Free Republic

Earlier this week, National Review’s Eliana Johnson reported on how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) plans to approach the 2016 presidential campaign: “His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination,” writes Johnson. “According to several of the senator’s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups — including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials — that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, ‘not getting killed with independents.’” The plan has...

In a new Washington Post poll released today, American Latinos have a more favorable view of the GOP, besting the Democratic Party among the nations fastest growing demographic group. In a survey conducted between December 11-14, 52 percent of Hispanic Americans view the Republican Party favorably, while 37 percent have an unfavorable view of the Party of Lincoln. In contrast, 40 percent of Latinos have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, while 48 percent rate them favorable. The poll suggests that large numbers of Americans, of all demographic groups, are moving toward the right, as the GOP holds a...

The election of 2012 and now 2014 are over. The most liberal, progressive candidate in the history of American politics, with the worst record on the economy in his first term, Barack Hussein Obama, won re-election in 2012 to a second term by just under 2% of the vote. And in 2014 the vote overwhelmingly repudiated his agenda and plans. The over-riding segments of the population that enabled Obama's victory in 2012 were the Black vote (who voted for him by over 90%) and the Latino vote (who voted for him by over 70%). And they did so, absolutely against...

Rep. Jim Costa was thought to be headed for a safe race. The California Democrat represents a district that supported President Obama by a 19-point margin in 2012—and while Costa had had scares in previous midterms, 2014 appeared to be in the bag. And indeed, Costa did keep his seat, but only after squeaking through one of the tightest races of the entire cycle, a vote count so close that it took 15 days for him to be officially declared the victor over Republican candidate and dairy farmer Johnny Tacherra. So what happened? Costa nearly fell victim to a radically...

SAN DIEGO — PRESIDENT OBAMA’S executive order eliminating the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants is good policy. It is the right thing to do. But it is a dangerous move for the Democratic Party. Yes, immigration is an important issue for most Latinos and Asian-Americans. And yes, 63 percent of Latinos and 66 percent of Asian- Americans voted for Democratic candidates for Congress in the midterms. The executive order could solidify and expand that support for years to come. But Latinos and Asian-Americans made up only 11 percent of the electorate. Even if immigration were the only...

Gov.-elect Greg Abbott achieved a big enough victory margin to treat outnumbered, defeated Democrats like the North treated the South during Reconstruction — and to gloat shamelessly. But he appears to be choosing a much more dignified, statesmanlike path. That path took him to the Rio Grande Valley — a region that didn't vote for him — for his first post-election trip. Abbott met with Valley leaders Tuesday to talk about economic development and to announce his first gubernatorial appointment — Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, who will be Texas secretary of state. Political philosophy-wise, Cascos isn't a diversity hire....

LAS CRUCES, N.M.—Rep. Steve Pearce is the rarest of Republican Party officeholders, a very conservative Anglo who keeps winning elections from a predominantly Latino electorate. As the national GOP seeks to improve its dismal standing with Hispanic voters, the 65-year-old former oil man has some advice. "You just have to show up, all the time, everywhere," he said, during a recent barnstorm tour of his district, which sprawls across the southern half of this border state. "Most Republicans don't bother. I do. I bother." Republicans must spend time in Latino neighborhoods with the respectful attentiveness of a small-town mayor. "We...

Hispanics voted nearly two to one for Democratic candidates on Tuesday just as they did in the 2010 midterm elections, a national exit poll shows. In a number of key races, however, they voted more heavily Republican, pointing to a strategy for Republicans in the presidential contest in 2016. In the Senate race in Colorado, for example, where Latinos make up 14 percent of voters, a conservative Republican, Cory Gardner, took the seat of the incumbent Democrat, Mark Udall, in what analysts from both parties called a Republican playbook on how to blunt the Democrats’ advantage with Hispanics. Mr. Gardner...

David Greco, cofounder and executive director of ARTE Inc., said Wednesday he’s confident police will be able to identify the individual who vandalized one of the organization’s “Heroes & Icons” posters at City Hall earlier this week. The unidentified vandal scrawled the word “asesino,” the Spanish word for “murderer,” in black ink atop the shoulder of the Argentine Marxist-Leninist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Greco said a police report has been filed and City Hall security personnel are reviewing surveillance camera footage. The exhibit, which went up Sept. 22 to honor Hispanic History Month, includes approximately 40 posters depicting Latino historical...

Ruben Villarreal knew he was different, and it had nothing to do with his curlicue mustache. The Latino tire-shop owner with the ten- gallon hat had been mayor of this border town for several years before he dared to discuss his political affiliation. He felt like a “cactus around balloons.” “It’s not easy being Republican,” he said, “when everybody’s a Democrat.” As long as anyone can remember, the South Texas counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley have been two things: Hispanic and blue-as-the-big-sky Democrat. In Hidalgo County, along the Rio Grande, the locals say a Republican hasn’t won...

