Rep. Salazar: Why more Hispanics are turning toward Republicans
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., explains why Hispanic voters are 'waking up' and gravitating away from the Democrat Party and slams President Biden snubbing Central American countries from his democracy summit.
As more and more Americans taste the bitter fruit of Democratic policies and contrast it with the prosperity of the pre-pandemic Trump years, the Democrats face a reckoning in 2022 and beyond. As 2021 elections are demonstrating, traditional blue-collar, Hispanic, and rural Democratic voters are beginning to abandon the party.
Democrats will face two choices going forward: Either moderate their policy agenda to appeal to their voters, or find a new pool of voters to replace the ones they no longer agree with. Coincidentally (or not), a tsunami of new potential voters is swarming across the southern border unimpeded, all of whom will owe their successful entry to the policies of Democrats.
New York City's decision last week to extend municipal voting rights to non-citizens may offer Democrats a lifeline. Though the new law does not allow illegal immigrants to vote, the arguments being used to justify it will easily apply to them. City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who sponsored the New York measure, believes anyone working in America and having taxes withheld is entitled to vote; anything else, he says, is "taxation without representation."
BIDEN'S COVID MEASURES MEANINGLESS WITHOUT BORDER SECURITY
By that standard, everyone from illegal drug traffickers to Chinese spies would ultimately qualify. New York is not the first city in America to open municipal voting to non-citizens, but it is the largest. Jurisdictions in Maryland, California and Vermont have passed similar statutes. The New York Immigration Coalition hopes New York's efforts will "spark more action around the country."
A new Wall Street Journal poll released in early December finds Hispanic voters are becoming swing voters.
The New York law is expected to make nearly 1 million people eligible to vote, as well as any DACA recipient, legal permanent resident or green-card holder willing to spend 30 consecutive days living in the city prior to registering.
With Republicans gaining ground in municipal races, special elections and 2021 gubernatorial races, they are projected to take the House in 2022. Meanwhile, rising inflation, an onslaught of proposed tax increases, a supply chain collapse, and unchecked illegal immigration mean Democrats will have a hard time winning elections on policy.
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Democrats are in a no-win position. Without massive new spending, their whole agenda falls apart. But if they spend what it would take to implement their lofty climate policies and expansive welfare state, they'll exacerbate the damage they've already done to the American economy.
At one point, they believed demographics would be destiny: the share of Latino voters would grow, and with it the share of votes going to Democrats. But it's not working that way.
A new Wall Street Journal poll released in early December finds Hispanic voters are becoming swing voters, with nearly even numbers saying they would vote for a Democrat v. a Republican in Congress and a similar proportion saying they would support Donald Trump against Joe Biden.
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The trend in 2021 special elections bears out the bad news. In an analysis for CNN, Harry Enten reported that Republicans are doing 4% better on average in 2021 special elections than President Trump did in those same districts one year ago. This is consistent across 30 special state legislative and federal elections during the Biden presidency, Enten reports.
With so much bad news, Democrats can neither run on policy wins nor expect demographics to save them. Expect to see many more blue state municipalities take steps to enfranchise non-citizen voters in the future. Though states are unlikely to openly permit illegal immigrants to vote, they don't need to. They can simply do as California does – automatically register everyone who gets a driver's license to vote, then do nothing to weed out the votes of illegal immigrants.
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