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While the 2016 presidential election is a full three years away many of the high profile Republican contenders are enmeshed in the immigration reform debate, and if Republicans demonstrate strong leadership on passing comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship possible candidates such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan could get strong support from Latino voters. However if Rubio, Bush or Ryan distance themselves from the immigration bill and House Republicans defeat the measure none of the GOP candidates stands to improve on the historic Romney 2012 defeat among Latinos. [Full poll results here]A new poll...

“I ask unanimous consent I be able to deliver a floor speech on immigration reform in Spanish.”

Republicans will never win Hispanic votes. The sooner the Grand Old Party establishment (GOPe) acknowledges this the better off this country will be. The gulf between how Republicans think Hispanics see the world; and how Hispanics actually do see the world is much too large. The only areas of general agreement between the GOPe and Hispanics are their shared disapproval of Gay “marriage” and abortion. “..these issues are about as important as whether Arbor Day will be celebrated this year, there isn’t much mileage to be gained from these small agreements. The media fueled mantra of “faith and Family” as...

Over the last three weeks, I think I have read most of the post-election op-eds written on the Latino vote. I have studied exit polling, read sophisticated demographic analyses, and talked to as many Latinos in my hometown as I could. The result is that I would not advise Republicans to go down the identity-politics route. I don’t wish to live in an America where Steve Lara or Bob Martinez is reduced to an anonymous “Latino” and Victor Hanson is just a “white male.” But if Republicans really believe there is a monolithic Latino vote, and if those of Hispanic...

Disbelief is the word that defines the Republican state of mind in the wake of the 2012 re-election of President Barack Obama. The obvious questions are: “How can Americans have re-elected a president who has presided over an economy where unemployment still hovers at 8 percent ?” And, “How can Americans have re-elected a president who still doesn’t grasp that his big government policies are what have blocked our economic recovery?” The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for this disaster. Nothing in the outcome of this election is a surprise. The realities which produced these election results have been...

October 31, 2012 Undocumented Youth Work to Boost Latino Vote Turnout By MIRIAM JORDAN Thousands of illegal-immigrant youths are at the forefront of national efforts to get immigrant and Latino citizens to the polls next week, the latest demonstration of the increasingly organized and vocal group's power. In swing states like Florida, Ohio and Colorado, the young people—often referred to as Dreamers after the failed Dream Act legislation that would have offered them a path to citizenship—are running phone banks, going door to door and approaching students on college campuses to encourage voting. They also are active in California, a...

In an off the record conversation with the Des Moines Register that made it on to the record, Barack Obama stated that, “Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community.” Obama, did not mention, however, what he and the Democrats will offer to the Hispanic community. To see what he thinks will animate this demographic, it is worth looking at his Spanish language ads. In September he released an ad featuring...

The number of eligible Latino voters has leapt from 19.5 million in 2008 to an unprecedented 23.7 million nationally, according to a recently released report by the Pew Research Center.

President Obama has Eva Longoria pitching his candidacy to fellow Latinos. Now, Mitt Romney has comedian Paul Rodriguez, an erstwhile Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008.

CNN Poll: Obama At 70% Among Latino Voters (CNN) – The latest national survey of likely Latino voters shows President Barack Obama retaining a big lead over rival Mitt Romney in the key voting demographic, matching the level of support he received from Latinos in 2008. The poll also showed a majority of Latinos said the economy was a more important issue than immigration, and indicated enthusiasm among Latinos is lower than it is among non-Latino whites. (snip) Obama enjoys the backing of 70% of likely Latino voters, according to the CNN/ORC International survey, slightly higher than the 67% of...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: ABC News/Univision: "Fast and Furious Scandal: New Details Emerge on How the U.S. Government Armed Mexican Drug Cartels." Now, none of this is gonna be new to you. But it is new to the audience of Univision. What impact, if any, it's going to have? Who knows? The authors here are Gerardo Reyes and Santiago Wills. "On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez. "Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the...

