Rick Scott: "dead man walking" when it comes to immigration?

Rick Scott won the GOP primary, but immigration advocates caution he's going to have a tough time attracting support from Hispanics -- given his strong championing of Arizona's immigration law.

"While it did in the short term help Scott emerge from the primary, it leaves him in the position of almost being a dead man walking when you look at his favorability rating," said Fernand Amandi, vice president of Democratic pollster Bendixen & Amandi. "How does Scott tap into any Hispanic support I think is a key question for Florida."

He and GOP lobbyist Ana Navarro, who dropped her support for Bill McCollum after he backed legislation even tougher than Arizona's, suggested on a conference call that it was McCollum's walkback on immigration that at least partly cost him the primary. McCollum won Miami-Dade -- but turnout there was below that of the rest of the state, Amandi said.

"You look at a three point loss and the county with the biggest number of Hispanic Republicans being Miami-Dade underperformed," Amandi said. "Several factors were in play but how could one of them not have been the 11th hour move on immigration...which alienated a significant amount of his Hispanic Republican supporters."

Comments

[Diggy]

Stop suggesting that Hispanic Republican voters who oppose the Arizona law will somehow sway the next governor's election. They wont. First, according to the US Census, only 21.5% of the state population is Hispanic. Second, most Hispanic registered voters are Democrats who wouldn't vote for Rick Scott regardless of his immigration position. Also, the largest concentration of Hispanic Republicans is in Miami-Dade County and that County has consistently voted for Democrats in nearly every statewide and presidential election for decades.

[Maria R.]

Dead man walking? Are you kidding? Rick Scott was nothing until he took a hard-line position on illegal immigration and was launched into the stratosphere. It's a position that has huge overwhelming support among non-Hispanics throughout Florida and the rest of the nation. Scott lost Miami-Dade 2 to 1, but still managed a convincing victory statewide.

You go with what works, so you can expect that Rick Scott will milk that anti-immigration cow right up until election day. Alex Sink would be wise to take a similar stand against illegal immigration to neutralize that issue. If she is soft or wavers like McCollum, you can expect her to go the same way as McCollum - into the loser column.

[Rick Scott: racist]

Rick Scott's stand on illegal immigration is what's known as "pandering to the racist base" of the GOP. Don't think that what few Republican hispanics there are don't see through that. If you pander to racists, that makes you one of them.

[Marshall B.]

Your an idiot. It has nothing to do with racism. It has everything to do with "Legal vs Illegal". You are a moronic fraud and should be tracked down and arrested for signing your post as Rick Scott.

[Erdal]

Yes we Floridians voted in Rick Scott. What does that say about the lady that ran angiast him.