https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/01/shakeup-in-rncs-hispanic-media-shop-as-party-prepares-for-trump-nomination/?postshare=1941464834511864&tid=ss_twShakeup in RNC’s Hispanic media shop as party prepares for Trump nominationBy Ed O'Keefe June 1 at 10:27 PM
Donald Trump arrives at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on May 12, 2016. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
The head of Hispanic media relations for the Republican National Committee is leaving party headquarters to join a conservative group supporting GOP congressional candidates. She'll be replaced by a former top aide to Jeb Bush.
The shakeup comes a little more than a month before Donald Trump is set to formally accept the Republican presidential nomination. His candidacy has earned support despite accusations that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are criminals and rapists and recent attacks on prominent Hispanic political and legal figures.
Ruth Guerra, who had served as Hispanic media director for the last several years, is departing to join the American Action Network, a conservative group helping elect GOP congressional candidates, according to multiple Republicans familiar with the plans.
The RNC announced Wednesday night that Guerra will be replaced by Helen Aguirre Ferre, a seasoned GOP operative and former Spanish-language conservative radio talk show host with deep roots in the Miami area.
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Despite years spent building the RNC's outreach to minority voters, the dichotomy of being a Republican paid to defend a candidate attacking Hispanics on a near-daily basis proved to be too much for Guerra, according to multiple Latino Democratic and Republican operatives familiar with her thinking. Despite differences in party affiliation, Latino Democratic and Republican aides in Washington are a tight-knit group given that just a handful hold prominent positions.
"I'm so proud of her" for leaving, one Hispanic Republican said Wednesday night when told the news. "I don't know how she held on for this long."
Pablo Manriquez, until recently a top Hispanic media official with the Democratic National Committee, credited Guerra for helping build a "national infrastructure" designed to attract minority voters "that it's obvious Donald Trump has no intention of deploying in the way."
"Having been the Hispanic media director across the political divide from her, she was always much better at that role than I was. She was easily the top Hispanic television press operative I saw this cycle," he said. "It's a huge loss for the RNC."
Guerra did not return requests for comment on Wednesday night. News of her departure was first reported by The New York Times.
Aguirre Ferre is a former aide and close friend of Bush and his family, who prepped the former Florida governor for major speeches and presidential debates. She also served as a surrogate on Spanish-language television channels and once hosted a radio program for Univision's national network of talk radio stations. She was a top Hispanic affairs adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.
In a statement, Aguirre Ferre said she's "eager to make the case to the Hispanic community why Republican ideas and values are the way forward for our country after eight years of an Obama agenda which has failed all Americans."
Despite that eagerness, she had raised doubts about Trump, especially during appearances on Spanish-language television programs in the past year to tout Bush as the Republican best-positioned to woo Hispanics back to the GOP.
More recently, she appears to have deleted at least one tweet critical of Trump, but a cached copy of the tweet from mid-May shows that it linked to a poll suggesting Miami-area Cuban Americans would leave the GOP if the businessman won the nomination.
Trump's candidacy found early support amid his calls to charge Mexico for the construction of a multibillion-dollar border wall and his claims that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists across the U.S. border illegally. In more recent days, Trump has alarmed party leaders and legal experts by attacking prominent Hispanics, including New Mexico's Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and Gonzalo P. Curiel, a U.S. district judge in California overseeing a legal challenge to his now-defunct Trump University.
His rhetoric has led to record-low approval ratings for Trump among Latino voters. And it all but destroys years of work by the RNC to improve its outreach to minority voters, especially Hispanics in southern and western swing states.
Guerra, a Texan of Mexican descent, was critical to the RNC's attempts to improve its outreach to minority voters in the wake of Romney's 2012 loss. He earned just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote -- a historic low -- in part after suggesting that many undocumented immigrants would "self-deport."
In May, Guerra appeared on Univision's "Al Punto" program, just before Trump cleared the field and clinched the nomination. The appearance officially was to explain the party's outreach to millennials, but she was pressed several times to defend and explain Trump's comments. Guerra declined to speak for Trump -- as any RNC official would -- noting that he had yet to clinch the nomination.
Alfonso Aguilar, a Hispanic conservative activist who knows Guerra and Aguirre Ferre, said Wednesday night that it will continue to be a challenge for any Latino Republican to defend Trump.
"You can have all the Helens you want, but if the candidate continues with his rhetoric and proposals, you're not going to win Latinos," he said. "There's a problem in terms of tone and policy. It's going to be tough for Helen -- I don't know how you do it."
