The Public Religion Research
Institute has
produced an interesting “infographic” highlighting results from
their
Hispanic Values Survey. The survey asked Latino respondents
“What is the first word or phrase that comes to your mind when you
think about the Republican Party?” What they said might surprise
you, especially given that Latinos voted for President Obama over
Mitt Romney by a margin of
71 to 27 percent.
According to PRRI’s survey, less than half of Hispanic
respondents had a negative reaction to the Republican Party,
instead most were neutral or positive. Even one of the responses
PRRI coded as negative—that Republicans are “rich”—isn’t
necessarily a bad thing since Hispanics
lead the way in faith in the American Dream and the
bootstrapping work ethic it entails. For instance, recent surveys
have
found 7 in 10 Hispanics cite education and hard work as most
important for success and most believe their children will be
better off than they were.
It’s worth pointing out that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush
had the greatest success in narrowing the partisan voting gap among
Hispanics. Arguably, Reagan and Bush represent different strains of
the Republican coalition, but both had charisma, made the effort to
reach out, and perhaps even genuinely cared.
(For more on Hispanic political engagement and mobilization,
check out Ricardo Ramirez’s
Mobilizing Opportunities)
Here are the results, coded as negative and positive by
PRRI:
“What is the first word or phrase that comes to your
mind when you think about the Republican Party?”
Positive/Neutral:
- 15% conservative/traditional values
- 27% neutral/no opinion
- 2% small government/fiscal responsibility
- 3% patriotic/strong military
- 6% Other positive
- Total: 53%
Negative:
- 15% Rich/Corporate (is this necessarily bad?)
- 10% Anti-immigrant/Racist/Intolerant
- 5% Old-Fashioned/Out-of-touch
- 3% Obstructionist/Uncompromising
- 15% Other negative
- Total: 48%
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