Polls show President Obama holds a clear advantage among Hispanic voters this year, but a new Spanish-language television ad, running in Nevada and sponsored by a conservative group, aims to peel away those supporters by arguing that his administration set records for deporting illegal immigrants. It’s a message that could backfire if it were in English — deporting illegal immigrants is a popular stance in many conservative communities. But English-speaking voters likely will never see the ad, which is running on two major Spanish-language networks in Las Vegas. The Hispanic ad market is one of the least-studied but among the...

Hispanic lawmakers unhappy with Charlotte contractsBy ANNA PALMER | 8/3/12 1:20 PM EDT Hispanic lawmakers are peeved at the Democratic National Convention Committee for not hiring more Latino-owned businesses for next month’s convention. Upset over the lack of contracts, Hispanic lawmakers exchanged heated words Wednesday with a top DNCC official in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. Afterward, Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) suggested that DNCC Chief Executive Steve Kerrigan should be fired if things don’t improve. If the situation isn’t rectified, “there will be a recommendation that the person who is in charge will not be in charge,” Baca told...

HOUSTON — Ted Cruz, an insurgent backed by the Tea Party, defeated the candidate favored by Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday in a runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination that revealed a wide rift in Texas between the party establishment and restless, anti-incumbent activists on the right. With the come-from-behind victory, he is heavily favored to win the Senate seat being vacated in November by Kay Bailey Hutchison and appears likely to become a star of the national conservative movement. Mr. Cruz, 41, is the latest conservative rebel to bring down an established party leader, tapping into simmering anger...

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson says that he is afraid of Marco Rubio’s ability to cut into President Obama’s Latino support. Richardson, a Mexican-American who ran against Obama in 2008 for the Democratic presidential nomination, said that the freshman Florida senator is one of the Republican Party’s fastest-rising stars who could make the GOP more appealing to Latino voters both in this election and in future ones.

The Spanish-language radio ads composed a 10-part miniseries called "Hope Park." In it, the characters were shown persistently trying to convince a character named "Diana" to go on food stamps -- known these days as SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- even though her husband works and she doesn't think she needs it. "I don't need help from anyone," Diana says in Episode 4. "My husband makes enough to take care of us." But her friends are persistent, and by Episode 10 Diana is enrolled and singing the program's praises.

President Barack Obama has widened his considerable lead over Mitt Romney among registered Latino voters in five key swing states, according to a new poll of 2,000 voters by Latino Decisions and the pro-immigration reform advocacy group America's Voice. Obama enjoys the biggest lead among Latino voters in Arizona, 74 percent of whom say they favor the president over Romney. On average, Obama is leading Romney 63 to 27 percent among Latinos in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia. Analysts estimate that Romney would need at least 40 percent of the Latino vote overall to win the general election, although...

(AP) — President Barack Obama is basking in the aftermath of his breakthrough directive on illegal immigration and pressing his jobs agenda before a meeting of Hispanic leaders, one day after they gave a cool reception to GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney and his newly softened stance on immigration. The president was to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on Friday near Orlando, his first speech to a Hispanic group since he decreed that many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children would be exempted from deportation and granted work permits valid...

Respected pollster John Zogby tells Newsmax that the younger voters who massively supported Barack Obama in 2008 could now be a “serious crack” in his base going into the November election. Zogby says his most recent polls show Obama essentially tied with Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Analyzing the presidential race among several demographic groups, he says in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV:Obama right now in his favor is doing very well among Latinos and is likely to do very well among Latino voters. They not only were critical to him in 2008, but we’re expecting two million more Latino voters...

Officials with the Taos Police Department say they are still working to get to the bottom of the alleged beating of a Taos landowner over the removal of political signs from in front of his property. In an interview with The Taos News Friday, property owner Roy Cunnyngham and his wife Joni recounted the events when they returned home, across from Casa los Córdovas May 1. According to the police report filed the same day, Eighth Judicial District Court judge candidate Ernestina Cruz was having a “meet and greet” event at Plaza de Colores. At the same time, across the...