Bush seeks connection with blacks, Hispanics

Jeb Bush  seeks something that has increasingly eluded Republican presidential candidates: votes from minorities.

The former Florida governor has made a series of appearances before Hispanic and African-American voters in recent days and says he will continue to do so in a bid to win the White House in an increasingly diverse country.

"If you're going to aspire to be president of the United States, you should aspire to be president of all people," Bush told NBC News after a recent speech to a National Urban League conference in Fort Lauderdale.

"I intend to continue to campaign ... in places where I'm not preaching to the choir necessarily," said Bush, who is making an especially big push for Hispanic votes.

If Bush's recent appearance before the National Urban League is any indication, he and other Republicans have their work cut out.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

"He has no credibility with me," said Audrey Peterman, 63, who owns an environmental consulting firm in Fort Lauderdale.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said suspicions of minority voters have "everything to do with the rise of the far right interests in the Republican Party and the far right rhetoric."

That has ranged from opposition to immigration legislation to what Morial described as GOP-led efforts to suppress voting by African Americans.

Still, he said, it's important for Bush and other Republicans to reach out.

"It's dumb to ignore segments of the electorate," said Morial,  former mayor of New Orleans.

Tony Brown, who worked in the George W. Bush administration and likes Jeb Bush as well, said Republicans cannot afford to ignore the growing number of minority voters across the country. "They have to show genuine effort, like Jeb has," said Brown, executive director of Florida's Riviera Beach Community Development Agency.

In his remarks to the Urban League, Bush said that for too long, Democratic social policies, reminiscent of the "War on Poverty" during the 1960s, have ill served minority communities.

The former Florida governor  promoted a conservative agenda that included charter schools and market-oriented economic programs that could fuel growth and provide jobs.

Though there are indeed "unjust barriers to opportunity and upward mobility" that should be removed, Bush said more people will be better off if "we could come together and get a few big things right in government."

In seeking minority votes, especially African Americans, Bush and other Republicans are fighting a grim history.

Once reliable members of the party of Abraham Lincoln, African Americans began turning against the Republicans during the 1960s. One key moment: the decision by 1964 GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater to oppose that year's Civil Rights Act on constitutional grounds.

In more recent years, Hispanics — the fastest-growing segment of the electorate — have turned against Republicans over immigration and other issues.

Trends have  accelerated in recent years, contributing to the election of the nation's first African-American president in Barack Obama.

In his 2008 win over the Republican nominee, John McCain, Obama carried about 95% of the African-American vote and 67% of Hispanic voters, according to exit polls.

Four years later, winning re-election over Mitt Romney, Obama carried about 93% of African-Americans and 71% of Hispanics.

Bush wants to reduce those numbers, as do other Republican presidential candidates. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for example, touts the fact that in his 2014 re-election race, he carried heavily minority Cuyahoga County, which includes the city of Cleveland.

After a recent appearance in Orlando, Bush said, "Republicans need to campaign everywhere — not just amongst Latinos but amongst blacks. It's OK to get outside your comfort zone. It's OK that not everybody agrees with my views. It's not OK to not try."

Democrats say they are unconcerned about Bush's minority outreach, saying his record as Florida governor will work against him. "His outreach is disingenuous at best and will assuredly be stymied by his record and policies that have been horrible for the groups he is trying to court," said Democratic Party spokeswoman Holly Shulman.

Bush has some experience attracting minority votes, having done so in winning two governor races in Florida. In 1998, exit polls indicated that Bush took 61% of the Hispanic vote and 14% of the black vote, both numbers higher than average for Republican candidates.

A Spanish speaker who is married to a native of Mexico, Bush has especially high hopes for appealing to Hispanic voters. His outreach efforts, including a recent interview in Spanish with Telemundo and support for an immigration plan that would offer legal status to qualified migrants, recall those of his brother  George W. Bush. He carried 44% of the Hispanic vote in his 2004 presidential re-election campaign.

David Redlawsk, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, said Republicans face a "rough road" in seeking minority voters — but it's a necessary journey, given the nation's growth patterns.

"For future Republican candidates to do well, they've got to do better with minority voters," he said. "On the national level, they won't win presidential elections without it moving forward."

Follow @djusatoday on Twitter