{"id":119344,"date":"2014-06-26T20:59:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T02:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hispanics-gaining-clout-in-elections\/"},"modified":"2014-06-26T20:59:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T02:59:51","slug":"hispanics-gaining-clout-in-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hispanics-gaining-clout-in-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Hispanics gaining clout in elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Salazar\"
Salazar<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The votes are there for either major party, but Republicans appear to be turning their back on Latinos, three commentators said during a call-in Wednesday regarding the survey prepared by America\u2019s Voice and Latino Decisions.<\/p>\n

The panelists were prominent Democrat Ken Salazar, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and secretary of the Interior; Gabriel Sanchez, director of research at Latino Decisions and professor of political science at the University of New Mexico; and Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota.<\/p>\n

Patty Kupfer, managing director of America\u2019s Voice, moderated.<\/p>\n

Hispanics comprise 21 percent of the Colorado population, the report said. Fourteen percent of them are eligible to vote, but only 57 percent of those eligible actually register.<\/p>\n

That leaves 213,000 eligible voters up for grabs, the report said.<\/p>\n

By 2020, 1 in 4 Coloradoans will be Hispanic, a figure that is set to rise to 34 percent in 2040, according to published state estimates cited by the report.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of Hispanics in Colorado, 75 percent, are native born, with the average age of 26 compared to the average age of non-Hispanics \u2013 age 40.<\/p>\n

Salazar said Republicans running for office this year are on the wrong side of issues. He cited immigration reform, health care and minimum wage.<\/p>\n

In choosing a candidate to run against Gov. John Hickenlooper in November, Salazar said, the Republican choice of Bob Beauprez was a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeauprez is equal to Tom Tancredo,\u201d Salazar said. \u201cHis views are too extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are writing off the Latino vote, Salazar said.<\/p>\n

Hugo Chavez-Rey, chairman of the Colorado Hispanic Republicans, who spoke Saturday in Durango at the Republicans\u2019 Lincoln Day Dinner, begs to differ.<\/p>\n

He told the gathering that jobs, not immigration, is the major issue for Hispanics. Hispanics, he said, tend to be conservative on economic and social issues.<\/p>\n

Chavez-Rey said Republicans only need to work harder to bring Hispanics into the GOP fold.<\/p>\n

Sixty percent of people in the country believe the nation is on the wrong track, Chavez-Rey said.<\/p>\n

A trend that has to be reversed is the negative image that mainstream media paints of Republicans, he said.<\/p>\n

The Latino vote has been increasingly important since 2008, Monterroso said. But Republicans, he said, have ignored the fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best chance for the Republicans is to talk with respect to Latinos,\u201d Monterroso said. \u201cBut they seem to be turning their backs to Hispanics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigration reform is close to the hearts of Hispanics, Sanchez said. The survey found 63 percent know an undocumented immigrant and 35 percent know of a Hispanic who was deported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salazardu1-i-syn The votes are there for either major party, but Republicans appear to be turning their back on Latinos, three commentators said during a call-in Wednesday regarding the survey prepared by America\u2019s Voice and Latino Decisions. The panelists were prominent Democrat Ken Salazar, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and secretary of the Interior; Gabriel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-119344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119344"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}