Check out America's Voice new weekly resource, "Immigration Insider," which takes an in-depth look at immigration politics, leading up to the November election. SUBSCRIBE to receive Immigration Insider in your inbox every Tuesday-- absolutely gratis.
Immigration Insider Election 2010
Among Latinos, interest in voting shoots up 10% in one month. A conservative group tries to suppress the growing Latino vote in Nevada, but Univision is refusing to run their ads. Joe Miller hearts East Germany’s approach to border security. Even after stock photo snafu, Angle finds new ways to trip up with Nevada’s Latino (Asian?) voters.
Welcome to Immigration Insider | 2 Weeks to Election 2010
Latino voter interest is up... If that Pew Hispanic poll from August is still driving your analysis of the Latino vote, you might want to get up to speed: Latino Decisions’ latest tracking poll, released yesterday, shows that the number of Latino registered voters who say they are “almost certain” to show up at the polls is now 75.1%--a full 10% higher than it was four weeks ago, according to previous Latino Decisions research.
...and $5.4 million is going toward making sure it keeps climbing. Last week, a number of national and local organizations highlighted their efforts to turn out the immigrant and Latino vote. Democracia USA, the Campaign for Community Change, the We Are America Alliance and Mi Familia Vota, among others, combined forces to announce a $5.4 million nationwide effort. They are targeting over a million Latino, Asian and immigrant voters in twenty-three states. As Rudy Lopez of the Campaign for Community Change said, “Latinos and immigrants represent the fastest growing segment of the voting population. In 2006 and 2008, there were record turnouts amongst these populations. We have no reason to believe we won’t beat expectations again this year.” One in ten registered voters is a “New American,” according to an Immigration Policy Center report released last week.
GOTV efforts targeting Latinos in key states: http://bit.ly/aEdTM4
Republicans attempt some old-fashioned voter suppression in Nevada, telling Latinos to stay home. A third-party organization with ties to the Republican National Committee is running a new Spanish-language ad in Nevada that tells Latino voters to just stay home. The group, so-called “Latinos for Reform,” is an Alexandria, VA-based organization with a direct tie to Republican politics. The head of the organization is Robert Deposada, a former Republican National Committee (RNC) director of Hispanic affairs. Latino voters comprise 12% of the Nevada electorate, and a large turnout could prove to be fatal for GOP candidates who have alienated this key constituency.
BREAKING: Univision is now refusing to air the ads: http://bit.ly/9zhuzQ
NV-Sen: If Latinos needed even more reasons to vote, Sharron Angle has it covered. As the last few weeks have shown, Sharron Angle’s “Latino strategy” appears to be: insult them with race-baiting campaign ads, then insist that the candidate doesn’t know what a Latino looks like. Angle and Louisiana Senator David Vitter were both forced to pull a race-baiting image out of their immigration ads because of copyright and fair use violations (turns out the supposed “illegal immigrants” in question were Mexican men... in Mexico). Oops. But then, Angle topped even herself by telling a group of Latino students that her ads were really about the northern border. She even told the group of young people they “look Asian,” as further proof she was not race-baiting. Huh?
Meanwhile, during last week’s debate between Angle and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Angle said “I think that every state should have a sheriff like Joe Arpaio”—meaning, apparently, that she thinks every state should have a sheriff who’s too busy going after undocumented immigrants to worry about skyrocketing violent crime.
More on the NV-Sen race: http://bit.ly/b0eYWE
AK-Sen: Joe Miller’s immigration solution? Become East Germany! At a town hall in Anchorage on Sunday, Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller explained that he doesn’t think securing the border is so hard: “If the East Germans could do it, so can we!” If you think that quote sounds any better in context, believe me, it doesn’t.
MD-Gov: In the good news category, O’Malley refuses to play “political football” with immigration. A moment we’ve seen frequently this cycle: during last week’s Maryland gubernatorial debate, Republican challenger Bob Ehrlich hit Democratic governor Martin O’Malley over sympathy for “illegals.” A moment we haven’t seen nearly enough of: O’Malley pushed back. “Sadly, as political football, there is this nativism rising up and this desire to blame new Americans for the problems of our economy. New Americans didn't run Wall Street into the ground. New Americans didn't destroy our savings.”
Coulter vs. Huckabee on DREAM Act—the battle for the soul of the Republican Party? When Mike Huckabee reiterated his support for the DREAM Act, Ann Coulter called him a “liberal Christian” and compared the DREAM Act to “subsidizing illegitimacy.” Huckabee’s response appealed to economic common sense: “My economic heart tells me that if you have a kid who is a valedictorian — like a kid in my state was — and his parents are illegal, and he’s the valedictorian — wouldn’t it be better for him to go to college, become a medical doctor, and pay taxes and become a citizen as part of that?” Come on, GOP, it’s time to choose: Huckabee’s common sense or Coulter’s venom? (P.S. Coulter states she thinks the border should be surrounded by a 200 foot fence with a moat and alligators…)
ID-1: Walt Minnick tries to call his Arpaio-endorsed opponent “soft.” The Republican candidate for Idaho’s 1 District, Raul Labrador, is a staunch conservative who boasts that he’s endorsed by Joe Arpaio. But Rep. Walt Minnick has decided to run to his challenger’s right on the immigration issue, using Labrador’s immigration law practice as fodder for a very ugly series of ads. The real question: why did Minnick stray so far from his 2008 position favoring comprehensive immigration reform, which 88 percent of his district supports?
TWITTER-iffic:
- @scannell I just heard @joewmiller at his Anchorage town hall meeting, on securing the border: "If the East Germans could do it, we can do it." #idiot
- @KagroX: Aside from the incredible idiocy of touting the Berlin Wall as a model, does Joe Miller know it was for keeping people IN?
- @Maneegee #SB1070 & #HB2218 will weigh heavily in AZ election. GOP culprits all over the ballot- Brewer, Horne, Huppenthal, etc http://bit.ly/cNvGzv
- @LatinaLista @NewsGus: Jury found them guilty all charges #luisramirez
- @VivirLatino: Justice (?) for Luis Ramirez | VivirLatino http://bit.ly/9VUJ8H
- @DreamAct: President Obama Speaks On #DreamAct http://on.mtv.com/c76FMl
---> Immigration Insider is a new, weekly immigration update by America's Voice, leading up to the Nov 2nd election.
Sign up to get Immigration Insider in your inbox: http://bit.ly/ImmInsider
Cross-Posted at America's Voice and Daily Kos.