WASHINGTON (By Will Sullivan, US News) June 13, 2007 — After President Bush finished his appeal Tuesday to GOP senators to back the stalled immigration bill, Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez conceded that the measure still faced an uphill battle.

"I don't think he changed any minds," he said, adding that Bush may have had some impact with those on the fence.

But the overall assessment is worrisome news for Martinez, the Cuban-born backer of the legislation, who said earlier this month that failure to support comprehensive immigration reform could mean the "destruction of our party." And it's bad news for Bush, too. The president's popularity with Hispanic voters brought him a record percentage of their votes in 2004. But now the former Texas governor finds that his own position on handling illegal immigration wins more support from Democrats. As the Republican Party's fractured position on immigration continues to be aired in Congress and on the campaign trail, experts say, the party risks losing ground with a population that is just coming into its own as a political force.

In his 2004 re-election, Bush won an estimated 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, stirring Democratic fears that their long-standing support from Latino voters was in doubt. But by 2006, without Bush on the ballot, and following passage of a harsh immigration bill by a Republican House, nearly 70 percent of Hispanic votes went to Democrats, according to exit polls. The climate since the election has left some Republicans worried that the future of the relationship between Latinos and the GOP could be increasingly difficult.

"Once you've been tagged as anti-immigration, it takes a decade or a generation to get that back, just like the civil rights issue in the '60s," said Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, who has authored his own comprehensive immigration bill in the House.

Arizona Sen. John McCain was the only Republican presidential candidate to support the Senate bill at a New Hampshire debate this month and was one of only seven GOP senators to back a vote to end debate on the bill last week. The failure to generate 60 votes for the motion caused Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid to pull the bill. There is certainly more support for the compromise immigration package than the vote would indicate—those voting no on ending debate included several Republican senators who crafted the bill. And the Republican National Committee has attempted to minimize the negative impact the debate is having on Republican standing among Hispanics, highlighting a number of appearances by Martinez in Hispanic media. But Martinez, the RNC chair, does not have the backing of the majority of his party on this issue.

That doesn't mean the Democrats are united. Eleven Democrats voted against the cloture motion, and some of the amendments that most threatened the fragile compromise came from the left. Nor are Hispanic groups wholeheartedly in favor of the bill, which links a guest-worker program and path to citizenship for illegal immigrants with enforcement provisions and barriers to citizenship that many consider too punitive. While the National Council of La Raza has supported the bill with reservations, the League of United Latin American Citizens has not. But most Democrats who have attempted to amend the bill have tried to remove portions that Hispanic groups consider onerous, while most Republican amendments would enhance those provisions.

"I think that the willingness to address the problem is the No. 1 issue," said Michele Waslin, director of immigration policy research at La Raza.

A growing rift between Hispanics and the GOP could have ominous political overtones. The Hispanic population grew by more than 20 percent between 2000 and 2005 and now represents the country's largest minority group. Using 2004 exit poll numbers and projected increases in the Hispanic population, the Democratic micro targeting firm Strategic Telemetry estimated that Hispanic voters would move the battleground states of Nevada and New Mexico into the Democratic column by 2016. If the 2004 election were replayed in 2020, the study calculated, the Democratic candidate would also take Iowa and Ohio, winning the White House with 283 electoral votes.

The changes in the primary schedule for 2008 will only accelerate the emergence of Hispanics as a crucial voter group. In part to have the eventual nominee better represent Latino voters, the DNC moved up the Nevada caucus to January 19, between the more monochromatic Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. A number of states with large Hispanic populations—including Florida, California, and New Jersey—have also moved up their own primaries to closely follow New Hampshire.

"We'll have what I refer to as 'Hispanic Tuesday,'" says Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University, a play on the "Super Tuesday" cluster of primaries. But the real Hispanic Tuesday may not come until Nov. 4, 2008, when voters will pick a new occupant of the White House.