Presidential Campaigns Try to Win Over the Latino Vote for the 2020 Elections
In the United States, 32 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in the November presidential election, according to the Pew Research Center. This makes them the largest minority voter group for the first time.
While former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump's campaigns are coming up with their own voting strategies, one thing is certain: The Latino vote is powerful.
Latinas represent a large portion of the voting population
Founding executive director of immigrants' and workers' rights group Voces de la Frontera Christine Neumann-Ortiz said she was gathering Latina women to encourage Latinos to start voting. She said that women tend to care about issues like healthcare, education, and immigration reform.
She added that the support of the Latinas, as well as their disapproval, would definitely manifest into votes.
Gender studies professor Christina Bejarano at Texas Woman's University observed that Latinas tend to pay more attention to politics than their male counterparts. She added that they also tend to be more supportive of certain candidates.
President of polling firm EquisLabs Stephanie Valencia believed that Latinas would most likely organize and engage others in their community to vote with them.
Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign reached out to the Latina voters, and while she lost the election, she won the overall Latino vote. However, compared to former President Barack Obama's support in 2012 during his campaign, she underperformed.
Bejarano said that with presidential campaigns, candidates need to "strategically mobilize" the voting population, which was a challenge due to the lack of access to voting and a lack of motivation to participate.
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Latino Decisions released a survey that examined the impact of COVID-19 on Latino voters. States with high Latino populations like California, Nevada, Texas, among others. In February, 73% of the voters said they were almost certain they would be participating in the presidential election. Over the recent months, the figure plummeted to 60%.
Stephen Nuño, communications director and senior analyst of the firm, said their interpretation of the poll was that, judging by the way things were with the recent months, Latinos would most likely not participate in-person voting this November.
He said that Biden would have to put in the extra effort to win the Latino voting population, especially since he was fresh from backlash for his immigration policies. Advocates pointed out that Latino voters might be "disenchanted" given Biden's association with the Obama administration and the deportations that happened under the term.
Co-founder of United We Dream Cristina Jiménez said that Biden waited too long before he made any initiatives for immigration. Her organization helped support the protection of young immigrants through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was launched during the Obama administration.
Jiménez said that Biden hardly recognized at the beginning of his campaign what the impact of the past deportations meant for the minority communities he was trying to win over. She added that he did not acknowledge the harm under the Obama administration.
While it remained unclear if he could win the Latinos over, already Biden has pledged to loosen immigration bans and improve the asylum-seeking process in the country after announcing his immigration plan in December last year. Trump on the other hand has gained praises for his support in the Latin labor communities and his fair approach on the minority groups..
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