“The only way we lose this election is if we beat ourselves and that is very possible, but we are getting creamed with non-white voters,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who said he’s “98.6% sure” he’ll run for president.
“We’ll lose” if Republicans don’t improve their chances with minorities, said Graham.
Speaking to Susan Page on USA Today’s “Capital Download,” Graham explained: “I mean, we’ve got a big hole we’ve dug with Hispanics. We’ve gone from 44 percent of the Hispanic vote [in the 2004 presidential election] to 27 percent [in 2012.]
“You’ll never convince me … it’s not because of the immigration debate,” said Graham, who is the only contender for the GOP bid that supports a pathway to legalization before tackling border security.
“No Democratic Congress is going to give the Republican Party everything we want on border security until you tell them what happens to the 11 million” illegal immigrants, he said.
“If I were the president of the United States, I would veto any bill that did not have a pathway to citizenship,” said Graham.
“You would have a long, hard path to citizenship… but I want to create that path because I don’t like the idea of millions of people living in America for the rest of their lives being the hired help. That’s not who we are.”
