Toro
Diamond Member
Been there, done that. And it looks awful for the Republican Party if they go down that road.
Donald Trump’s new campaign ad covers old material. He wants to “make America great again” and immigrants are standing in the way. The Republican presidential hopeful says that we should ban Muslims, wall off Mexico and deport our way to prosperity. Such talk has brought Mr. Trump large crowds on the campaign trail and kept him leading in the polls, but GOP strategists who know their history are worried that it could backfire big time.
The television spot includes aerial footage of migrants scurrying across a border, and it has drawn comparisons to very similar ads run in the early 1990s by California’s then-Gov. Pete Wilson, another Republican moderate with presidential ambitions who became an immigration hard-liner out of political expediency.
Mr. Wilson, who was first elected in 1990, signed a large tax increase that infuriated conservatives and damaged his poll numbers. Eager to change the subject as he began campaigning for a second term, the governor became a vocal supporter of Proposition 187, a referendum that denied illegal aliens and their children access to schools and health care. The referendum passed (though it was later gutted by the courts) and Mr. Wilson won re-election, but the victory turned out to be shallow, while the subsequent political damage ran much deeper.
Mr. Wilson’s support among Hispanics was 47% in 1990. Four years later it was 25%, and ethnic voting patterns would run against Republicans for another decade. The party lost state assembly seats for three successive elections. Mr. Wilson’s would-be GOP successor, Dan Lungren, carried only 17% of the Hispanic vote just eight years after Mr. Wilson had won close to half of it.
Nationally, what was once a stronghold state for Republicans became easy pickings for Democrats. Between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won California in nine of 10 presidential elections, but Democrats have won the state in the past six contests. The 1996 Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, won only 6% of California’s Hispanic vote, compared with former Gov. Ronald Reagan’s 35% in 1980 and 45% in 1984. Republicans held half of California’s U.S. House seats in 1994. Today they hold 26%, and their U.S. Senate candidates regularly lose. ...
Part of the problem in California was that the GOP’s perceived animosity toward Hispanics gained notice from other nonwhite voting blocs, which led to a drop in support among the Chinese and Koreans who had a history of voting Republican. The decision to double down on white voters in a state that was becoming less white haunts the party to this day. ...
How Trump-Style Politics Turned California Into a Blue State
Donald Trump’s new campaign ad covers old material. He wants to “make America great again” and immigrants are standing in the way. The Republican presidential hopeful says that we should ban Muslims, wall off Mexico and deport our way to prosperity. Such talk has brought Mr. Trump large crowds on the campaign trail and kept him leading in the polls, but GOP strategists who know their history are worried that it could backfire big time.
The television spot includes aerial footage of migrants scurrying across a border, and it has drawn comparisons to very similar ads run in the early 1990s by California’s then-Gov. Pete Wilson, another Republican moderate with presidential ambitions who became an immigration hard-liner out of political expediency.
Mr. Wilson, who was first elected in 1990, signed a large tax increase that infuriated conservatives and damaged his poll numbers. Eager to change the subject as he began campaigning for a second term, the governor became a vocal supporter of Proposition 187, a referendum that denied illegal aliens and their children access to schools and health care. The referendum passed (though it was later gutted by the courts) and Mr. Wilson won re-election, but the victory turned out to be shallow, while the subsequent political damage ran much deeper.
Mr. Wilson’s support among Hispanics was 47% in 1990. Four years later it was 25%, and ethnic voting patterns would run against Republicans for another decade. The party lost state assembly seats for three successive elections. Mr. Wilson’s would-be GOP successor, Dan Lungren, carried only 17% of the Hispanic vote just eight years after Mr. Wilson had won close to half of it.
Nationally, what was once a stronghold state for Republicans became easy pickings for Democrats. Between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won California in nine of 10 presidential elections, but Democrats have won the state in the past six contests. The 1996 Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, won only 6% of California’s Hispanic vote, compared with former Gov. Ronald Reagan’s 35% in 1980 and 45% in 1984. Republicans held half of California’s U.S. House seats in 1994. Today they hold 26%, and their U.S. Senate candidates regularly lose. ...
Part of the problem in California was that the GOP’s perceived animosity toward Hispanics gained notice from other nonwhite voting blocs, which led to a drop in support among the Chinese and Koreans who had a history of voting Republican. The decision to double down on white voters in a state that was becoming less white haunts the party to this day. ...
How Trump-Style Politics Turned California Into a Blue State
