Daily Archives: September 20, 2022

Symbols for red states (left) and blue states (right).

When a state is called a "red state", it means that it has traditionally voted in favor of Republican candidates. The terms "red state" and "blue state" have been in familiar lexicon since the 2000 US presidential election. If a state is not a red state or a blue state, it might be a swing state.

A map showing red states, blue states, and swing states as of the 2016 Election.

Here is a list of the strongest red states in the country:

Alaskan voters traditionally veer Republican and have voted that way in all but one election since they first began participating in presidential elections in 1960. Republican presidential candidates typically win with well over 50% of the vote. The 2016 was no exception, with the Republican candidate receiving 51.3% of the vote.

Idaho is another state known for having a Republican winning streak. The last 4 presidential elections here ended with a strong 60% or higher Republican vote. In 2016, Republican support was just under 60%, at 59.3%.

Kansas currently holds 6 electoral votes though once had 10, at the beginning of the 20th century. This drop is due to a decrease in population (on which electoral votes are based). In the last 5 elections, the Republican candidate for president has won with no less than 54.3% of the vote and as high as 62% in 2004.

Nebraska is worth 5 electoral votes that historically leans strongly Republican. As seen in the previous states, this support has dropped from previous levels of between 56% and 66%. The 2016 election saw 58.8% Republican support in Nebraska.

North Dakota is considered a safe state for Republicans meaning that the party garners strong majority support during elections. In 2012, the Republican nominee won by 20% of the vote, 9% in 2008 and over 20% in 2004 and 2000. All of these elections were won with between 53% and 62.9% popularity.

Oklahoma has exhibited some of the strongest Republican support of any of the previously mentioned. Currently in its 12th consecutive Republican streak, the last 5 elections have been won with over 60% popularity. In the 2016 election, the Republican presidential candidate won with 65.3% of the vote.

South Dakota has historically voted Republican. Throughout the past five election cycles, Republican support in South Dakota sat at at least 50% support. In 2016, 61.5% of the population of South Dakota voted Republican.

Utah has voted Republican in the last 12 election cycles and in the last 4, this has been with over 60% of the vote. 2016 saw a slight wavering in Republican support in Utah, at 45.5% of the vote. 27.5% of the state voted Democrat.

Wyoming is the last state on the list of longest running Republic streaks. In 2016, Wyoming voted 67.4% Republican. This is actually a decrease from both the 2012 and the 2008 elections, when Wyoming voted 68.6% Republican and 69% Republican, respectively.

See the rest here:

List of Red States (Republican States) - WorldAtlas

A Republican Party primary took place on September 6, 2022, in Massachusetts to determine which candidate would earn the right to run as the party's nominee in the state's gubernatorial election on November 8, 2022.

Geoff Diehl advanced from the Republican primary for Governor of Massachusetts.

This page focuses on Massachusetts' Republican Party gubernatorial primary. For more in-depth information on Massachusetts' Democratic gubernatorial primary and the general election, see the following pages:

Republican primary election

Ballotpedia provides race ratings from three outlets: The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato's Crystal Ball. Each race rating indicates if one party is perceived to have an advantage in the race and, if so, the degree of advantage:

Race ratings are informed by a number of factors, including polling, candidate quality, and election result history in the race's district or state.[2][3][4]

This race was featured in The Heart of the Primaries, a newsletter capturing stories related to conflicts within each major party. Click here to read more about conflict in this and other 2022 Republican gubernatorial primaries. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

Massachusetts voted for the Democratic candidate in all six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020.

More Massachusetts coverage on Ballotpedia

Click the tabs below to view information about demographics, past elections, and partisan control of the state.

How a state's counties vote in a presidential election and the size of those counties can provide additional insights into election outcomes at other levels of government including statewide and congressional races. Below, four categories are used to describe each county's voting pattern over the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections: Solid, Trending, Battleground, and New. Click [show] on the table below for examples:

Following the 2020 presidential election, 100.0% of Massachusettsans lived in one of the state's 14 Solid Democratic counties, which voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election from 2012 to 2020. Overall, Massachusetts was Solid Democratic, having voted for Barack Obama (D) in 2012, Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016, and Joe Biden (D) in 2020. Use the table below to view the total number of each type of county in Massachusetts following the 2020 election as well as the overall percentage of the state population located in each county type.

Massachusetts presidential election results (1900-2020)

This section details the results of the five most recent U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections held in the state.

The table below details the vote in the five most recent U.S. Senate races in Massachusetts.

