In 2012, the Republican Party lost the Latino vote badly, in a year of record Latino turnout. According to the Latino Decisions-impreMedia November 2012 election eve poll President Barack Obama won 75 percent of Latinos to just 23 percent for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Seems like those were the "good ol' days" for the GOP compared to where things stand in 2015.
Following the 2012 election the Republican National Committee released a comprehensive report examining what went wrong in the Romney campaign. Among the top concerns: outreach to Latino voters. The report stated, "If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the country (i.e., self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies."
New polling released by impreMedia and Latino Decisions finds that the GOP's image among Latino voters has significantly deteriorated since 2012.
The poll of 424 Latino registered voters living in critical battleground states reports that statements by GOP frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson are negatively impacting the overall GOP brand. When asked about comments by Trump, 80 percent of Latino voters said it gives them a less favorable impression of the Republican Party. When asked about Carson's comments about immigration and using drone's to bomb smuggling tunnels on the US-Mexico border, 70 percent said it gives them a less favorable impression of the Republican Party.
Perhaps the most noteworthy finding of the new poll is a question on perceptions of Republican outreach that Latino Decisions has been asking for years.
