{"id":13351,"date":"2023-08-08T15:28:53","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T15:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13351"},"modified":"2023-08-10T19:28:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T19:28:33","slug":"are-worries-over-latino-turnout-in-the-midterms-too-little-too-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13351","title":{"rendered":"Are worries over Latino turnout in the midterms too little, too late?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Jenna Johnson<\/strong>,Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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During the Medina County Fair parade on Saturday morning, John Resendez and his relatives sat in camping chairs across the street from an early voting center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beauty pageant winners waved, sirens blared, children blew bubbles and a float bearing Confederate flags trundled by, along with an SUV decorated with campaign signs for Republicans and a trailer plastered with banners for Democrats. Monarch butterflies flitted along the route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman wearing a T-shirt promoting Beto O\u2019Rourke<\/a>, the Democrat running for U.S. Senate, handed out fliers with polling location information and told the children sitting on the curb in front of Resendez: \u201cYou get all of these people out to vote, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resendez, 34, laughed and said, \u201cTell her you shouldn\u2019t be doing her job!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid the laughter came a sober reality, particularly for Democrats trying to reverse the Republican hold on Texas: That back-and-forth was Resendez\u2019s first interaction with a campaign this year \u2014 and it came just 10 days before the election, and after the deadline to register to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resendez would not have needed much convincing: He is dismayed by President Trump\u2019s treatment of Latinos and wanted to cast his first-ever vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s already too late, isn\u2019t it? That\u2019s too bad. I guess I just postponed it too much,\u201d said Resendez, the father of a 6-year-old son who lives in this small town, about 40 miles west of San Antonio, where he works as a loop technician and tattoo artist. \u201cI need to start putting an interest into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the country\u2019s growing Latino population could again play a deciding role in races in Texas and elsewhere \u2014 and, once again, Latino activists say that Democratic and Republican campaigns have neglected to spend enough time and money directly encouraging Latinos to register and vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latinos have long voted at lower rates than whites and African Americans. Only 45 percent of Latinos<\/a>who are eligible to vote turned out in 2016, compared to 65 percent of whites and 60 percent of blacks. The rate was even lower during the two previous elections: 21 percent of Latinos voted in 2014, and 43 percent did so in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To increase those percentages, activists say campaigns need to do more than run ads in Spanish or host rallies in towns with large Latino populations \u2014 they need to hire field staffers who can build relationships in Latino communities, canvass homes beyond those of already-registered voters and guide new voters through the sometimes daunting registration and voting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions surrounding that process clearly exist: When Univision began to promote a nonpartisan, bilingual national hotline for Latino voters last week, more than 40 percent of calls on the first day came from Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Latinos are reluctant to become politically involved. In the immigrant community, some fear that showing up to a polling location, especially those located in government buildings, could draw attention to unpaid traffic tickets or relatives who are in the country illegally. And then there\u2019s the apathy that plagues all voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas makes registration difficult: There\u2019s no way to register online and the state requires those who register potential voters to be certified<\/a> in the county where the registrants live \u2014 making it difficult to register people at events that draw Texans from numerous counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recruiting Latino voters should be made easier for Democrats by Trump, who has cast undocumented immigrants as dangerous criminals who \u201cinfest our country,\u201d overseen the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border and closed out his midterm pitch by calling for an end to birthright citizenship, by which babies born in the United States are made citizens regardless of their parents\u2019 legal status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLatinos will vote when they\u2019re angry or there\u2019s hope. This election is bringing both,\u201d said Lupe Valdez, Texas\u2019s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, the former Dallas County sheriff who is the daughter of Mexican migrant workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center<\/a> found that 52 percent of Hispanic voters say they have given \u201cquite a lot\u201d of thought to 2018 midterm elections \u2014 less than the 67 percent who said the same in 2016, or the 61 percent in 2012, but higher than the percentages during the 2014 and 2010 midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMotivation is very high right now \u2014 so it\u2019s not that folks aren\u2019t interested in becoming more engaged,\u201d said Blanca Flor Guill\u00e9n-Woods of Latino Decisions, a polling and research firm. \u201cIt takes more than motivation. It actually does require some assistance to get those folks to the polls. \u2026 After they\u2019ve voted a few times, they\u2019ve