Tough Election Challenge: Make Hispanics a GOP voting bloc.

In my opinion, Hispanics at this stage are a tossup voting group that slightly leans to the Democrats, but this is your challenge:

Without drastically changing the ideology of the GOP, make Hispanic Americans a voting bloc for the Republican Party, that vote 60%, 70% percent for the GOP usually. Much like African Americans for the Democrats.
 
60-70% is a lot more attainable than the 90+% that African-Americans usually turn out for the Democratic Party.

I think the easiest way to make that happen is for the Democrats to spend the 70s and 80s really doubling down as a pro-union, protectionist party. Strong opposition to free trade and NAFTA equivalents, combined with a parallel opposition to illegal and legal immigration of all kinds.

Add to that a few notable bigot eruptions, and I think you could make it happen. It would be particularly magnified if black-brown relations take a turn for the worse; with black leaders supporting a nativist Democratic Party, they could really be at the forefront of the fight.

Meanwhile, the Republican free-trade policies encourage immigration, and make it much easier for employers to hire immigrant workers, with right-to-work laws having more punch against nativist unions.
 
Keep them the progressive party of Lincoln, maybe by having Roosevelt get the Republican Nomination in 1912 by promising Taft a place on the Supreme Court or have La Follette be less hostile to Roosevelt.

You did say without drastically changing the GOP's ideology, you didn't say when. :D
 
60-70% is a lot more attainable than the 90+% that African-Americans usually turn out for the Democratic Party.

I think the easiest way to make that happen is for the Democrats to spend the 70s and 80s really doubling down as a pro-union, protectionist party. Strong opposition to free trade and NAFTA equivalents, combined with a parallel opposition to illegal and legal immigration of all kinds.

Add to that a few notable bigot eruptions, and I think you could make it happen. It would be particularly magnified if black-brown relations take a turn for the worse; with black leaders supporting a nativist Democratic Party, they could really be at the forefront of the fight.

Meanwhile, the Republican free-trade policies encourage immigration, and make it much easier for employers to hire immigrant workers, with right-to-work laws having more punch against nativist unions.


This is actually quite plausible. In the 80's Working Class White Voters "Reagan Democrats" saw the Democratic Party as the party solely as the Party of Minorities, Hippies and Angry Liberals, so maybe the Dems adopt an anti immigrant pro union stance, that is appealing to both blacks and the working class.

The strategy is somewhat succesful, with the Dems doing a little better against Reagan in 1984. But everything from 1984 to 1992 is mostly the same.

We'd need to butterfly Bubba Clinton in 1992, his "New Democrat" economic policies included NAFTA and he got a lot of Hispanic support.

So in 2000, Bush/ McCain/ and GOP achieves a majority of Hispanic support.

Someone else can take it from there.
 
This is actually quite plausible. In the 80's Working Class White Voters "Reagan Democrats" saw the Democratic Party as the party solely as the Party of Minorities, Hippies and Angry Liberals, so maybe the Dems adopt an anti immigrant pro union stance, that is appealing to both blacks and the working class.

The strategy is somewhat succesful, with the Dems doing a little better against Reagan in 1984. But everything from 1984 to 1992 is mostly the same.

We'd need to butterfly Bubba Clinton in 1992, his "New Democrat" economic policies included NAFTA and he got a lot of Hispanic support.

So in 2000, Bush/ McCain/ and GOP achieves a majority of Hispanic support.

Someone else can take it from there.

I think you need to keep the Reagan Democrats away from Reagan and into a much bigger role in the Democratic party. The simple way, of course, is to just eliminate Reagan in some way: either through the usual morbid means, or something coming up that made him decide against running for office in 1980. Or, I suppose in 1966 for the governorship of California.

I really don't know who could have taken over in mid-60s California politics, but a populist Democrat who railed against immigration seems like he could get his start there and then and jump off to the national scene pretty quickly.

Or going away from California, you have Scoop Jackson on the scene - he had enough of a track record on civil rights to hold the black vote, and a law and order personality to maybe join efforts to close down the border?
 
In my opinion, Hispanics at this stage are a tossup voting group that slightly leans to the Democrats, but this is your challenge:

Without drastically changing the ideology of the GOP, make Hispanic Americans a voting bloc for the Republican Party, that vote 60%, 70% percent for the GOP usually. Much like African Americans for the Democrats.

Well, we are not. Not even close. Except for Cubans, Latinos vote more reliably Dem than any other group except Blacks, and that's been true since FDR. GWB briefly managed to get 20-30% Mexican support because he was one of the few Repubs to stand up to the immigrant bashing wave of the 90s, but that blip hardly counts.

You'd probably need the labor movement to be far more self destructively anti immigrant. Again, that would take a lot because Latinos are one of the most pro union groups out there.

Or maybe a far earlier POD that leaves many more Latinos trying to "pass" and claim to be "Spanish." A Plan of San Diego that goes much further, leading to far worse repression than IOTL.
 
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