With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo, Nancy Vu and Teresa Wiltz

What up, Recast family. All eyes are on the Supreme Court as we wait for two big rulings on affirmative action and Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan. But today, we look at the historic slate of GOP presidential candidates.

The expanding field of Republican candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination continues to set records for being the GOP’s most diverse in modern history.

But there’s no consensus among party faithful and strategists on whether this high water mark constitutes an achievement — or if it should even be celebrated or acknowledged.

To date, six candidates of color are running on the GOP side, with former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, who launched less than a week ago, being the latest to enter the crowded contest and helping to set the party’s new benchmark: Half of the Republican Party’s major candidates are people of color.

“I look at it as a conservative message delivered by the right person is where the majority of the country is,” Hurd, who is biracial, tells The Recast.

“But we’ve got to get the right person to deliver it, and we can make inroads not just in Black and brown communities, but with women in the suburbs, and folks under the age of 35.”

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Hurd, who served three terms in the House and prior to that was a CIA officer, joins a presidential field that includes:

• Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, an African American
• Conservative talk show host Larry Elder, an African American
• Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian American
• Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, an Indian American
• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Cuban American

Hurd adds that the slate of candidates of color represents a “good arc” for the party. Back in the late 1990s, he says, when Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma was the lone Black Republican serving in the U.S. House, few could have predicted today’s exceedingly diverse slate.

He also points to his own experience representing a district that was nearly two-thirds Latino. As he sees it, voters want to hear from candidates who can talk about issues that can make their lives better, and the GOP has been growing its bench of candidates for some time.

“I think it’s meaningful. And, you know, it’s one of those things you look at, and you sort of, you say, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool,’” says Lanhee Chen, a longtime Republican strategist who served as policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s two presidential campaigns and who ran unsuccessfully for California comptroller last year.

“I think it’s gratifying to see, obviously, [but] there’s a long way between being a candidate and being elected. So it’s a long road to travel.”

The GOP has fielded at least one non-white candidate for president since 1996 (not including years a Republican incumbent was seeking reelection) when former diplomat Alan Keyes and the late U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Arthur Fletcher vied to be the first African Americans to be the Republican standard-bearer.

Fletcher withdrew before the primary contests that year and Keyes, who failed to win any primary, again launched failed bids in 2000 and 2008.

A breakthrough year for Republican minority candidates came in 2016, when Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both Cuban American, proved to be serious contenders for a time, with Cruz winning 11 states. Both senators ultimately lost the nomination to Donald Trump.

For Republicans of color, a group that includes Herman Cain and Ben Carson, the party’s nomination has been elusive thanks in part to persistent questions about their viability, which isn’t likely to change during this presidential cycle.

“I separate ‘qualified’ from ‘viable’ candidates,” says Paris Dennard, a former spokesperson and director of Black media affairs for the Republican National Committee.

“You have a deep bench of qualified minority candidates of color, but from a viability standpoint, it is former President Trump and Gov. [Ron] DeSantis with the lion’s share of support in the Republican primary.”

Indeed, Trump maintains a commanding lead in national polling, including a 29-point advantage over the Florida governor in the recent NBC News poll released over the weekend. DeSantis, at 22 percent, is the only other GOP candidate in double digits.

With two white candidates dominating the GOP contest in the early going, it is understandable why little attention is being paid to the history-making field the Republicans are running.

“The long shots don’t surprise me,” says Republican strategist Rina Shah.

She points to the mounting legal woes facing the former president, including the 31 federal charges he’s facing under the Espionage Act for his handling of classified records and his alleged efforts to obscure those records from investigators.

“Everybody feels like they could be the one to topple Trump, because they’re looking at the moment like Trump is toast,” she adds.

Democratic officials tell The Recast they are focusing their efforts on defeating Trump in the general election. As they see it, none of the group of six minority GOP candidates will make a serious dent in the former president’s sizable polling advantage.

They argue issues like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, abortion access and voting rights are popular among voters of color, while it is culture war issues like critical race theory or the “war on woke” that animate the GOP base.

Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked on both of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, says he’s struck by the fact that none of the GOP candidates is willing to take on Trump directly.

“How are you ever going to get in front of the guy who’s ahead of you, especially the guy who’s ahead of you by 30 points if in fact you never make a case against him?”

With the exception of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, he says, none have shown the political cojones to challenge Trump.

“So to a certain extent,” Belcher says, “all these other cats, they’re really running for second place.”

We’ll keep tabs on this as the GOP primary contest continues to take shape.

All the best,
The Recast Team

THE WAY TO WIN WITH LATINOS

Democrats will be looking to Latino voters in key battleground states to win big in 2024 ― but they’re going to have to avoid the mistakes of 2022.

A new study from the Way to Win Action Fund, a progressive strategy group, shows that President Joe Biden risks underperforming with this key demographic if he repeats the mistakes Democrats made in the 2022 midterms.

The study, conducted across eight focus groups in English and Spanish in Arizona and Nevada, found that Democrats are missing opportunities to brag about legislative victories — and they’re not effectively countering Republican messaging on the economy and crime.

“If the election were held today,” the study found, Biden could “ jeopardize his ability to carry these critical states again.”

The study found that, for Latino voters, the economy will be the most important issue this upcoming election, with “protecting democracy” and abortion coming in second and third, respectively.

However, more than three-quarters of the voters surveyed said they were unaware of any passed legislation from Democrats and Biden ― underlining a consistent problem as the party struggles to market their wins.

According to a media analysis of the 2022 midterms released by the group in May, Democrats ran “very few” ads defending Biden’s passed agenda, and did not focus on their economic accomplishments, foregoing messaging on job creation and other possible narratives.

The current study shows that a number of undecided voters were swayed by a narrative about Democrat’s economic accomplishments.

The 2022 review also saw that Republican attacks on crime and immigration went largely unanswered. Public safety is an important issue to Latinos in both states ― but voters did not perceive it to be as important to the Democratic Party.

The takeaway: Democrats must find a potent narrative in order to sell their policies to American voters.

“When Democrats will start with an issue agenda, you’ve already lost half the folks because it’s just not compelling,” Tory Gavito, Way to Win’s president and CEO, tells The Recast. “This is a campaign for hearts and minds, and we have to think about it that way.”

ICYMI @ POLITICO

McBride Seeking History, Again — Sarah McBride, the highest-ranking openly transgender elected official in the country, is looking to make history again. POLITICO’s Matt Berg reports on McBride’s bid for Congress.

Adams Hammered on Migrants — NYC Mayor Eric Adams had been making a point of hammering Republicans for sending asylum-seekers to Democratic cities. POLITICO’s Joe Anuta reports Adams was doing something similar, sending migrants to red states like Florida and Texas.

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