RENO, Nev. — As Vice President Kamala Harris answered a question at this month’s Univision town hall about immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, Elvira Diaz began to applaud.
Sitting with other Harris supporters at a watch party at Taqueria Jalisco in Reno, with Harris campaign signs that read “¡Cuando Luchamos Ganamos!” (“When we fight, we win!”) lining the walls, Diaz had been waiting to hear the vice president talk about so-called Dreamers, as such immigrants are known.
But she’s worried other Latino voters aren’t hearing Harris’ message.
“I really want her to be louder about it, because she knows what she’s talking about,” said Diaz, an activist and a Mexican immigrant, who donned a Harris campaign button and an American flag headband at the watch party. “And I want the Dreamers and the immigrants to know about her. That way she can win the election.”
Latino voters like Diaz are a crucial piece of an electorate in Nevada and other battleground states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, that will help determine which party controls the White House and Congress. In 2020, Latino voters made up 17 percent of the state’s electorate, and President Joe Biden won them by 26 points, according to NBC News exit polling. Two years ago, Latino voters were key to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s close re-election victory, and she carried them by 33 points.
“They’re crucial at every level of the ticket,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha.
But while Democrats have long held an advantage among Latino voters, Republicans believe they have an opening.
A recent NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll of Latino voters found Harris had a 14-point edge among Latinos over former President Donald Trump, the lowest for a Democrat in the four most recent presidential elections.
Republicans are especially optimistic that they can make gains among working-class Latino voters in Nevada, which was hit hard by the Covid pandemic and previously high inflation.
“It might be the best environment Republicans have seen in a presidential year in 20 years,” said Nevada GOP strategist Jeremy Hughes, pointing to Republicans’ advantage on handling the economy and movement among Latino voters.
“Those ingredients put the state in play,” Hughes said.
It’s the economy
Strategists with both parties believe they can shore up support among Latino voters by centering their messages on the economy.
“Hispanics, like almost every American, have been devastated by Kamala Harris and Bidenomics, and they’ll be voting with their pocketbooks this election,” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth Action, which has spent millions on ads in the Nevada and Arizona Senate races, including Spanish-language spots.
Jesus Marquez, a GOP consultant in Nevada who served on the National Hispanic Advisory Board during Trump’s administration, said Trump is attracting Latino voters who are frustrated by high costs.
“The American Dream is pretty much slipping away because of the cost of living,” Marquez said. “It’s just a big burden on Latinos to have to pay a lot more — 20, 30 to 40% sometimes, on food, on rent and housing, everything.”
Democrats also believe a broader message can win over Latino voters.
“It used to be that immigration was a big issue,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said while attending a phone bank-turned-house party in Las Vegas in early October to support Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen’s re-election campaign.
“And now they’re still concerned about Dreamers, but we just need to talk about the issues that impact everybody: the economy, education for your children, health care for your parents,” Titus said. “That’s what the Latino community wants to hear and identify with. And just to know that they’re seen and that we’re out here, even in my poor southern-accented Spanish.”
The NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll found the largest share of Latino voters (34%) said cost of living was the most important issue facing the country, followed by jobs and the economy (20%) and threats to democracy (16%). Immigration and the situation at the border ranked fourth, with 11% saying it is the most important issue.
Rocha, the Democratic strategist, said his party also has to stress “an economic populist message” to Latino voters, especially in Nevada, where many voters work in service jobs.
Rocha believes Democrats have an advantage among Latino voters in the state in large part because they have far outspent Republicans in Spanish-language advertising. Since Labor Day, Democratic campaigns and outside groups have spent nearly $3.4 million on Spanish-language TV ads in Nevada, while Republicans have spent $792,000, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
“When Latinos are getting more information, we know that they tend to vote at a higher rate,” Rocha said.
Democrats closely watching the state’s Senate race believe Rosen’s early and persistent Spanish-language ads have boosted her lead against GOP challenger Sam Brown, an Army veteran. Brown was specifically underperforming Trump among Latinos in a recent poll from Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
On the ground
“We’re not just winning it on TV. We’re taking it to where people are,” Titus said, pointing to the phone banking event as evidence of the Democrats’ operation on the ground.
Rosen’s allies at the house party said her outreach to the Latino community has been crucial to winning their support.
Christian Vela, who runs an online community known as “La Pulga” and wore a purple Rosen campaign shirt at the event, noted that Rosen helped Latino small-business owners secure crucial loans during the pandemic. And he stressed that her individual outreach to supporters goes a long way.
“Things like this with Jacky Rosen, where she actually goes to the community, this is normal. This is the way she campaigns,” Vela said, later adding, “She’s a part of the community.”
Rosen and other Democrats in Nevada also benefit from support from the influential Culinary Union, which represents thousands of workers — a majority of them Latino — in the state’s casinos, hotels and food services industry.
But Republicans believe they can make inroads among Latino voters, touting specific events and outreach, including a weekly “cafecito” social hour, which that week took place outside Sambalatte cafe in Las Vegas. Next to the cafe, volunteers manned a turquoise “Latino Americans for Trump” tent with campaign merchandise and a sign-up sheet for potential volunteers.
Miriam M., a Republican from Las Vegas of Mexican descent who declined to share her last name, picked up two yard signs that read “Trump: Secure border. Kamala: Open border.”
Miriam said she is supporting Trump because of high costs and because she believes the former president is “the real deal.”
“The Democrats, I think that they think that they have the Latino section in the bag. And you know what? No, you don’t. No, you don’t,” she said. “Because there are plenty of us who are in the know and who are talking. And we’re not stupid.”
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