Party hasn’t learned the lessons of 2012, senator says as leading figures and activists worry choice of nominee could have ripple effect across national races

In the aftermath of defeat in the 2012 presidential race, the Republican party’s mandate was clear: make inroads with Latino voters, the fastest-growing bloc of the American electorate, or face the consequences at the ballot box.

On Thursday, Donald Trump will instead formally accept the Republican nomination for president at the party’s convention in Cleveland with record-low approval ratings from Latino voters.

And even as Republican officials speak of ramping up outreach to the must-win demographic, the atmosphere is clearly affected by the real estate mogul’s unwavering line on immigration – from the unveiling of a Republican election platform, which emphasized the building of a border wall, to a speaking lineup that has included the parents of children killed by immigrants who entered the US illegally.

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Many prominent Republicans fear Trump’s name at the top of the ticket in November poses a threat not simply for their prospects of winning the White House but also for holding on to majorities in Congress.

“I think we’re likely to have the largest turnout ever of Latino voters to stop Donald Trump,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who has argued that the party’s 2016 nominee would need at least 40% of the Latino vote to secure victory.

“He’s going to have to do dramatically better than Mitt Romney did among white voters to counter the antagonism he’s created among Hispanics.”

While Trump’s hostile relationship with minorities extends well beyond Latino voters, at the heart of his candidacy has been an embrace of white anxiety, fuelled in large part by immigration and the changing demographics of the US. He launched his bid for president last year by branding Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “killers”, has advocated vigorously for a wall along the US-Mexico border, and just last month questioned the independence of an American judge over his Hispanic heritage.

In a poll released just ahead of the Republican convention, Hillary Clinton held a 62-point advantage over Trump among Latino voters, leading 76% to 14%. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo survey also found that 82% of Latino voters viewed Trump unfavorably, compared with just 11% who viewed him positively.

“It makes lives very difficult; it makes it a hard sell,” Alfonso Aguilar, head of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said of the Trump effect.



A number of key battleground states, including Colorado, Florida and Nevada, are already seeing new levels of Latino voter registration. Even Arizona, a state typically within the Republican column, could be tight, with an estimated 350,000 unregistered Latino voters who could be persuaded to turn out to the polls in protest of Trump’s candidacy.

The result, Aguilar said, could be harmful to Republican candidates running in competitive Senate races. At least two Republican incumbents, the Arizona senator John McCain and the Florida senator Marco Rubio, will require support from the sizable Latino population in their home states in order to hold on to their seats this November.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Trump effect ‘makes lives very difficult’, says the head of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. Photograph: Ida Mae Astute/Getty Images

Both senators have endorsed Trump but declined to attend the convention in Cleveland, citing the need to focus on their own campaigns. Rubio, who suspended his presidential campaign in March after he was defeated by Trump in the Florida primary, will, however, deliver a video address at the convention on Wednesday.

Like many of their colleagues, the two senators have have sought to distance themselves from Trump’s divisive rhetoric toward immigrants. But both McCain and Rubio acknowledged during recent conversations on Capitol Hill the inherent risks associated with Trump as the party’s standard-bearer.

“It doesn’t help,” Rubio, one of just three Hispanic senators, said when asked by the Guardian how Trump’s series of controversial comments affected Republican efforts to woo Latino voters.

“I think Republicans are going to have to establish their own identity and own relationships with the communities they seek to represent, separate from our nominee and the things he has said.”

McCain said he had “excellent relations” with Latino voters in his state but acknowledged the unknown outcome of Latinos who could register to vote against Trump. He chose to focus on his own record, citing his stance against abortion, in favor of lower taxes, and for robust national security.

“My message is the one it’s always been to Hispanics … all of the things that are Republican values,” McCain, who earned 31% of the Latino vote as the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, told the Guardian.

Asked how he could avoid being tied to Trump’s inflammatory statements, McCain said he was confident Latino voters in his state would be capable of separating the two.

“They know me, they know me,” he said. “I’ve been here 30 years. I’m very well known by the Hispanic community. I have strong support there.”

McCain’s colleague Jeff Flake, the junior senator from Arizona, is not up for re-election until 2018. But the Republican has thus far declined to endorse Trump and recently confronted him in a private meeting over his tone with respect to Latino voters.

“We’re going against everything we’ve learned,” Flake told the Guardian. “Looks like we’re going to need another autopsy after the election.”

In 2012, Mitt Romney won support from just 27% of Latino voters. The Republican National Committee subsequently commissioned a post-mortem which cited George W Bush as an example of how to run a more compassionate campaign in Hispanic and other minority communities. Bush received roughly 40% of the Latino vote share in his 2004 reelection.

“If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States,” the report stated, “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.”

Aguilar disputed the notion that any damage stemming from Trump would remain associated with the Republican party for the foreseeable future.



“The impact that Trump has is now, in this election,” he said. “Latinos are not monolithic. You are not going to lose the Latino vote for a generation.”

But Tim Miller, a former party staffer who served as an aide to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign, warned of a potentially “devastating” effect while dubbing Trump “a total repudiation” of what Republicans had hoped to accomplish over the last four years.



“There’s long-term negative consequences,” Miller said. “I don’t think anyone’s going to benefit from supporting Donald Trump.

“We have a nominee that’s going to repulse pretty much everybody that’s not white, and I think we’ll see the results of that in November when Hillary Clinton wins by a landslide despite her being the weakest Democratic nominee in decades.”