Shortly after losing the 2012 election to Barack Obama’s “Coalition of the Ascendant,” the Republican Party commissioned a report called the “Growth and Opportunity Project” — GOP, get it? — to sift through the wreckage of their defeat.
The report quickly became known as the Republican “autopsy,” which is how you’ve probably heard it referred to. You might be familiar with the broad strokes of its recommendations, but in case you’ve never opened up the 98-page document, it’s valuable to read its exact words, to put yourself in the mind of the Republican Party circa 2013. Here’s a key excerpt:
If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to engage them and show our sincerity.
President George W. Bush used to say, “Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande and a hungry mother is going to try to feed her child.” When Hispanics heard that, they knew he cared and were willing to listen to his policies on education, jobs, spending, etc. Because his first sentence struck a chord, Hispanic Americans were willing to listen to his second sentence. We heard this from other demographic groups as well. President Bush got 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, a modern-day record for a Republican presidential candidate.
If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies. In the last election, Governor Romney received just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. Other minority communities, including Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, also view the Party as unwelcoming. President Bush got 44 percent of the Asian vote in 2004; our presidential nominee received only 26 percent in 2012.
As one conservative, Tea-Party leader, Dick Armey, told us, “You can’t call someone ugly and expect them to go to the prom with you. We’ve chased the Hispanic voter out of his natural home.”
We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.
In 2024, according to CNN’s exit polls, the “Growth and Opportunity Project” got its wish: the Republican presidential nominee topped George W. Bush’s 2004 showing among Hispanic voters, drawing support from 46% of the demographic.
Needless to say, Donald Trump did not do it by embracing and championing comprehensive immigration reform. Hispanic voters, it turns out, were willing to listen to what a Republican had to say about “education, jobs or the economy,” no matter what they were saying about the border.
Not only did Trump perform 19 percentage points better among Hispanic voters in 2024 than Romney in 2012, but he did 14 percentage points better among Asian-American voters and seven percentage points better among Black voters. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, outperformed Barack Obama’s 2012 showing among white voters. The party coalitions are in flux.
Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini caught onto these trends earlier than almost anyone else, publishing his book “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP” back in November 2023 — a year before the 2024 election.
To understand Trump’s 2024 success, Ruffini told me, you have to go back not to an election he won, but an election he lost: 2020.
