Trump's Latino Gap

Consider the pummeling Donald Trump has taken from the major media and the political establishment. Yet he’s still standing.

Rather amazingly he is remaining strong in most red states and resilient and competitive in battleground states Hillary must win.

Clearly many in the public are not judging Trump by a standard they would apply to most political figures. The brazen billionaire and reality TV star has pushed all the known boundaries.

Imagine, for a second, how competitive this race would be if Trump had cut into a significant share of the Hispanic vote?

Polls show Trump pulling Hispanic voters by about 30 percent. According to 2012 exit polls, Mitt Romney pulled 27 percent of Hispanic voters.

That dismal showing was among the many reasons Romney lost. Pundits noted that Romney’s “self-deportation” plan for illegal aliens cost him dearly.

In an interview with Newsmax in 2012, Trump himself sharply criticized Romney’s plan, and said his deportation plan was the key reason he lost.

As we know, Trump went on to embrace deportation, one that went one step beyond Romney’s with law enforcement spearheading mass deportations.

Trump touted the plan during the GOP primaries. But he has not been able to discard it for the general.

Trump’s campaign seems to be believe they can move over a small but valuable share of African-American votes to compensate for the loss of Hispanic voters.

In GOP political circles, there is a view that for every African American voter the party can win over, it could win over two to four Hispanic voters – for the same amount of resources.

George W. Bush worked hard in the African American and Hispanic communities during his first term. He barely moved the needle with black voters, but he grabbed a stunning 44 percent of Hispanics in his 2004 re-election.

If Trump had a similar take of that vote, he would be likely beating Hillary in the polls.

In some ways, Trump would seem the ideal candidate for the GOP to reach out to minorities. His "made in America, tell it like is" approach resonates with minority voters.

But Trump’s political approach on immigration and his lack of field resources, have hindered his ability to make inroads.

He has made legitimate points. After 40 years of Democratic promises, what do African Americans really have to show for it?

Another real problem is the Republican Party always talks a good game about its outreach to minorities, but they don’t show results. Take one look at the GOP convention audience in Cleveland and it proves the point.

Recently, I was reviewing census data. It shows approximately 2 million whites over the age of 50 die each year. This means that since 2012, 8 million white Americans, or approximately 6 million voters (assuming 75 percent of the 8 million actually vote) have simply disappeared from the voter rolls.

And these voters are being replaced by millions of millennials. Data shows this demographic group is more liberal and more ethnic than their elders. Almost half of these kids come from households where English is not the native tongue!

I have Republican friends who were shocked that Mitt Romney didn’t defeat Barack Obama. But they forgot to account for the 10 million white voters who had disappeared from the voter rolls since 2004.

Whatever happens this November, the Republican Party remains in a dire situation. Trump’s Latino gap in the current election points to a much larger problem. The future hangs on making the party more inclusive to the growing diversity of the American people.