Election 2016: Is Luis Gutierrez Losing Latino Votes for Supporting Mayor Emanuel?
Is Luis Gutierrez losing Latino votes for supporting Mayor Rahm Emanuel over Jesus "Chuy" Garcia in the city election?
Spanish radio host Javier Salas said he believes the 11-term incumbent is losing voters, according to ABC 7.
"It is perceived in the community, something like it's a betrayal. And people, when I talk to them, they always call him a traitor because he didn't side with Chuy Garcia," Salas said.
The radio host says voters are ready for a change as he runs for the 4th District Congressional seat in Chicago.
Gutierrez has represented the 4th District since 1993. He has not had a serious challenger in primary or general elections in decades. The Puerto Rican descent has risen to national popularity for his ongoing fight for immigration reform.
"I really believe that he has done a good job in Congress in keeping the conversation going on immigration reform," said State Sen. Iris Martinez.
Yet, Spanish-language radio host Vincent Serrano says conversation for immigration reform with no results is not enough.
"There is a sense that Gutierrez hasn't delivered, that Gutierrez has not been effective," Serrano said.
Salas says voters will remember who Gutierrez supported when they go to the polls in 2016.
"He didn't side with the people he says he defends all the time and I guess he was wrong but that's his life," the former advisor to Governor Pat Quinn said.
Salas added that 6 out of every 10 Latino voters in Chicago supported Mexican immigrant Chuy Garcia last spring while Gutierrez did not.
Meanwhile, radio talk show host John Derbyshire referred to Gutierrez as a Latino Supremacist.
"I don't want to live in a country that racially self-conscious, not even one like Brazil, with us whites living in gated communities up on the mountains and the other 133 races fighting over table scraps... down below," Derbyshire said. "That's the society congress-reptile Gutiérrez is wishing on us, though."
Voters will choose who they want to represent the 4th Congressional District next spring.
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