‘The Latino Vote’: 10 Hispanic Voters Discuss

In September, we convened a group of 10 Latino voters from Texas, Florida and Arizona, a collection of Democrats, Republicans and independents who planned to vote or were open to voting for Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections.

“Is there anything that you think the Republican Party does that is off-putting to Latino voters?” our moderator asked. “Is there anything about the way Democrats talk to or talk about the Latino community that turns off Latino voters, in your view?”

“When Trump said Mexicans were rapists — even though he probably didn’t mean all of us — it still left a bad taste in my mouth. You know, a lot of people clapped for that. So I was like, ‘OK, that’s how it is,’” one participant said.

“When the first lady referred to us as unique as breakfast tacos, that kind of stands out in my mind,” another participant said, referring to Jill Biden’s remarks this year at a conference for UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights group.

Several of them said neither party really spoke to them in a personal, informed way. Part of the problem is that there’s no one way to talk to Latino voters, because — as our participants reminded us — there’s no one typical Latino voter. “There’s a whole spectrum of Hispanics,” one participant said. And maybe the distinction between Latino voters and other voters shouldn’t be made at all: “We are Americans first,” another participant said.

What’s clear is that both parties have an opportunity to connect with voters like the ones we spoke to, both to solidify their support and to clear up misconceptions. Our participants thought Republicans were stronger on a variety of issues, such as crime and safety, gun control, national security, immigration and the economy. But on the issue of abortion, most of them favored Democrats. One participant thought that Democrats in general supported defunding the police, and another said of Donald Trump’s comments about Mexicans, “I feel like he just said what other people were thinking.”

It’s a cliché at this point to say that Latino voters are politically powerful, that they often hold complicated political positions, that it’s not a given that they’ll vote for Democrats. What comes after these clichés will become clearer only in the coming weeks, months and years, as politicians, news outlets and the country pay more attention to voters like these participants.