Latino Voters | featured news

Hours after Mitt Romney’s campaign promised that the GOP nominee would begin to offer new policy prescriptives, Romney stumped in Los Angeles on Monday at a gathering of Latino business leaders, promising to cut federal spending, help small businesses and reform a “broken” immigration system. But he offered no new details on how he would accomplish these goals.

Mitt Romney plans to make an appeal to Hispanic voters Monday in a speech where he is expected to distinguish himself as the better presidential candidate on economy and immigration, a topic that has brought his campaign considerable controversy.

As you probably heard, Julian Castro's keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention was historic. It marked the first time that a Latino had ever delivered the signature address at that event, and the fact that the 37-year-old mayor of San Antonio was invited to do so by the Democratic Party -- and his twin brother, Texas state Rep. and congressional candidate Joaquin Castro, was chosen to introduce him -- was a show of respect for America's largest minority.

The patchwork quilt that is the Democratic Party base -- women, Latinos, African-Americans -- will be on full display at Tuesday night's opening session of the national party convention. The highlight will be a prime-time address by First Lady Michelle Obama who is expected to play the same role Ann Romney did one week ago at the GOP gathering in Tampa: eschewing hard-edged politics for a soft-focus testimonial to her husband.

With the Republican National Convention at last in full-throated roar, nominee Mitt Romney and his team reached out Wednesday to connect with critical voting groups - veterans, Hispanics and women - while gleefully mocking the man he is out to defeat in November.

The Democratic mayor of Los Angeles says Republican efforts to use Latino speakers at the GOP national convention to win over Latino voters won't work. Antonio Villaraigosa (vee-yah-ry-GOH'-sah) told reporters Tuesday that the GOP "can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname" and expect Latinos to vote Republican. He called that window dressing.

Republicans' determination to label Obama as "un-American" will alienate Latino voters and lose the presidential race, says Maria Cardona... This week, Latino Decisions released a poll that gives Obama 70% of the Latino vote to Romney's 22%, the highest support the president has enjoyed from the Latino community to date. If those numbers hold, it will be very hard for Romney to win the election.

Stricter laws, like those that require photo identification, do seem to decrease voter turnout by about 2 percent, and the effects are worse for Democrats - though not as bad as some imply.

Vice President Joe Biden railed Tuesday against the GOP's hard-line stance on immigration in a speech warning Latino voters of the consequences if they "sit on your hands" in the coming elections.

Mitt Romney promises the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials long-term solutions to immigration concerns, but has few details... During the primaries, when he ran to the right of his Republican rivals on immigration, Romney said those here illegally should "self-deport" and leave the country. He opposed the Dream Act, which would have given a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants in college or the military. And he backed tough anti-illegal-immigrant policies in Arizona.