Former President Bill Clinton partially blamed the loss of the Hispanic vote in the midterms on President Barack Obama’s decision to delay issuing an executive order on immigration until after the election.
During a Politico event in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton talked about why the Democrats lost far more House, Senate and gubernatorial seats to the Republicans than had been expected, according to
CNN.
"There was a collapse of the youth vote, the African-American vote held fairly steady," Clinton said. "We had a little bit of a loss of the Hispanic vote, perhaps because the President didn't issue the immigration order."
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Referring to Obama’s plan to shield
up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, Clinton continued, "But it was a tough call for him because had he done so, a lot of others would have lost by even more. It was a difficult call."
Clinton said the move to the right resulting in the GOP gaining control of the Senate was also due to the fact that "the people who were against us felt more strongly than the people for us."
The event was part of a four-day celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Clinton Presidential Center, which was attended by his former staffers and family members,
BuzzFeed reported.
Replying to a question by Politico’s Mike Allen, Clinton admitted that the midterm shellacking was also caused by the Democrats not broadcasting a cohesive statement on the economy for voters.
"People who were for us just, in all the din, couldn’t hear what was actually a fairly coherent economic message coming out," he said.
The former commander in chief noted that exit polls showed Democrats had wanted their candidates to talk about "student-loan reform or equal pay or creating jobs through infrastructure projects."
He added, "Almost 100 percent of the Democrats I campaign with talked about all that, but we didn’t have, again, a national advertising campaign.
"That might have made all the difference in a couple of close races, but it would not have changed the larger outcome."
Although the election results were a setback for Democrats, Clinton suggested that the count will be different in 2016, according to CNN.
While apparently referring to his wife Hillary Clinton being the presumed Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, he said, "We can do this again."