The table below details the vote in the five most recent gubernatorial elections in Massachusetts.

The table below displays the partisan composition of Massachusetts' congressional delegation as of August 2022.

The table below displays the officeholders in Massachusetts' top four state executive offices as of August 2022.

The tables below highlight the partisan composition of the Massachusetts General Court as of August 2022.

As of August 2022, Massachusetts was a divided government, with Democrats controlling the governorship and Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. The table below displays the historical trifecta status of the state.

Massachusetts Party Control: 1992-2022Eight years of Democratic trifectasNo Republican trifectasScroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

The table below details demographic data in Massachusetts and compares it to the broader United States as of 2019.

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Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 2022 (September 6 Republican ...

Republicans will try to impeach Joe Biden every week if they retake the House in November, a rare anti-Trump Republican congressman predicted.

Remembering repeated attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said: Thats going to look like childs play in terms of what Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to demand of Kevin McCarthy.

Theyre going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week.

Kinzinger was speaking to David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser, on his Axe Files podcast.

Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack Trump incited. He will retire in November. The other, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger.

Greene, from Georgia, is among far-right Republicans who have already introduced or threatened impeachment articles against Biden, on issues including Covid, immigration, Afghanistan and the alleged misdemeanors of Hunter Biden, the presidents surviving son.

If McCarthy is to be speaker in a Republican House, the expected outcome of the midterms in November, he must corral his unruly party.

Kinzinger said: I think itll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I dont know.

Democrats impeached Trump twice. Kinzinger voted against the first impeachment, over the blackmail of Ukraine for political purposes, but for the second, over the Capitol attack. He told Axelrod he regretted the first vote.

You can always look back 12 years, theres different regrets, different votes. Thats my biggest.

At the time, Ill say to my shame, youre looking for a way out. It is tough to take on your party. It is tough to know youre gonna get kicked out of the tribe. And its tough to make a decision that you know will cost you re-election.

And so I was looking for a reason out. There were moments where I was like, I may end up voting for this first impeachment. And then I found a reason out.

At the time, he said: Since the day President Trump was elected, many Democrats in Congress have been searching for any means by which to delegitimise and remove him from office.

And since then, weve seen them jump head first from one investigation to another hoping something so treacherous would be uncovered that wed have no choice but to throw him out. And at that theyve failed miserably.

Nine other House Republicans voted for Trumps second impeachment, making it the most bipartisan in history. At trial in the Senate, seven Republicans found Trump guilty, not enough for conviction.

Discussing Kinzingers work on the January 6 committee, Axelrod pointed to a recent poll which said 72% of Republican voters still back Trumps lie about election fraud and say Biden is not the legitimate president.

Tribalism is deeply ingrained, Kinzinger said, adding: I think people, in many cases, more than they fear death, they fear being kicked out of the tribe.

Go here to see the original:

Republicans will try to impeach Biden every week, Adam Kinzinger says - The Guardian US

The growth of the ESG industry has led to some counterintuitive results, as companies have learned to game the metrics: Some private prison companies, for instance, score well on the criteria.

On Thursday, 14 state treasurers issued a joint statement condemning Republican efforts to combat investor advocacy, which has led multiple states, including West Virginia, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida, to restrict state treasurers from doing business with funds that deploy ESG screens.

Disclosure, transparency, and accountability make companies more resilient by sharpening how they manage, ensuring that they are appropriately planning for the future. Our work, alongside those of other investors, employees, and customers have caused many companies to evolve their business models and their internal processes, better addressing the long term material risks that threaten their performance, the statement reads. The evolving divide suggests that there will be two kinds of states moving forward: states focused on short term gains and states focused on long term beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders.

The Chamber announced recently it would devote $3 million toward the election of Mehmet Oz who goes by Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and funneled it through the Senate Leadership Fund. The move was generally seen as an olive branch to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is linked to the super PAC. They have so far made no similar contribution to the House Republican super PAC.

Todays GOP war onthe Chamber of Commerce represents a stunning turnaround from just a few years ago, when House Republicans and the Chamber were aligned on just about everything. And it comes in the wake of the collapse of the National Rifle Association, leaving two of the GOPs most powerful outside armies largely disarmed. But as the Republican Party and the Chamber have polarized to opposite sides of the conservative movement, a deeper disagreement between the two dating back to the movement that formed around Barry Goldwater in the 1950s and 60s has been reawakened.

