Ted Cruz On Latino Vote: Romney Lost Because Of ’47 Percent’

By Elise Foley, Huffington Post Latino Voices

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen.-elect Ted Cruz, who will become the first Latino senator from Texas when he takes office next year, blames his party’s weakness with Hispanic voters on one statement: former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’sclaim that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government and want to stay that way.

“You want to know why Barack Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote? Tone on immigration contributed, but I think far more important was ’47 percent,'” Cruz said Thursday at a gala for conservative group the American Principles Project.

He said it wasn’t necessarily Romney’s fault — “everyone, if you put a camera in their face all day long, will say something poorly” — it was that Republicans were unable to show that the party doesn’t think those Americans want to improve their economic standing.

“Republicans nationally, the story we conveyed is that the 47 percent are stuck in a static world. We don’t have to worry about them. … I cannot think of an idea more antithetical to the American principles,” Cruz said.

For an often barn-burning conservative speaker, Cruz seemed toned down, but still crowd-pleasing, at his first major appearance in Washington since the election. He heavily criticized President Barack Obama and the Democratic party as a whole, whose policies he said have decimated the economy, destroyed the education system and taken away rights. But kept a lighter tone than some of his previous speeches.

Like many Republicans, Cruz argued that Latinos are conservatives…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

Elise Foley is a reporter for the Huffington Post in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at The Washington Independent.