Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is not Latino, just garnered 44% of the Hispanic vote. Governor-elect Abbott is Senator Ted Cruz’s main mentor, so however he pulled that off will be passed along to the Cruz camp. GUARANTEED.
the problem is, Texas hispanics, at least up to this point, tend to be more conservative than Hispanics in, say, California. Getting 44% of that vote in Texas is not the same as getting 44% in the whole country.
Part of how Abbott did it was having what turned out to be a weak opponent. Davis was hyped by an adoring media as a great Democrat hope, but she turned out to be terrible. Another part of it was that 2014 was great, wave-ish year for the GOP. Neither of those are likely in 2016.
I think Cruz will do well to repeat his reported 40% 2012 performance when he next faces Texas Hispanics, whether it’s 2016 or 2018. He’ll carry Texas by winning over 70% of the white vote. Nationally I don’t see Cruz doing much better with Hispanics than the average Republican performance.
But I would love to be proven wrong. I still think the best hope is to drastically reduce immigration levels and slow and eventually halt the pro-Democrat demographic transformation. But that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon so I really do hope someone like Cruz can be a game changer.
Abbot has a Latina wife and his mother-in-law did commercials for him.