At the height of the New Deal era after World War II, Democrats and liberal Republicans were united in the belief that cooperation between big business, big labor, and government was the secret to the eras economic boom. John Kenneth Galbraith, the nations most famous economist and later President John F. Kennedys adviser, dubbed it The Affluent Society in a 1958 book that was both a cultural and a political sensation.

Arrayed against this coalition was an aggrieved and increasingly well-organized network of small and medium-sized businesses that felt they were getting squeezed by the big guys. What was good for General Motors, they said, was not necessarily good for them.

Big Labor and the New Deal coalition thought that they were living in a time of peace between capital and labor, but capital always knew that they were engaged in a strategic ceasefire, having been crushed by the Depression and unable to compete against the rising strength of the modern government.

But there was no real peace, and big business launched its counterattack on both labor and government in the 1970s, ushering in the neoliberal era. The Chamber, this time allied with small and medium-sized businesses, played a major role in the counterattack, with the heir to the Goldwater movement, Ronald Reagan, enacting a wish list of big business policies, deregulation, and tax cuts.

Jamie Galbraith, who followed his father into the economics profession, served as an aide to the Joint Tax Committee in Congress and recalled the Chamber at the time as an ultra supply-side, ultra Reagan revolution organization with essentially no compromisers. The Chamber was just down-the-line for the lowest possible taxes and most complete deregulation and privatization.

But the Chamber started drifting back to the center in the early part of the Clinton years, endorsing the administrations health care proposal known as Hillarycare,for the first lady.All of a sudden, the Chamber just became something wholly different than whatever I perceived them to be. And I know we were very upset about it, said former Texas Rep. Dick Armey, theNo. 3 Republican at the time.

In the wake of the endorsement, recalled one Republican operative, a member of House Republican leadership asked to meet with the Chambers board. Instead of delivering a standard political speech, he began by asking all the staff to leave the room. He just ripped them a new asshole, said the operative. How could you possibly go down this anti-free enterprise, left-wing trail, the GOP leader demanded. (The operative recalled it was Armey, but Armey said it may have been Tom DeLay.I couldnt track down DeLay in time for this story.)

The dressing down worked. Richard Lesher had run the organization since 1975, but after Republicans took power in 1995 after the Gingrich Revolution in 1995, Lesher was eased out.When we took the majority, of course, they came over, reminding us that we were the best friends we ever had yakety yak, Armey said. When you come into the majority, you have no shortage of newfound friends. The Chamber was a reliable Republican ally for the next roughly 20 years, up until just the last few.

(DeLay later launched what he dubbed the K Street Project, which was an effort to bring all of Washingtons lobbying industry under Republican authority, dictating that firms fire Democratic lobbyists or lose access to the GOP. That was a boneheaded idea, and you can quote me if you like. I mean, who in the hell did he think he was, telling people who they can hire and who they cant? said Armey. I objected to it in a leadership meeting. And my objections were not well received.)

The tensions between big and little businesses never fully subsided, and the same network of smaller businesses that aligned themselves with Goldwater, forming the more conservative wing of the GOP, organizing behind Donald Trump in 2016 and beyond. The small and medium-sized businesses, particularly manufacturers, have also long been opposed to free-trade policies, as they lack the capacity to offshore their own production and cant compete with cheaper products from overseas.

The conservative Republican member of Congress said that he didnt begin as an active opponent of the Chamber, but didnt see them as a natural ally either. Frankly, as a business guy, I couldnt join some of the efforts nationally, because they were at odds with small companies, he said. They were really pushing for a long time this pro-China trade policy, which was great for General Motors, but it was bad for everyone in the supply chain. And it was really gutting domestic manufacturing. And it was the same with NAM the National Association of Manufacturers a lot of their members had had an organization that was working against their interests. And the biggest, biggest members have certainly benefited from a lot of this stuff. And I think thats a big part of why Trump was so well received by the small and medium business community.

The Chamber is among the biggest spenders on lobbying activities in the country, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and leading Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas regularly take public shots at them. The Chambers top lobbying job, typically one of Washingtons plummest K Street assignments, sat open for several months until it was filled by two-term, back-bench former Rep. Evan Jenkins, who, like many Republicans from West Virginia, began his career as a Democrat. He was most recently a judge in West Virginia, having left the House to pursue an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2018.

Read the original here:

House Republicans Plan to Investigate Chamber of Commerce If They Take the Majority - The Intercept

Part of The power and potential of Latino voters, from The Highlight, Voxs home for ambitious stories that explain our world.

