GOP Needs Latinos to Form Strong, Winning Coalition

The Republicans' ability to win Arizona's coveted 11 electoral college votes, likely crucial to winning the presidency in 2024, may depend on the GOP understanding this column.

So, victory-hungry Republicans!? Pay attention!

2022: No midterm "red tide." Also, the GOP stalled in its efforts to roll up the non-Cubano Latino vote. Big disappointment.

Dan Balz, bigfoot Washington Post political reporter, provides a scooplet, concluding a recent column with this observation by a Democrat operative: "There was discontent. ... Republicans were not able to take advantage of it. So they fought basically to a draw, which benefited Democrats, and both parties lived to fight another day. It was a skirmish in another war."

I may be the hardest-right conservative Anglo to have spent time living, working and serving in the barrios. After college I lived in the Tucson, Arizona, barrio.

Later I represented Unidos' predecessor, NCLR (the Latino version of the NAACP) for its national charter school initiative. Thereafter, I worked with Latino civic leaders in seven states on President George W. Bush's marquee initiative to rescue victims of human trafficking. What to do?

And I only am escaped alone to tell thee: Latinos will flock to the GOP when the GOP treats Latinos with dignity.

As I long ago reported at Forbes, then-Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri "said to The Texas Monthly … 'The Texas GOP is engaging in much more than cosmetic 'ethnic outreach.' It has engaged in much more than an appeal for votes.

"The GOP is making a dedicated effort to bring Latinos, African Americans, and Asians into the party — as enrolled members, as activists, as party officials, and as candidates. Beyond that the Texas GOP is engaging seriously on issues that these prospective recruits care about."

I have long been vocal about the value of Republican courtship of Latinos. As I wrote at the Washington Examiner: "The Grito de Dolores is the July 4th of Mexico: the celebration of their fight for independence from their own colonial power, Spain.  ... So 2010 is the Grito's 200th anniversary.

"Among Mexicans, it is 'an almost mythic event.' ... Hispanic values are core American, and conservative, values, including pro life, traditional marriage, family and community minded, hard working, entrepreneurial, respectful of property rights, religious and deeply patriotic. ... 

"The millions of Hispanics in America make up an invisible conservative electoral El Dorado, 'City of Gold,' enriching American society. Latinos are the 'imprisoned lighting' that can, once unleashed, help restore America to greatness."

The Grito resonates only with Mexicanos. Not the Central or South Americans. That said, Latinos of Mexican descent represent 50% of the American Latino population.

Fifty percent would be a great Republican beachhead ... especially since Arizona is now seen as (along with Georgia) essential to winning the 2024 presidential election. And 89% of Arizona's Latinos are of Mexican extraction.

Balz gets it: "Latinos are not a monolithic group, and many Hispanics share some things in common with Republicans, among them religiosity and small-business economics. Some analysts have long seen Latinos as a potential swing vote — and still do."

Balz blames the GOP's 2022 Latino electoral stall on its failing to invest in Spanish language advertising in Nevada and Arizona: "Overall in those two states, the Democrats outspent Republicans by a margin of about 5 to 1, according to an ad tracking source."

Surely consequential. But hey muchachos, there's more to it. Latinos are as diverse as are western Europeans.

Let's drill down. TV advertising is expensive. Lower cost digital ... plus what pols call "the ground game" ... are better for building high rapport with the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent.

Set up a website, or interconnected localized websites, or white label social networks, celebrating the Grito. Co-sponsor annual 9/16 Grito celebrations around America much as most municipalities sponsor July 4^th celebrations.

Uniting us!

Begin with the five of seven states where the Mexican diaspora is the dominant Latino demographic: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, and Colorado. (Forget California and Illinois, electoral lost causes. Emphasize Arizona, now recognized as a crucial swing state.)

There's electoral gold in them thar hills. Will the GOP recognize the electoral El Dorado to be achieved from celebrating, together with our liberty-loving southern neighbor, our respective Guerras de Independencia from our imperial overlords?

Together let us echo Fr. Hidalgo's cry, the Mexican "Declaration of Independence."

My Children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards?

We must act at once. ... Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government!

Thereby let us invite Latinos to become leaders of a new, winning, conservative, patriotic, Republican coalition.

Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $94T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.