The Republicans and Democrats assure that they have made a “millionaire” investment, higher than other times, to attract the Hispanic vote in the mid-term elections that are held this year in the United States and that will determine whether the Democrats retain or lose their fragile vote. control of the lower house and the senate.
Both forces are dedicating large sums in their effort to engage Latino voters, especially in states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio or Pennsylvania, where the vote is disputed. In recent months they have created new Hispanic community centers, placed ads in Spanish-language media and hired bilingual staff to convince Latinos to support each party’s candidates in federal, state and local races.
“The DNC (Democratic National Committee) has already spent six figures on paid media targeting Hispanics and plans to continue to invest heavily in consistently reaching Latino voters during the midterm elections,” said Maca Casado, director of Hispanic media for the Committee. .
Hispanics are a growing group throughout the country and their electoral participation is key.
Just over 62 million Hispanics live in the United States, according to 2020 census information compiled by the Pew Research Center, although just over half are eligible to vote. Among the requirements to be able to do so are US citizenship and being over 18 years of age. In 2020, Hispanics represented 13.6% of all eligible voters, according to information from the Census Bureau.
NALEO Educational Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes Latino participation in politics, expects at least 11.6 million Hispanics to vote in November, a figure similar to that of the 2018 midterm elections in which that number of people represented a record.
“The Hispanic vote can be for either of the two parties, the difference between a victory and a defeat,” said Fernán Amandi, a professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. Now “there is more attention than ever from both parties in trying to cultivate it.”
The midterm elections, which take place on November 8, are key for President Joe Biden as they will determine his support in Congress. For the Republicans, meanwhile, it is about regaining ground with a view to the 2024 presidential elections.
In the elections, the 435 seats in the lower house and 35 of 100 seats in the Senate will be chosen. There will also be races for governor in some states and for state legislatures, as well as some municipal elections.
“It is a multimillion-dollar sum that we are investing to attract Hispanics, considerably higher than in other electoral cycles,” said Jaime Florez, director of Hispanic communications for the Republican National Committee, without offering details. “The Hispanic voter is essential,” he assured.
For about nine months, Republicans opened about 30 community centers dedicated to attracting voters of different ethnicities, such as Asians, African Americans and Hispanics. A dozen of them have been for Hispanics in cities like San Antonio, Dallas and McAllen, in Texas; Doral, in South Florida; Suwanee, in Georgia, and Las Vegas, in Nevada. To give more prominence to these inaugurations, even the Committee’s president, Ronna McDaniel, has attended.
Unlike the campaign centers that used to open and close very close to the date of the elections, the idea is that they persist. In addition to registering voters and recruiting activists and volunteers, they give lectures on current issues such as immigration, the economy and abortion, which are often criticized by Democrats. Also the same community can organize events.
“The idea is that we have two-way communication,” said Florez, of the Republican National Committee, better known as the GOP in English. “It is not only a place where we tell them what we do, what we propose, but a place where we can listen to them.”
Democrats, for their part, launched a campaign in May to attract the Hispanic vote called “Adelante” that includes directly interacting with Latino voters at community events or virtually.
As part of the campaign, the party announced a “seven-figure” investment in Spanish-language media to run print and radio ads. Staffing has been strong in several states, the party says, as have voter registration programs. In Nevada, the party invested to help Catherine Cortez-Masto keep her seat in the U.S. Senate in November, and in New Mexico, Michelle Lujan-Grisham to keep hers as governor.
Arnoldo Díaz, a 58-year-old Salvadoran who lives in Maryland, said that both Democrats and Republicans go to great lengths to capture the Latino vote in disputed areas and that he himself noticed the power of the Hispanic vote when Republican Glenn Youngkin won the gubernatorial election. of Virginia last year unseating the Democratic nominee in a Democratic region to that point.
“It was curious because even the Salvadoran community organized to vote Republican,” said Díaz, who works in a union and is a US citizen. “The power we have counts a lot. We could make changes in this nation if we educated ourselves more about voting.”
From the GOP, meanwhile, they assure that their objective is to reach not only the undecided states but also Democratic states such as New York and California, where the mandate of a liberal attorney general has been revoked.
“It makes us think that people are not necessarily isolated in a party and some ideas, but that people can be open to listen,” Florez said. “It’s not difficult for people to understand that things are bad… we are the expression of options to change that reality a little.”
Arturo Vargas, president of the NALEO Educational Fund, said the Republicans’ message of economic improvement resonates more with Hispanics than the Democrats’ message of less heavy-handedness on immigration or abortion.
“I think (Democrats) have to pay close attention to what are the most important issues for Latinos in these elections. And that has to do with the cost of living, inflation, the economic situation in which many Latinos find themselves, in which they cannot maintain their quality of life because of everything that has increased in price, such as gasoline, food , housing,” Vargas said.
The president of NALEO added that the investment of the Republicans in areas such as South Texas is already bearing fruit: the Mexican Mayra Flores has just unseated a Democrat in the fight to represent the 34th district, in South Texas, in the federal lower house. Flores will also be the first congresswoman born in Mexico.
“The Latino vote is growing with each election and with each election it will be much stronger, with much more impact on the results,” concluded Vargas. “A party that wants to be the majority party of the future must necessarily have a Latino strategy.”
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