Frequently, left-wing ideologues manage to harm the very people they claim they are aiding. “When your government and your school are constantly telling you that you’re a victim of a racist society who needs protection, you may start believing it at some point,” Mike Gonzalez writes in the recently released book, A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic-Americans. mike gonzalez book Gonzalez shows, in part, how government schools are failing Hispanics. “In May 2010, the American Psychological Association (APA) published a handful of studies conducted on Latino students, and they had their share...

A nifty catch by Josh Jordan, a.k.a. NumbersMuncher. Albeit with a big caveat.When I say “lowest level since last year” in the headline, I don’t mean to imply that O’s numbers with Latinos were lower in 2013. All I mean is that today’s Gallup chart goes back only as far as last November. (A period that includes the disastrous ObamaCare rollout, do note.) That 44 percent may well be the lowest number of his entire presidency among Latinos. I’d say odds are good, at least, that it’s the lowest since the big debt-ceiling standoff in 2011, when Obama saw...

That 44 percent may well be the lowest number of his entire presidency among Latinos. I’d say odds are good, at least, that it’s the lowest since the big debt-ceiling standoff in 2011, when Obama saw some of his worst polling across the board. And it’s not just Latinos who are sour on him right now. Click and scroll left and you’ll find that he hasn’t been below 60 percent among nonwhite voters once since last November. Until now.

There is no doubt that the Latino electorate is becoming increasingly important in presidential elections and will become even more so in the future. Today, one in six Americans are of Latino descent. By 2050, that number will be one in three. ......................................................... At a time when one-fourth of all kindergarten age children in the country are Latino, and when the majority of births are children of color, the Republican Party had better find a way to embrace policies that do not demonize the government that is currently seen as a partner of the communities they need to reach.

“I can count the number of Latinos in this state in one hand, and most work in my restaurant,” he said jokingly of the Hispanic population in Maine. But the real cultural shock for Diaz, who lives with his wife and 12-year old daughter, wasn’t that he couldn’t find an eatery that carried his favorite delicacy when the craving hit. His big culture shock involved soccer, his favorite sport. “In my old neighborhood I could walk to almost any public park on any day of the week and pick up a game of futbol,” he explained. “Since moving here, I’ve...

Much to the surprise of those who understand the decline of journalism in our country, in a discussion of how the recent House votes on handling illegal aliens would impact Republican electoral chances, the New York Times actually told the truth. After explaining how the Hispanic vote is distributed in such a way that it will have no influence on any of this year’s contested U.S. Senate races except possibly in Colorado, the Times observed that “Hispanic voters will have even less influence over the composition of the House, which is all but assured to remain in Republican hands. The...

The National Latino Evangelical Coalition will be working with faith-based organizations across the country to open up 600 beds to Central American children who have crossed into the country without their parents. President of the NaLEC Gabe Salguero explained that over a period of 18 months, starting in August, churches and camps will likely receive thousands of children — the majority of whom are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — while they are waiting to be placed with their parents who are already in the United States or family members in the countries they are from. "We have 15...

First lady Michelle Obama grabbed the political reins during a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens in New York City, telling the crowd of admirers not to worry — that her husband wouldn’t wait on Congress to take action on immigration reform. “So make no mistake about it — we have to keep on fighting as hard as we can on immigration,” Mrs. Obama said, to a cheering crowd, Breitbart reported. “And as my husband has said, he’s going to do whatever administrative action it takes to fix this broken system.” Mrs. Obama then vowed that Congress...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) LAS VEGAS, Nev. – “I don’t have the background of a typical politician, right?” Lucy Flores told a crowd of Democratic activists as she accepted the party’s nomination for lieutenant governor of Nevada in June. It’s a line you’ve heard before: Candidates love to brag about how they didn’t grow up like those “typical” politicians. But there’s no other way to describe Flores, a Latina rising star who was born into an impoverished family of 13 children, whose mother abandoned her in grade school, who fell in with a gang, who was sentenced to a youth prison, who dropped...

Everyone assumes that Republicans will easily hold the House in November. The dominant storyline among the chattering classes centers instead on the possibility that Republicans could seize control of the Senate from Democrats. But the rapidly escalating immigration face-off between President Barack Obama and House Republicans raises the possibility that Democrats could win back the House — even if Republicans do take the Senate How is that possible? It's simple: There are more competitive House races than Senate races in areas with significant Latino populations. Last year, David Damore, a polling analyst for the firm Latino Decisions, found that there...