Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote – The Atlantic

But some of the Latino political organizers I spoke with described the primary season so far as a master class in political malpracticeas one person phrased itwith candidates struggling to engage Latino voters, address issues beyond immigration reform, and treat Latinos as the influential voting bloc they are. Others reported a lack of candidate interest in working with their organizations, including missed meetings and radio silence on questionnaires. (On top of all that, the only Latino candidate in the race, Julin Castro, dropped out earlier this month, leaving an all-white stage for tonights debate.) Theres a real risk that if Democrats dont sort out these issues soon, they could struggle to attract and mobilize what could be the largest minority voting bloc in 2020.

It feels like every four years theres this clutching of the pearls and head-scratching about why the hell Latinos dont vote, Marisa Franco, a co-founder of the Latino activist network Mijente, told me. I dont think its an absence of interest. Its a hunger for options.

Read: The next populist revolution will be Latino

The only candidate still in the race to receive virtually universal praise from the organizers was Senator Bernie Sanders. Organizers from California to Texas highlighted the Sanders campaigns grassroots engagement, something that seems to be reflected in Latinos consistently strong support for the senator: In poll after poll, Latinos, especially young Latinos, rank Sanders as their top pick among the primary contenders. Chuck Rocha, a top Sanders adviser, told me that the polls reflect the senators priority of expanding the electorate, including young Latinos who have not voted before. Of the record 32 million Latinos eligible to cast a ballot in 2020, 4 million of them turned 18 after the 2016 election, Mara Teresa Kumar, the CEO of the political-advocacy group Voto Latino, told me.

Rocha and Sanderss national political director, Analilia Mejia, said the campaign has aired Spanish-language ads for the past eight months and hired more than 150 Latino staffers around the country. In vote-rich California specifically, the campaign opened most of its 14 field offices in heavily Latino communities, including East Los Angeles, Oxnard, San Jose, and the Central Valley region. On our campaign, were very clear about the rising Latino iceberg of voters, how for years to come there will be a need to deeply motivate and mobilize Latino voters, Mejia said. When you have people who belong to that community [and] you empower those folks, of course youre going to do better within that communityif you have folks who know how to navigate it, folks who come from it, folks who respect it.

Sanders aside, the organizers I spoke with said the first signs of trouble in the 2020 campaign were clear during the two nights of the first Democratic debate, in June.

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Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote - The Atlantic