A number of key Republicans, including fellow presidential nomination candidate and South Caroline senator Lindsey Graham, have begun distancing themselves from real estate mogul Donald Trump over his controversial stance on undocumented immigrants. Graham says that Trump, who last month accused undocumented Mexican immigrants of being rapists and bringing infectious diseases into the United States, is a “wrecking ball” for the Republican Party’s chances of winning the Hispanic vote.
Appearing on the State of the Union program on CNN, Graham declared: “At the end of the day, for us to win a national election, we need to do better with Hispanics. And for us to have the moral authority as a party to govern a great nation, we have to do reject this demagoguery. If we don’t, we will lose, and we will deserve to lose.”
Hispanic voters have become of growing importance to politics in the United States as a result of their numbers increasing in the country. It was this demographic’s support that helped President Obama to win the White House for a second time in 2012; however, Hispanics also make up the majority of undocumented immigrants.
Graham, who has long been a supporter of immigration reform, says that the debate over immigration has been hijacked by Trump; however, another candidate, Carly Fiorina, says that the real estate mogul has merely tapped “into an anger that I hear every day” and that securing the borders of the United States is “not extreme, it’s commonsense”.
