Election Seen as Test of Latinos’ Political Course

State Republican leaders convened the press corps recently to announce, in essence, that polls show they will lose two of three Latino voters in the Nov. 3 election.

They were happy it wasn’t worse. Democrats, however, are convinced that it will be.

Whichever is right, the answer on election day will be interpreted as a profound indicator of future Latino politics--and therefore California elections.

If Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Lungren gets about a third of the Latino support against Democrat Gray Davis, then GOP strategists say they will shrug off criticism that the party--which campaigned against illegal immigration and affirmative action--is racially divisive.

That benchmark--between 30% and 40% of the Latino vote--was common for Republican candidates before the party engaged in the controversy over those issues.

“We will finally drive the nail in the coffin of those who say that this is some monolithic [Latino] community that is against the Republican Party,” said Mike Madrid, political director for the state GOP. “That is not the case.”

But if Lungren’s support is closer to what Republican Bob Dole got in the last presidential race--just 18% of the California Latino vote--then Democrats are going to tout a fundamental realignment in state politics.

“[Republicans] have lost at least two generations of Latino voters, and it is going to be very hard for them to recoup,” state Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres said after a news conference on the topic in Los Angeles this week.

There is no disagreement between the parties about whether Republicans damaged their support in the Latino community by targeting illegal immigrants four years ago in Proposition 187, cutting off welfare benefits to legal immigrants in 1996, and scuttling government preference programs for minority students and professionals the same year with Proposition 209.

“When I go into the [Latino] neighborhoods . . . Proposition 187 is still a powerful, emotional, visceral issue,” said Ruben Barrales, the Republican nominee for state controller.

Strategists will try to glean from this election whether the damage is temporary or likely to be long-lasting. Madrid is convinced that “it was a bubble.”

This year, both parties have staked their hopes for Latino support on sharply different messages to different segments of the Latino community.

Democratic and Republican strategists have each recognized two politically distinct groups within the Latino community--basically those registered before Proposition 187 in 1994 and those registered since.

Madrid has put most of the GOP effort into the pre-1994 group. It includes a growing middle class that he calls “Volvo Latinos.”

GOP outreach efforts this year focused on suburban communities in the Inland Empire and elsewhere, where Madrid said many Latino voters have moved in recent years for better jobs, lower crime and quality education.

“The next phase of Latino politics is who can best address the needs of the emerging Latino middle class,” Madrid said. “The center of power was East Los Angeles. That is not going to be the case in 10 years. It is changing from urban-based politics to a more suburban-based politics.”

The state GOP sponsored nine seminars for suburban Latino activists this year in an effort to “reconnect” with those who have voted Republican in the past but were angered by the immigration and affirmative action controversies, Madrid said.

The seminars emphasized three issues on which Republicans claimed an advantage over Democrats--aid to small business, crime and education.

Lungren’s campaign has included some of these issues in its recent Spanish-language television commercials. In one ad, the candidate’s bilingual daughter, Kathleen, says in Spanish, “As governor he would fight to improve our education system and to combat crime and drugs. My father will be a great governor.”

Democrats Cite Wilson’s Role

Lungren, who has traveled to minority communities more than any Republican gubernatorial candidate in memory, has argued during the campaign that Republican views on education, crime and other issues neatly mesh with the beliefs of Latinos.

“We are a party that has principles and values that are consistent with the strong feelings found in the Hispanic community at large,” he said on the stump Tuesday in Los Angeles, adding that “our party hasn’t done a very good job explaining that.

“The hope [is] that with our presence, and our campaign’s presence throughout, that we can change that.”

Democrats are paying special attention to the most recently registered Latino voters. And their principal message is a reminder of Gov. Pete Wilson’s role in promoting Proposition 187 in his reelection campaign.

“All we have to do is show a picture of Pete Wilson, and they know the difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties,” Torres said Monday.

Davis takes a similar tack in his Spanish-language TV ads, which feature Democratic Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa. “The choice for governor couldn’t be simpler,” Villaraigosa says in the spot. “Republican Dan Lungren voted with Wilson in favor of Propositions 187 and 209. . . . Gray Davis, he fought with us.”

Earlier this year, Democratic consultant Richard Ross and others prepared a strategy for reaching out to Latinos that identified 1.2 million potential Latino votes in the 1998 general election, and predicted that Democrats should win more than 70% of those.

Their analysis said Latino voters registered since Proposition 187--about 600,000, according to Ross--are more politically active and more Democratic than the population as a whole. If Republican Lungren fares poorly with Latinos next month, Democrats say it will prove there has been a long-term shift against his party.

“The effects of Proposition 187 on Latino voting behavior and level of participation are reshaping California’s political landscape,” Ross wrote.

A recent poll of Latino voters by the Democratic National Committee yielded perceptions that the party’s candidates for federal office might use: Republicans “just don’t like Latinos;” Republicans want to “keep all immigrants out of America” and Republicans are against affirmative action.

That strategy may not work in California’s U.S. Senate race. GOP nominee Matt Fong has reminded voters repeatedly that he has suffered discrimination because of his Chinese ancestry and that he was neutral on Proposition 187.

Fong has formed a kind of Latino kitchen cabinet from which he seeks advice, and is advertising on Spanish-language television.

Still, researchers at the independent Field Poll say Fong’s support among Latino voters--about 30%--resembles Lungren’s at 36%. They also found Democrat Davis at 55% support among Latinos and Boxer at 57%. They conceded, however, that the number of Latino respondents was not large enough for that finding to be scientifically sound.

Times political writer Cathleen Decker and staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.