Derb recently linked to comments from union leader (and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America) Eliseo Medina boasting that through amnesty and continued mass immigration, Democrats look forward to “creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”
Jim Gimpel, a government professor at the University of Maryland, confirms Medina’s analysis in this new report:
Using standard statistical methods, this research has directly estimated the impact of the rising percentage of immigrants across U.S. counties on Republican presidential voting in the eight presidential elections from 1980 to 2008. The conclusion is inescapable and uncomplicated. As the immigrant population has grown, Republican electoral prospects have dimmed, even after controlling for alternative explanations of GOP performance.
Specifically:
In counties of at least 50,000, where the immigrant share increased by at least two percentage points from 1980 to 2008, 62 percent saw a decline in the Republican percentage. In counties with at least a four percentage-point increase, 74 percent saw a decline in the GOP vote. In counties with at least a six percentage-point gain in the immigrant share, 83 percent saw a decline in the GOP vote share.
In short, immigration up, Republicans down. Note that this trend started in at least 1980, before the notorious thought criminal Tom Tancredo came on the stage. It continued despite (because?) President Reagan and a Republican Senate passing the first big amnesty (sorry, “comprehensive immigration reform”) for 3 million illegal aliens. It continued despite (because of?) the fact that Bush 41 signed into law a huge increase in legal immigration in 1990.
Gimpel’s conclusion describes the only way the GOP can survive as a viable, conservative institution:
Republicans are right to want to attract Latino voters. They are indisputably a growing share of the population and the electorate. But expanding the future flow of low-skilled immigrants into an economy ill-suited to promote their upward mobility will clearly be counterproductive given the evidence presented here. At the same time, Republican opposition to higher immigration levels can be too easily typecast as racist and xenophobic. This is because the party’s elites have failed to deliver a clear message that they want a pro-immigrant policy of reduced immigration and that these two goals are complementary. Such a policy would also prove to be the best means for moving immigrants toward the middle and upper income status that will promote their geographic and political mobility.