Anna Paulina Luna is ready for people to get to know the new GOP.

Luna, 33, is an Air Force veteran, political activist, and likely future Congress member representing Floridas 13th District, a seat that got safer for Republicans in the latest round of redistricting. Shes also a granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and one of a record 43 Republican Latina candidates who ran for House seats this year, 17 of whom have won their primaries so far.

I think that the new GOP that exists is not your stereotype of what it used to be, she tells Vox. Weve had to really push back against this narrative that Republicans are just older white males, which to be clear, theres nothing wrong with that. However, its false. I mean, were so diverse.

The new GOP Luna references doesnt sound all that different in its policy goals from the one of years past. But if she and other members of her cohort win, the party will certainly look different. Currently, just 16 percent of House Republicans are women, while 9 percent are people of color. Should Luna and other Latina GOP candidates win this year, it would mark major progress for Republican efforts to broaden the partys slate of lawmakers and appeal to voters an existential issue in a country thats poised to be majority-minority by 2050.

Other Latina candidates vying for competitive seats include former Sen. Ted Cruz staffer Cassy Garcia in Texass 28th, former Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer in Oregons Fifth, and Prince William County official Yesli Vega in Virginias Seventh.

There are two big factors driving the surge in Republican Latina candidates this year, says Olivia Perez-Cubas of Winning for Women, a group dedicated to electing Republican women.

There has been a concerted effort on the right to focus on the Hispanic and Latino community, and to recruit more diverse candidates who are reflective of their district, she tells Vox. Theres also growing frustration in the Hispanic community that Democrats no longer reflect their values, and were seeing more candidates willing to run because of it.

Both factors contributed to Lunas candidacy. She was formally brought into GOP politics after being recruited to lead Hispanic engagement for Turning Point USA, a right-wing advocacy group. And she feels the Democratic Party hasnt spoken to her views, particularly on border security or the economy.

Luna and other candidates also say that Democratic missteps including poor outreach and first lady Jill Bidens comments comparing the Latino community to breakfast tacos have shown just how out of touch its leaders are with Latino voters.

I think the pandering that theyve done to how theyve treated us, you know, were not stupid, and they dont own our vote, she says.

The GOP has been laying the foundation to become more diverse since 2012 and its accelerated these efforts since last cycle.

After losing the presidential election in 2012 when candidate Mitt Romney won just 30 percent of Latino voters the Republican National Committee commissioned a postmortem report. It concluded the RNC needed to make certain that we are actively engaging women and minorities in our efforts when it came to candidate recruitment and that we need to strengthen our farm team to ensure that we are competitive in up-ballot elections in the future when the electorate will be considerably more diverse.

The idea was that electing a more representative pool of officials to state and local office could help Republicans reach a broader base of voters, and establish a deep bench for federal seats down the line.

That RNC report boosted efforts like the Republican State Leadership Committees Future Majority Project, which is dedicated to identifying and backing women and people of color for Republican seats at the state level. The project had some success including wins by 43 of 240 recruits in 2014, and some participants like now-Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), going on to higher office.

Such progress looked likely to be squandered in 2016, when Donald Trump entered the Republican primary and trounced the competition on a message that seemed tailor-made to put off Hispanic voters: He infamously described some immigrants from Mexico as rapists, questioned a federal judges ability to fairly make decisions because he is Mexican American, and pledged harsh border enforcement and a wall along the US border with Mexico.

Despite Trumps xenophobic and racist rhetoric, his campaign invested in connecting with more religious Latino voters, and ended up seeing numbers consistent with Romneys.

All the while, Republicans at the state and federal levels continued to work on efforts like the ones recommended in the 2013 report. As chair of House Republican recruitment in 2018, Rep. Elise Stefanik focused on bringing on more women, Hispanic, and African American candidates, who she described as often more effective than white, male candidates in swing districts. And in 2021, the RSLC established the Right Leaders Network, which is dedicated to providing mentorship and training for women and candidates of color.

Ahead of 2020, Trump and the Republican National Committee made key investments in wooing Latino voters as well, including opening up field offices in predominantly Latino areas. This cycle, the RNC has set up more than 30 community centers including at least a dozen focused on Hispanic voters. These centers serve as key locations for campaign events and voter registration, as well as other social gatherings, according to RNC spokesperson Danielle Alvarez.

