2014 Election To Feature Immigration Reform, Maybe

Miami, FL (Law Firm Newswire) June 25, 2014 – Immigration reform is likely to be a major election campaign issue.

“There are plenty of predictions about who will win the election, such as Nate Silver’s forecast on ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight.com. Silver suggests the GOP will win control of the Senate and remain in control of the House of Representatives. He also foresees that Republicans may snag as many as six seats in the Senate alone. His forecast is predicated on the apparent flagging popularity of the President, balanced with the GOP’s ever increasing slate of relatively appealing candidates,” says Larry Rikfin, a Miami immigration lawyer and managing partner at Rifkin & Fox-Isicoff, with law offices in Miami, Florida and Orlando, Florida.

Who wins the 2014 election is a matter of what the major issues are and how each party and politician handles them while in the glaring election spotlight.

In 2012, Obama rode into office on a wave of Hispanic voters, defeating Mitt Romney by a 44-point margin. At that time Republicans started talking about revamping their thoughts on immigration to play to the growing Latino constituency. That point-of-view did not last long and even though the Senate did pass immigration reform legislation, the bill stalled in the House, and remains stalled.

It was conservative Elephants that fiercely opposed immigration reform, successfully halting any further momentum. It is not likely that reform will pass in 2014 either, but it has all the earmarks of being a hot button topic, especially in districts with a large Hispanic population.

The 2014 election campaign promises to be highly divisive in a number of ways, depending on what each constituency feels is critical to them – immigration reform or Obamacare. In many areas of the nation the health care reform rollout was branded as a disaster and damaged the Democrats reputation. “However, despite the initial confusion that reigned, public opinion is beginning to shift in favor of the Democrats once again, because people are finally seeing the benefits of the legislation,” adds Rifkin.

Will the election be won based on immigration reform progress or lack thereof, or will it be won on Obamacare that people are beginning to like? According to a Kaiser Health tracking poll, done in March 2014, the general opinion on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) shifted in a positive direction, with over half the respondents saying they are fed up with the national ACA debate. They want to move on to other issues.

“Which issue will win the day in 2014? This is one election that bears watching closely to see how each party chooses to mount their strategy to win,” says Rifkin.