On the eve of President Obama's push for immigration reform in his State of the Union address, the Hill columnist Juan Williams takes a look at the current state of play inside the GOP on the Hispanic vote.
There's a hidden hand driving the reform proposals that will arrive before the Senate Judiciary Committee the day after the State of the Union.
That specter is the political danger for Republicans surrounding immigration reform. It is evident in a poll released last month by Resurgent Republic. The survey focused on Latino voters in four swing states — Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. It showed that President Obama won 75 percent of the Latino vote in Colorado; 70 percent in Nevada; 64 percent in New Mexico and 60 percent in Florida in last November's election.
Obama won 71 percent of Latino votes nationally.
The Resurgent Republic poll found that, on virtually every issue presented to Latinos voters in the swing states, their preference for Democrats over Republicans is growing.
For example, during last year's presidential campaign, Republican Mitt Romney ran advertisements targeting high unemployment under President Obama in the Latino community. The idea was that the economy — not immigration and GOP opposition to immigration reform — was the number one issue for Latinos.
Read Juan Williams' entire piece at the Hill.
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