Such investments appeared to pay off in 2020; Trumps share of Latino voters grew by 8 percentage points compared to 2016, according to data from Catalist, a Democratic firm. And several places saw rightward shifts: Zapata County in South Texas flipped from previously voting Democratic to voting for Trump, while multiple counties in that region and in South Florida shifted right, with Joe Biden winning by much smaller margins than former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did. Florida Reps. Maria Salazar and Carlos Gimenez, both of whom had support from Republican leadership, flipped Democrat-held districts.

Of the 14 Democratic-held House seats that Republicans flipped last cycle, 13 of those were won by a candidate that was either a woman or person of color, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Additionally, Republicans more than doubled the number of women in their House caucus, from 13 to 29.

That meant Republicans narrowed Democrats control of the House to a super-slim margin, a feat they chalked up to the strength of candidates in swing districts. Essentially, one big lesson Republicans took from 2020 was that diverse candidates can provide electoral advantages.

We learned that we could overperform in new kinds of districts by recruiting compelling candidates with interesting stories and different profiles that reflect the districts they are trying to represent, says Calvin Moore, a spokesperson for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee endorsed by House Republican leadership.

In practice, that has led the GOP, and notable outside groups, to put more resources behind a wide range of candidates.

For minority candidates who are not in the political industry whatsoever, it can be really intimidating to jump in and run for office if you have the passion, but you dont have the infrastructure to do that, says Lorna Romero, an Arizona-based Republican strategist who previously served as a communications director for John McCains 2016 Senate campaign.

Such efforts have significant support from the most powerful Republicans.

I think that Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, the Republican leadership, has been the most receptive leadership group on these issues, of making sure were recruiting good candidates in every part of the country, says Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), a founder of the Hispanic Leadership Trust, a political action committee started in May thats dedicated to supporting Hispanic and Latino candidates. For example, McCarthy has personally backed Juan Ciscomani, a former adviser for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, while party leaders advocated for Chavez-DeRemer to run in Oregon.

Other candidates like Luna, Vega, and Garcia have been elevated as part of the National Republican Congressional Committees Young Guns program, which highlights strong campaigns to donors and provides national exposure.

Theyre very much encouraging all candidates from different walks of life to step up to the plate, Luna told Vox.

The mentoring and attention provided by initiatives like the Young Guns program and Right Leaders Network have helped candidates build out their infrastructure, but so has money from a slew of political action committees.

In addition to the Hispanic Leadership Trust, theres been an explosion of PACs dedicated to funding Republican women candidates as well as minority candidates. Both Stefaniks Elevate PAC and Winning for Women were started to bolster the number of women in the GOP conference. Catalyst PAC was also founded by Republican strategists Larissa Martinez and Rina Shah in 2019 to promote candidates who are underrepresented in the Republican Party including people of color and LGBTQ candidates.

Together, these PACs as well as the Congressional Leadership Fund have spent heavily to boost Latina candidates. For instance, CLF spent $164,000 on ads to support Monica De La Cruz in Texass 15th District and $200,000 to support Mayra Flores in Texass 34th District during their primaries.

This influx of money and infrastructure make the process of running for office more feasible for candidates who were previously reluctant to take it on.

Those candidates including at least 17 Latina candidates whove won House primaries this year span the GOPs ideological spectrum. Some, like Flores, are more conservative and have backed hardline immigration policies much like Trumps. Others, including lawyer and former radio host Yuripzy Morgan, in Marylands safely Democratic Third District, are closer to the center and more focused on pocketbook issues.

I know it is a bit of a dirty word in politics. But you know what, the majority of Americans are moderate, I am moderate. And Im not afraid to say it, Morgan tells Vox.

Multiple Republicans emphasized the importance of backing candidates with authenticity and connections to their communities. Among those running in Texas, for example, Monica De La Cruz is a small business owner, Flores is a respiratory care therapist who worked with Covid-19 patients, and Garcia is a former congressional staffer. Some, including Luna and Vega, also have experience in the military or law enforcement; Flores and Irene Armandariz-Jackson, a real estate agent and anti-abortion activist running in Texass 16th District, are married to partners whove worked as border patrol agents.

Several candidates are running in swing districts, where Republicans hope they will be more appealing to independent and moderate voters. In 2022, at least 10 of the most competitive battleground House districts the ones that have been listed as toss-ups by Cook Political Report as of early September have Republican challengers that are either women or people of color. The GOP has a good chance of retaking the House this fall, and its counting on candidates like De La Cruz, Garcia, and Chavez-DeRemer to make that happen.

