The National Republican Congressional Committee is well aware of their party’s problems with Latino voters, but insists it’s making progress. Indeed, the NRCC has a list of 27 non-incumbent Latino candidates running for office in 2012.
Elise Foley, however, discovered some problems with the list.
There’s just one issue: Some of the candidates on the list aren’t actually Latino — or even registered Republicans.
The Huffington Post contacted each of the 27 reportedly Latino candidates touted by the NRCC, and spoke to more than half. Most of them said they hadn’t heard from the NRCC before they announced their run — and many still haven’t. In addition, two of the candidates told the Huffington Post they were married to Latinos, but were not Latino themselves. […]
The problems with the list don’t end there. One candidate listed is no longer registered as a Republican for the purposes of his campaign.
So, the National Republican Congressional Committee put together a list of Latino Republican candidates for 2012, without realizing that some of them aren’t Latino and one of them isn’t even a Republican.
This isn’t the sort of thing that’ll do as much damage as Republican support for “self-deportation” policies, or unyielding opposition to the DREAM Act, but it certainly doesn’t help. And the fact that the NRCC wasn’t aware of this helps reinforce the larger issue about Republicans and their disconnect from Latino voters.
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