Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) continued to warn his party peers on Monday over the electoral fallout of alienating Hispanic voters, saying candidly that “the Republican Party cannot win a national election” without robust support from the emerging voting bloc.
During an interview on “NewsHour,” McCain said that enacting comprehensive immigration reform would put Republicans “on a playing field” with Democrats in competing with Hispanic voters. If not, McCain cautioned, the White House may forever be out of reach for a party that has already lost the popular vote in five out of the last six presidential elections.
So it’s not – you just can’t go to the electorate and say, we blocked everything that President Obama was trying to do. I think you got to show them some positive results and some positive vision for the future.
And I’ll say one other thing to you: If we don’t enact immigration reform, I don’t – let’s say we enact it, comprehensive immigration reform – I don’t think it gains a single Hispanic voter, but what it does, it puts us on a playing field where we can compete for the Hispanic voter.
If we don’t do that, frankly, I don’t see – I see further polarization of the Hispanic voter and the demographics are clear that the Republican Party cannot win a national election. That’s just a fact.
One of the leaders of the immigration reform effort, McCain has not hesitated to acknowledge the political consequences of the legislation. After the immigration bill passed the Senate last month, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee told TPM that his party will be doomed in 2016 if the reform effort fails.
