{"id":13498,"date":"2023-08-08T18:34:23","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T18:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13498"},"modified":"2023-08-10T18:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T18:54:50","slug":"democrats-bet-on-early-latino-outreach-to-avoid-20-pitfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13498","title":{"rendered":"Democrats bet on early Latino outreach to avoid \u201920 pitfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Will Weissert, AP<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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On a sweaty recent Thursday afternoon, Alex Berrios was instructing his team on how to get people to register to vote. Extend your hand, he said; it makes folks more likely to stop. Smile a lot, that works, too. But immediately take no for an answer so you don\u2019t seem too pushy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berrios, co-founder of a new nonprofit, Mi Vecino, or \u201cMy Neighbor\u201d has a lot riding on developing the right pitch. His group, which works out of a cramped office in the shadow of Disney World, is targeting Latino would-be voters. He was role-playing how best to approach them in front of Walgreens, amid games of dominoes at a senior center or outside El Bodegon, a supermarket chain specializing in Colombian products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen months before the midterm elections, groups like his are mobilizing across the country \u2014 both Democrats who have enjoyed a historic Latino allegiance and Republicans emboldened by gains in 2020 \u2014 all trying to lock down the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stakes are high, particularly for Democrats who are counting on Latino votes as a vital part of a winning coalition for cycles to come. And few places are as central to that effort as Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not selling cars here,\u201d said Berrios, a onetime boxer who has \u201cfighter\u201d tattooed on his arm and is now vice chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party. \u201cWe\u2019re not going anywhere. We\u2019re in the community and we\u2019re staying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as Joe Biden flipped heavily Hispanic Arizona<\/a> to Democratic to clinch the presidency last November, he underperformed<\/a> with many Latino voters elsewhere. And his party lost congressional seats<\/a> where Spanish is often more common than English, from Miami\u2019s Little Havana to South Texas\u2019 sparsely populated borderlands to the high desert north of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationally, Biden won Latinos by a 59-38 percent margin over Donald Trump, but that was 17 percentage points lower than Hillary Clinton\u2019s 66-28 percent margin in 2016, according to Pew Research Center data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans say they gained ground with Latinos because Democrats, with their increasingly left-leaning positions, are proving soft on issues like socialism and border security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Democrats say a problem for them was that they waited until just before the election to intensify outreach to Latino communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very transactional. Campaigns, they come and they start 30-60 days before an election, then they\u2019re gone,\u201d said Berrios, who left Biden\u2019s campaign after raising concerns about lagging engagement with Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berrios says Mi Vecino is trying to change that. And the party has begun an expensive, intensive effort to reach Latinos and other voters of color long before the 2022 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is investing more than $1 million on 48 organizing directors around the country designed to bolster \u201cstrategic outreach and build trust\u201d with minority communities in midterm battleground districts, including in Florida and Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Barreto was the Biden campaign\u2019s pollster in charge of Latino message and research and noted that he was only brought on last July, a few months before the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did what we could,\u201d Barreto said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and other top Democratic advisers are now leading Building Back Together, a play on Biden\u2019s \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d post-pandemic campaign slogan, to promote the administration through television and digital advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative first targeted Arizona and Florida as well as two other states with sizeable and growing Latino populations, Nevada and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barreto says the \u201calways on\u201d approach relentlessly communicates with Latinos and has tailored messages for those from different backgrounds, including distinct narrator accents for audiences in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed to recent Gallup polling putting Biden\u2019s approval rating among Hispanics at higher than that of all voters, suggesting the campaign is working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others, though, are less optimistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe truth is, the money, it hasn\u2019t come as early as it needs to come,\u201d said Giulianna Di Lauro, Florida director of the Hispanic political advocacy group Poder Latinx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce these people are registering, we need to find a way to plug them in and engage them on the issues that we care about,\u201d said Di Lauro, whose group is now leading community meetings around key issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats say that\u2019s especially vital along Florida\u2019s I-4 Corridor, which runs 130 miles from Tampa to Daytona Beach and bisects theme-park dotted Orlando and Kissimmee. It\u2019s heavily Puerto Rican but also Colombian-American and, most recently, has seen an influx of Venezuelan immigrants fleeing their country\u2019s political and economic upheaval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida\u2019s surging population could also see the area gain a congressional seat \u2014 making it an even more important battleground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cecilia Gonzalez was one of Berrios\u2019 trainees and moved to Kissimmee four years ago from Barinas, Venezuela. She said the U.S. could be on a similar path toward her homeland\u2019s collapse, if \u201cwe don\u2019t stop electing the wrong people and giving them too much power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop being a plate on the table and get a seat at the table,\u201d Gonzalez said of Latino voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans aren\u2019t just sitting quietly and watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican National Committee says it\u2019s making a seven-figure commitment for outreach to communities of color, including opening regional engagement centers in key congressional districts. The first was inaugurated last month in Orange County, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHispanics all across the country are Republicans,\u201d said Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the chamber\u2019s GOP campaign arm for the 2022 midterms. \u201cIf Republicans reach out to them, we\u2019re going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott was governor before winning his Senate seat and advocated for Puerto Ricans leaving the island after Hurricane Maria\u2019s devastation in 2017 to settle in Florida over objections from party officials in Washington who warned the new voters could make the state more blue. Republicans have only done better in statewide elections<\/a> since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Latino voters aren\u2019t always a boon to Democrats in other parts of the country, either. Abel Prado, executive director of the Democratic advocacy group Cambio Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, said selling empathic positions like expanding health care access is often tougher than simply counting on Trump\u2019s personality and his boasting about disrupting traditional politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Trump not on the 2022 ballot, many of his supporters may simply stay home, Prado said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His organization estimates that getting voter turnout to 65% of registered Rio Grande Valley voters is a \u201c16-20 month endeavor,\u201d which means it should have started already \u2014 but it largely hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are conversations about talking about how to start changing,\u201d Prado said with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, some conservative groups already have achieved the kind of ever-active Latino outreach campaigns Democrats envision. The Libre Initiative has offices in South Texas and around the country, including near Orlando\u2019s airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It advocates for issues like increased school choice and free market economics under the slogan \u201cLimited Government, Unlimited Opportunities\u201d and conducts continuous door-knocking efforts to identify would-be voters. Libre also provides nonpartisan civic assistance, offering free English classes, as well as Spanish-language instruction on health, obtaining U.S. citizenship and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats \u201chave treated Latinos, for a while now, as get out the vote targets and took them for granted, used them as props,\u201d said Libre Initiative President Daniel Garza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prado said Democratic activists in Texas have begun trying to emulate some of Libre\u2019s work through \u201cdeep canvassing,\u201d a process that seeks to have longer, ongoing conversations with people to find out what motivates them \u2014 both politically and otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the kind of multi-year campaign former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams launched in Georgia, which saw both of its Senate seats flip Democratic in January. Ex-Senate and presidential candidate Beto O\u2019Rourke heads an organization trying to emulate Abrams\u2019 success in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But such efforts take time and aren\u2019t cheap \u2014 and that doesn\u2019t delight donors looking for immediate results, Prado said: \u201cThis isn\u2019t the stock market where you buy 500 shares of something and triple your money in three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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