Disillusioned Hispanics May Skip Midterms, Poll Suggests
By MARC LACEY
PHOENIX — Arizona’s controversial immigration law has prompted denunciations, demonstrations, boycotts and a federal lawsuit. But it may not bring the protest vote many Democrats had hoped would stem a Republican onslaught in races across the country.
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That’s because although many voters are disillusioned with the political process, Latino voters are particularly dejected, and many may sit these elections out, according to voters, Latino organizations, and political consultants and candidates. A pollreleased Tuesday found that though Latinos strongly back Democrats over Republicans, 65 percent to 22 percent, in the Congressional elections just four weeks away, only 51 percent of Latino registered voters say they will absolutely go to the polls, compared to 70 percent of all registered voters.
The other side in the immigration debate is suffering no such lack of enthusiasm. One measure of its high spirits is the dance card of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. He conducts raids in Latino neighborhoods that have led critics to label him a racist and the Justice Department to start a racial profiling investigation. But he is a pariah who is also in demand.
As conservatives across the country seek to burnish their tough-on-immigration credentials, Mr. Arpaio’s endorsement is much sought after. “Every day I get calls from candidates,” he said recently, acknowledging that he draws protesters, too.
“Tomorrow, I’m going up to Colorado to help out Tancredo; I helped that gal in Nevada, Angle,” Sheriff Arpaio said, referring to former Representative Tom Tancredo, who is running for governor in Colorado, and Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada. “I’m a poster boy on this issue.”
The Arizona law seems to be rewriting not just the rules on immigration, but the rules on how it is talked about on the campaign trail, too.
Even in New Mexico, a state with a large Hispanic population and traditional tolerance for illegal immigration, the issue is seen as a vote-getter for Republicans. Susana Martinez, a prosecutor and the Republican nominee for governor, would be the first Hispanic woman to run a state if elected. She is ahead in the polls, partly on the strength of television advertisements that show her standing at the border talking about how she has convicted law-breakers who have entered the country illegally from Mexico.
Both Ms. Martinez and her Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, support ending the policy of outgoing Gov. Bill Richardson that allows illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses, although Ms. Martinez would take away licenses from those who have already have them.
“This has been an issue that we don’t usually talk about,” Lonna Rae Atkeson, a political sciences professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, said of immigration. “Something’s different this year.”
Political analysts and candidates say the antiestablishment sentiment roiling the electorate, as well as widespread frustration over the country’s porous borders, seems to be boosting candidates who favor tougher immigration rules.
“In every single race I’m looking at, candidates are being asked, ‘Would you sign an Arizona-like immigration law?’ ” said Jennifer Duffy, an editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It’s now on the list of issues like a balanced budget amendment and a tax cut. It’s part of the political lexicon and it fires people up.”
Often to the chagrin of politicians in heavily Hispanic states. In Florida, for instance, both parties have typically tried to steer clear of immigration out of fear of angering either older white voters, who turn out in high numbers and tend to support stricter immigration enforcement, or Latinos, who are a growing segment of the electorate.
When Senate candidates debated last month, the hosts from Univision repeatedly raised the issue, while the candidates — Gov. Charlie Crist, Representative Kendrick B. Meek and Marco Rubio — did their best to avoid picking a side.
In Texas, where a poll conducted last month by Blum & Weprin Associates showed support for the Arizona law, especially among Republicans, Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican, has said that such legislation would be inappropriate for Texas. And Mr. Perry has avoided making illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign against his Democratic opponent, Bill White, the former mayor of Houston.
No Texas politician wants to alienate Latinos, given demographic trends showing they will only increase in political clout, said James Henson, a University of Texas political scientist.
In California, where the Arizona law divides voters, the Republican nominee for governor, Meg Whitman, has moderated her tough stance on illegal immigration in what is seen as an effort to woo Latinos. She has been on the defensive, however, amid allegations that she knowingly employed a housekeeper who was in the country illegally.
The results of the poll released Tuesday, by the Pew Hispanic Center, suggest that the raging debate over Arizona’s law and the lack of Congressional action on immigration reform may have turned off many Latinos.
Just 32 percent of all Latino registered voters say they have given this year’s election “quite a lot” of thought, compared with 50 percent of all registered voters in the country, the poll found. The poll is based on a survey of 1,375 Latinos conducted from Aug. 17 to Sept. 19.
(The Pew poll also found that for Latinos, education, jobs and health care trump immigration as major issues, which could be bad news for Democrats hoping to capitalize from anger over the Arizona law.)
But Tomas Robles, a student at Arizona State, was so enraged by the law, which would allow the police to ask people they stopped if they were in the country legally, that he registered 12 of his family members to vote, and joined other activists here in a door-to-door campaign to sign up Latinos.
“For the first time, I felt it was time for me to get involved,” Mr. Robles said. He was surprised to find that while some Latinos were as fired up as he was, others slammed the door in his face.
“Latinos feel that on many of their key issues, promises were made and not delivered on” by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats, said Matt A. Barreto, a political science professor at Washington University who is a pollster for Latino Decisions, an advocacy and research group.
Latinos strongly supported Mr. Obama in 2008, so they do not have the enthusiasm of opposition that his detractors do. “It’s much easier to raise enthusiasm about kicking people out,” Mr. Barreto said.
That has prompted a variety of campaigns to motivate Latino voters, including radio ads in Phoenix and eight other cities sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and various advocacy groups accusing Republicans of obstructionism when it comes to big changes in immigration laws that President Obama and Congressional Democrats have called for.
In the Arizona races, immigration hardliners have the clear upper hand. Gov. Jan Brewer is running a strong campaign against the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Terry Goddard, in large part to her decision in April to sign the law making illegal immigration a state crime. The fact that a federal judge blocked the most controversial parts of the law only seemed to have boosted her popularity as a foil to the Obama administration.
Debate over the law has quieted somewhat since the summer.
But emotions on both sides are expected to rise as legal proceedings in the case are scheduled to resume — the day before Election Day.
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