Can Jeb Bush Help the GOP Win Minority Voters?
— -- It was a rare streak of anger for the normally even-keeled Jeb Bush.
"I'll campaign in the African American community...I'm going to campaign in Latino communities and, yes Mr. Trump, if I'm asked a question in Spanish I might answer in Spanish. I apologize. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Bush told a Salem, NH crowd.
In the last few weeks, Bush has come under fire from frontrunner Donald Trump for speaking Spanish at events.
Bush's response? To speak more of the language he's been speaking for 40 years.
"So here I am, a candidate for the President of the United States, believing that we should campaign with brazos abiertos, with our arms wide open," he told a New Hampshire crowd.
But some experts say that Bush's dream of inclusivity may be just that; a dream... that statistically, Bush and his party have almost no chance of winning voters of color, en masse.
The Republican Party and Voters of Color
"It’s virtually impossible to see the Republican Party running competitively among blacks in the 2016 presidential election," said Gary Langer, President of Langer Research Associates (the company that produces ABC News/Washington Post polls). He added that, it would be "a steep challenge for the GOP nominee to do well among Hispanics."
But this election cycle, the Republican field also bears a striking departure from its usual candidates; diversity. This field includes one African-American, an Indian-American, two men of Cuban descent, and a man who is married to a Mexican woman. Especially, when compared to the more homogenous Democratic field, it seems significant. But, for a party that has long had a troubled relationship with voters of color, it may not be enough.
"When you talk about racial makeup, you only see skin diversity. When you talk about ideals, you see that the concepts they're pushing are not diverse, some of the same old, same old. When you dig deeper, these policies actually hurt communities of color," said Angela Rye, a political strategist who is a former executive director for the Congressional Black Caucus and is CEO of Impact Strategies.
No more than 27 percent of non-white voters have voted for a Republican candidate in any presidential election since 1976. In the 2012 general election, Mitt Romney received less than 20 percent of all nonwhites' votes. If a Republican candidate continued that trend today, he/she would need more than 65 percent of the entire white-vote to be able to win the presidency.
