In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won a large percentage of the Latino vote, mostly running on a platform that prioritized immigration reform. During his reelection campaign, however, President Obama realized that he had largely failed to deliver on that promise, and as a result his popularity among Hispanic voters dipped in the years leading up to his reelection bid. In his speech to the National Council of La Raza, the United States’ leading Hispanic civil rights group, documented in a White House press release immediately afterward, President Obama sought to address the problems still facing Latinos while also touting his administration’s accomplishments. He addressed the flaws in the immigration system and the failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which had led many Latino voters to become disillusioned with the Obama administration and more broadly with the Democratic Party, blaming him and the party for failing to end the deportations of undocumented immigrants.