got it, they become voters, they become consistent voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 73 congressional races that have been deemed most competitive by the Cook Political Report, 25 are in districts where Latinos make up at least 10 percent of eligible voters. In 12 of those districts, Latinos make up at least 20 percent of eligible voters, according to Pew<\/a>. Latino voters could play a major role in the Senate and governor\u2019s races in Florida and Nevada, the governor\u2019s races in Colorado, Connecticut and New Mexico, and the Senate races in New Jersey, Arizona and Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in Texas\u2019s 23rd Congressional District \u2014 which stretches from El Paso to San Antonio and includes 820 miles of the southern border \u2014 nearly 65 percent of eligible voters are Latino, according to Pew. The district backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is represented by Republican Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA operativewho is black and won his last election by 3,000 votes. His Democratic opponent is Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer. Neither candidate speaks fluent Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans have accused Jones of \u201cpandering for votes in Texas\u201d by using her middle name, which sounds Hispanic but is her Filipina mother\u2019s last name. On the campaign trail, Jones often talks about the sacrifices her mother faced immigrating to the United States and raising two daughters as a single parent while working several jobs. Jones cut short her military career when her mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNinety-five percent of people in this community would do the exact same thing,\u201d Jones said over coffee at a San Antonio taqueria. \u201cThat\u2019s something that resonates with the Hispanic community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, however, Jones went largely unrecognized in the taqueria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones said she has focused on reaching already-registered voters and left finding new voters to \u201ca patchwork effort\u201d by nonprofits and grass-roots organizations. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports House candidates, has had organizers in the district since February 2017, and hopes to interact with \u201cDemocratic base voters\u201d at least 100 times each in the 60 days before the election. Texas Democrats are excited that more than 400,000 Texans have registered to vote<\/a> since March, and many counties have seen record turnout for early voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans in Texas are also competing for Latino votes. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2014 and is determined to increase that percentage this year. He has had an active campaign since 2014 and believes that many nonvoters are conservatives, not liberals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTexas Hispanics, as a bloc, are different than Hispanics in California or New Jersey or parts of Florida. They\u2019ve been here before Anglos were here. They\u2019ve been here for generations,\u201d said Dave Carney, a consultant on Abbott\u2019s campaign. \u201cTexas is culturally and intellectually and ideologically a right-of-center state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hovering over all Texas races is O\u2019Rourke, who has raised more than $70 million and sparked a grass-roots movement that has received national attention. O\u2019Rourke declined to endorse Jones because he has a bipartisan friendship with Hurd, frustrating party leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Rourke has invested heavily in digital advertising \u2014 and some Texas activists say he has not spent nearly enough on a get-out-the-vote operation, instead relying heavily on volunteers. The campaign, which recently added more paid field staff, did not respond to several requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that Beto got the message. I think now they\u2019re knocking on enough doors, but I\u2019m a little concerned that they started to do it as late as they did,\u201d said Cristina Tzintz\u00fan, the executive director of Jolt, which aims to engage young minority voters. \u201cIt\u2019s a big state to cover, and I wish that there would have been more investment early on in the Latino community and voter registration work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the Medina County Fair parade, nearly every table was filled at Taqueria El Rodeo De Jalisco, which is just down the highway from Hondo\u2019s welcome sign that reads: \u201cThis is God\u2019s country. Please don\u2019t drive through it like hell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medina County is home to 50,000 Texans, 52 percent of whom are Hispanic. Trump won the county with 70 percent of votes, and Medina was pivotal in a special election earlier this year in which Republicans won a state Senate seat<\/a> long held by Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Malandas, a 26-year-old manager at the taqueria, said that he registered to vote for the first time because he was inspired by O\u2019Rourke\u2019s campaign. His customers included several Democrats who had already voted, a 73-year-old truck driver and longtime Democrat who is tired of watching party leaders \u201cstand around and wait for the other side to make a mistake,\u201d and a high school freshman who said he has been bothered by the ads he hears on Spotify attacking Hurd, who has visited his school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briana Perez, a 28-year-old sales associate, said she has never voted but wants to start \u2014 she did not realize she had missed the registration deadline. No campaign has reached out to her, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThings just got past me, I guess,\u201d said Perez, who has a newborn baby. \u201cI know it\u2019s important. I know it\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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