the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle. He has held a number of appointed and elected positions, including mayor of his hometown. He writes on a wide range of public policy and political issues. Bill is the author of Unapologetically Moderate.
Reprinted with permission from RealClearWire.
