WASHINGTON & SANTA FE, NM (By Rachel Weiner, WP) January 13, 2012 ― On Wednesday morning, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney put out an ad in Spanish in Florida.

 

That afternoon, he touted the endorsement of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who co-authored the controversial immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama.

 

That juxtaposition shows the difficult path the frontrunner is facing as he seeks to simultaneously wrap up the Republican nomination while also beginning to move to the ideological center for the general election.

The swing states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina all have large Hispanic populations. Florida especially will be critical to Romney’s bid.

Of those, Florida is the only state with a significant Republican Hispanic voting bloc: Cuban-Americans, who make up about a quarter of the state’s Latino population. In 2008, 64 percent of this group voted for Sen. John McCain (R).

“A strong turnout of Cuban voters for Romney could balance out other Latinos” in Florida, said Dr. Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at the University of California-Irvine. (Cuban voters tend to turn out in higher numbers than others of Hispanic heritage.)

But even Romney’s Cuban-American supporters in Florida break with him on immigration. His heated rhetoric on illegal immigration has gotten widespread coverage in Hispanic media — which will be an even bigger problem for Romney outside the Sunshine State.

Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue for conservatives, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry found out when he tried to explain his support for the Lone Star State’s version of the DREAM Act. And rather than side with his rival in an attempt to win over Hispanic voters, Romney capitalized on Perry’s weakness, even airing a web ad tying Perry to the former president of Mexico. (Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has also been pilloried during the primaries for his somewhat centrist stance on immigration.)

Last week in Iowa, Romney made a new promise — that he would veto the DREAM Act if he was president. Ninety-one percent of Latinos support the DREAM Act.

“Mitt Romney is a strong proponent of legal immigration,’ Romney spokesman Albert Martinez said in a statement. “Mitt Romney is opposed to illegal immigration and amnesty because it is unfair to those who want to come to this country legally.”

Hispanic voters aren’t taking to Romney though. In a recent Pew Hispanic Center survey, Obama led Romney by 68 to 23 percent among Latino voters. Democrats currently hold a 47-point party identification advantage with Hispanic voters, the largest gap in the past decade.

There are plenty of caveats: the general election is almost a year away, and the Pew poll is just a snapshot in time. And, President Obama’s deportation policy has not been popular with Hispanics either.

And if Romney taps Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his running-mate, that could almost certainly change the dynamic — perhaps giving Republicans a foothold to shrink their current deficit among Latino voters. perhaps giving Republicans a foothold to shrink their current deficit among Latino voters.

But Rubio will have difficulty dealing with the immigration problem. Rubio’s positions on immigration are to the right of those held by most Hispanic Americans.

 

The writer spoke with Rubio in November in his Washington office. As long as unemployment remained high, he said, he would not relax immigration restrictions. But, if it dropped, he would like to ease immigration laws for highly-educated immigrants, political refugees, and agricultural workers.

 

However, he opposes the Dream Act and all forms of amnesty.

 

In a December poll by impreMedia and Latino Decisions, only thirteen per cent of Hispanics said that Rubio’s inclusion on the national ticket would make them much more likely to vote Republican; ten per cent said it would make them much less likely.

 

Largely lost in the build-up to the Iowa caucuses was a moment that could ultimately prove decisive in this year’s presidential election: Mitt Romney’s threat to veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship to some undocumented children of immigrants who attend college or serve in the military.

Hispanic are the nation’s fastest growing voting group – with an estimated 12 million set to vote in the election – and, predictably, Democrats have pounced on Romney’s stance.

Republicans contend that the bill would unfairly grant “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, but Romney’s stance is already alienating some Latino voters, to say nothing of Democrats and independents who largely support the measure.

Des Moines, Iowa, businessman Juan Rodriguez, a Republican voter frustrated with the harsh rhetoric on immigration from some of the GOP candidates, said he would not back Romney because of his threatened DREAM Act veto.

“My business depends on Hispanics, basically, and if there’s no immigration reform we are going to be very affected – not just me, but all the businesses that depend, like us, on the Latino community,” Rodriguez said.

“I wouldn’t vote for Romney because he doesn’t support immigration reform or the Dream Act,” he added.

Instead, Rodriguez backed Romney’s rival, Newt Gingrich, in the Iowa caucuses. The former House speaker has been the lone GOP candidate to voice support for an immigration reform plan that would implement the DREAM Act.

Sylvia Garcia, who heads up Hispanic outreach for Gingrich’s campaign, in a Spanish-language interview. “Newt thinks the people who have come here, joined our armed forces deserve the possibility of citizenship that the DREAM Act offers.”

Even Obama supporters upset with the president’s inaction on immigration reform - including Jose Zacarias of West Liberty, Iowa, the state’s first majority Latino town – believe the Republican field’s views – Gingrich aside – will help Democrats.

“Mr. Obama made a lot of promises to Hispanics in 2008 - immigration reform, to get a chance for more people to become legals,” Zacarias said in an interview.

“The president should have focused more on Latino issues like immigration and the famous DREAM Act,” he added. “He spent too much time politically on the issue of universal health care and almost no time on Hispanic issues.”