Republicans are likely looking beyond 2022 with their recruitment efforts as well.

The partys ability to connect with different minority groups is becoming more critical as the country becomes increasingly more diverse: In 2000, Hispanic voters made up 7 percent of the US electorate. In 2018, they comprised 13 percent. According to a US Census projection, the US population will be majority-minority by 2045.

The math just doesnt add up for Republicans in places like Texas if they cant bring people of color to their side. This is a last ditch effort to hold onto power without actually changing their policies, argues Cristina Tzintzn Ramirez, the executive director of progressive advocacy group NextGen America and founder of Jolt, an organization dedicated to mobilizing Latino voters in Texas.

Republicans see a major opening with Latino voters both because of the support theyve already received, and their belief that Democrats are neither doing sufficient outreach nor speaking to the top concerns that voters have.

We often hear ... minority voters feel like Democrats are taking their vote for granted, the RNCs Alvarez tells Vox. Strategists within the Democratic Party, too, have repeatedly warned the party that they needed to get involved in voter outreach earlier in the campaign cycle, rather than doing so just ahead of Election Day.

While Democrats are preparing to run campaigns centered on abortion access, their climate achievements, canceling student loan debt, and their success in lowering the cost of certain prescription drugs, Republicans argue voters including Latino voters are more worried about energy costs, education, and public safety. Many GOP candidates say that voters in their district are most concerned about the same issue: the economy.

This inflation affects everyone, says Armendariz-Jackson, who is running in Texass 16th. It doesnt matter if youre Black, brown, or white. Were all hurting.

Republicans believe focusing on the economy will pay particular dividends with Latino voters because its also a way to talk about shared values, says Geraldo Cadava, a Northwestern University political scientist and author of the book The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of An American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump.

I think Latino conservatives are doubling down on free enterprise, they are still preaching a prosperity gospel, that wealth creation is the specialty of the Republican Party, he tells Vox.

Broadly, Republicans feel Democrats still treat the group as a monolith, and have been using Jill Bidens breakfast taco gaffe to sell Latino voters on that idea. Garcias campaign, for example, is selling a line of merch that reads unique as a taco.

I think Democrats have put us in a box where if were Latino were supposed to be Democrats, were supposed to want illegal immigration, says Armendariz-Jackson. And that couldnt be further from the truth, especially those who have immigrated to the United States legally.

Latina candidates Vox spoke with were clear about why they felt the Republican Party was a good fit for them. But the rise of Latina Republican candidates has prompted debate about what such representation means when Republicans have promoted xenophobic rhetoric and harmful policies directed at Latino people.

Some Republicans argue that Trumps racist remarks arent offensive to Latino voters, and that theyve been taken out of context. You have many Latino conservatives flatly denying that Trump was saying anything racist against their community as a whole because they say that he was talking about a very specific group of immigrants who had broken the law by entering the country without papers, says Cadava.

Strategists and candidates note, too, that the GOP is bigger than Trumps particular views. Its a dynamic that reflects an ongoing tension in the party, which has tried to make its tent a little bigger, while being dominated by Trump and other leaders who espouse racist and xenophobic viewpoints.

Despite Trumps past rhetoric, the party is successfully diversifying. And that has led to the rise of candidates who are able to deliver Trumps talking points in bold new ways. Because Latino candidates share certain aspects of their identity with the voters theyre speaking to, they can sometimes be more effective messengers for Republican ideas than white men.

If you put Donald Trump and Mayra Flores side by side, they are largely saying the same thing, said Cadava. But for Latinos, hearing that same message from Mayra Flores would be more compelling to them than from Trump.

Critics of the GOPs effort to expand its Latino base argue its central problem is that the Republican platform does little to center the needs of Latino voters.

Republicans have done a great job showing off their Latina candidates, but theyve done a terrible job addressing the actual concerns of the Latino community, says Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, a group dedicated to turning out Latino voters, in a statement. Republicans have opposed policies like the Affordable Care Act and a $15 minimum wage, both of which would disproportionately benefit Latinos.

But Republicans including the partys Latina candidates say such points of view are shortsighted and narrow-minded. Most of all, they say, arguments like Kumars miss the genuine connection that Republican messaging has for a segment for voters.

Thats kind of offensive that just because youre of a certain descent, you need to vote a certain way. And if you dont vote that way, youre not representing your community, says Romero, the Republican strategist. Thats one of the things that upsets me most.

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A record number of Latina Republicans are running for Congress in 2022 - Vox.com