Did Immigration Cost Romney Florida?

Our guest bloggers is Henry Fernandez, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Did immigration Cost Romney Florida? Sure looks like it.

On Florida’s airwaves all week, Romney delivered strong punitive deport-them-all rhetoric. He even highlighted the endorsement of anti-immigrant zealot Kris Kobach. And Floridians heard him loud and clear.

Exit polling showed that those Republican voters who wanted the undocumented deported en masse went overwhelmingly for Romney. This is not surprising since McCain is a godfather of the failed Senate comprehensive immigration grand bargain, which would have put 12 million undocumented immigrants on a long path to citizenship if they had no criminal record, paid a fine and met other high standards.

But here was Romney’s problem — most Florida Republicans did not support his deport-only strategy. Fifty-eight percent preferred either a path to citizenship or a temporary worker program. McCain had a 22 point lead with path to citizenship voters and a 7 point lead with those supporting a temporary worker program.

And what about Latinos, the Republican holy grail in Florida, and the group most likely to be supportive of comprehensive immigration reform? McCain won them going away. He beat Romney by 45 points among Cubans and 32 points among “other Hispanics.” In fact, if not for the Latino vote, McCain would have lost to Romney.

And this despite being the son of a Mexican immigrant.

Are conservatives getting the message? As David Brooks said in today’s New York Times: “Can we please stop pretending that immigration is a good issue for Republicans? The restrictionist side can’t even produce a victory for their man in a Republican primary.”

– Henry Fernandez

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