“But I think some of the negative rhetoric used by GOP candidates - not McCain, who said virtually nothing - was so toxic that it’s going to be hard to win them now.”
As I recall, practically all the negative rhetoric used by GOP candidates was directed explicitly toward illegal immigration. However, the left, and some in the GOP cried
xenophobe and racist every time conservatives criticized illegal immigration. That is what was toxic.
One thing that you neglect is the fact that not all illegal immigration is Hispanic. In NYC, the majority of illegals for a long time were the Irish; now it may be Poles and Russians. On the West Coast, there are huge numbers of illegal Chinese and other Asian immigrants. Some parts of the MidWest have large numbers of African illegal immigrants.
The only thing the GOP seems to be bothered by, however, is Hispanic illegal immigrants. I’d take the concern about illegal immigration more seriously if they occasionally addressed some of the very real problems caused by these other groups, the health care and welfare costs they generate, and the crime and security risk they pose. But the only illegals the GOP seems to fixate on are Latin Americans.