If the GOP thinks Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's Cuban roots will automatically win over Latino voters, then per usual they're not dealing in facts. The polling firm Latino Decisions has consistently produced some of the most informative work on the voting trends of Latinos and
none of it looks good for Rubio.
First, his favorability ratings with Latino voters are at a net negative nationally, with 31 percent viewing him favorably and 36 percent viewing him unfavorably.
Second, he also has a net negative favorability rating in nearly every state where the Latino vote is considered to be a key influencer.
There's no mystery to why Rubio polls so badly among Latino voters—he's terrible on issues they care about: immigration, Obamacare, and climate change.
Head below the fold for more on Rubio.
On immigration, he helped craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013 that he quickly turned on when he realized it wasn't popular with the tea party—or at least that's how Erika Andiola of the DREAM Action Coalition sees it. He also doesn't support Obama's latest immigration effort to shield the parents of Dreamers from deportation (Deferred Action for Parental Accountability) and wants to "wind down" deportation relief for undocumented immigrants who were brought here as minors (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).
On health care, like nearly every Republican, Rubio has railed against Obamacare. Unfortunately for him and the GOP, 61 percent of Latino voters support it.
Since the law went into effect, the uninsured rate among Latinos has dropped by 12.3%, and 4.1 million more Latinos now have health insurance.
And then there's climate change, which
tends to rank higher on the list of important concerns for Latino voters than it does for non-Hispanic whites.
Unless you're Marco Rubio, who has gone "full-on climate denier."
Back in 2010, the then-Senate hopeful said that he didn’t “think there’s the scientific evidence to justify” consensus that climate change is real, and caused by humans. Last week, he added that he thinks it’s an “enormous stretch” to attribute current weather incidents to climate change.
And there's the great Hispanic hope for the GOP.