It appears to have several factors involved in it. The immigration issue is one, the lack of funding of faith-based initiatives perhaps. It appears David Kuo's book "Tempting Faith" may have shown the these groups that the Bush administration really does not care that much about them or about those of faith.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-outreach24oct24,0,2488402,full.story?coll=la-home-headlinesWASHINGTON — A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.
President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it.
Complaints among black pastors who had been courted by the White House — while less pronounced than those of Latino leaders — have been fueled by a tell-all book by former White House aide David Kuo. The new book says that Bush, referring to pastors from one major African American denomination, once griped: "Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money."
"There's a growing frustration and anger in the black religious community nationally as the Kuo book makes the rounds," Rivers said. "Meetings at the White House show you the door, but they don't necessarily open the door."
It looks like the border fence may have played a role for many in those communities. Even the threat of a law being passed to criminalize aiding those thought to be illegal...angered many as well.
Bush won an estimated 44% of the Latino vote in 2004. While polling numbers vary, many analysts said that represented about a 9-percentage-point improvement from 2000, suggesting that Latinos might become a substantial pillar upholding a durable Republican majority. But in recent months, Democratic activists watched with amazement as Republicans pushed into law a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border and tried to make it a felony to migrate illegally or to help undocumented immigrants. The latter provision did not become law, but it especially angered some church leaders, who said it would have criminalized their religious duty to help the least privileged in society.
Despite Bush's lobbying for an immigrant guest-worker program, favored by many Latinos, conservative lawmakers in the House refused to bend, forcing Bush to endorse the fence legislation and dimming his popularity among Latinos.
Howard Dean discussed these communities in a interview recently with Tavis Smiley.
Tavis Smiley interview with DeanTavis:I was just reading this morning a new study that finds that there will be, there are, seven percent more Hispanics eligible to vote this time around than there were in the election two years ago. How do you see those Hispanic, those Latino votes going this time around?
Dean: We know how they're gonna go, because we met with a great many leaders in the Hispanic community, including Hispanic evangelicals who supported the president the last time who are not supporting the Republicans this time because of their very harsh view about immigration. Even today, in places like Oregon, they have candidates for governor, for example, asserting that illegal immigrants vote and using that as a witch hunt issue.
Well, illegal immigrants don't vote in Oregon. They (the Republicans)just lie. This is typical Republican stuff, divide and conquer. The problem is they’ve taken on a very fast-growing group of voters. We know what Hispanics think of what the president has done. It’s now 80-20 in the Hispanic community in favor of the Democrats, instead of 60-40, as it was two years ago.
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