Surprising Issue That Could Derail Marco Rubio’s Presidential Chances With Latino Voters

ThinkProgress ?@thinkprogress 50m50 minutes ago
What Marco Rubio’s climate denial means for his presidential chances http://thkpr.gs/3645153


When Marco Rubio announces his bid for President Monday, he’ll become one of two candidates of Latino descent in the running. But Rubio’s history of denial of human-caused climate change isn’t likely to help his case among Latino voters, a group that, as a whole, is among the strongest supporters of U.S. action on climate change.

Rubio’s long been open about his doubt that climate change is being caused by humans. Last year, Rubio said that he didn’t agree that “somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate.” According to Rubio, the Earth’s climate “is always changing,” and in saying that climate change is real, scientists have taken “a handful of decades of research and — and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity.”

These opinions not only put him in opposition to with the 97 percent of climate scientists that believe climate change is happening and is human-caused, they also directly conflict the views of most Latino voters. A 2014 poll found that nine out of 10 Latinos in the U.S. — including 68 percent of Republican Latinos — want the U.S. to take action against climate change. Matt Barreto, co-founder of polling firm Latino Decisions, said when the poll was announced that immigration was the only other issue where he’d seen such consistent support among Latinos.

A poll from this year found that Latinos were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to say that climate change was an issue that was “very important” to them personally, and were also more likely to say that climate change would end up hurting them personally.


read more: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/13/3645153/marco-rubio-climate-change-latinos/