Few will argue that Obama’s Executive Order, which applies sweeping changes to how the administration deals with illegal aliens, wasn’t politically motivated.
More specifically, most believe (at least in part) that the goal in pressing forward with the order just after the midterms was a calculation that it could do for the Democrat Party’s control over the Hispanic vote what its support for the Civil Rights Act did for the black vote.
The test of that theory will surely come in the 2016 election cycle in the reelection campaign for newly-demoted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. 25% of Nevada’s population and 9% of its registered voters identify as Hispanic, reports The Hill.
In his 2010 narrow victory over Republican Sharon Angle, some election analysts speculate that Reid’s reelection was due in part to a combination of legal and illegal Hispanic votes resulting from concerted efforts at a come-from-behind GOTV scheme.
With Harry Reid’s popularity in Nevada polls already following the trajectory of Obama’s polling, his reelection campaign can certainly use the help from what some say will be a boost in support among Hispanics after the Executive Order.
Some question this narrative. If Republicans take a softer tone on the issue of immigration reform coupled with defection by more conservative Democrats in the 2016 election, whatever gains Reid may enjoy on election day could be largely canceled out.
