How Democrats and Republicans are courting Hispanic and Latino voters ahead of midterms

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• Amna Nawaz:

  There are at least 32 million eligible Latino voters in November's midterm elections, making them one of the fastest growing sectors of the American electorate.

  Laura Barrón-López has more on the politics and issues driving these voters.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  This year, Latino voters will be critical in deciding a number of key races that could determine the balance of power in Congress.

  For years, they have voted solidly Democratic, but the voting preferences of this diverse group are shifting. In 2020, President Biden won Hispanic voters by 21 points, down from Hillary Clinton in 2016, who won them by 38 points.

  To take a closer look at all this, I'm joined by Carlos Odio. He's the co-founder of Equis Research, a progressive polling firm that focuses on Latinos. And Mike Madrid, he's a Republican strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project.

  Thank you both for joining me today.

  Carlos, in 2020, a majority of Latinos voted for Democrats, but Republicans made noticeable gains in Texas, Florida, and at the margins in other swing states, like Arizona and Nevada. Equis Research recently wrote that the Latino vote remain stuck in the 2020 moment.

  What is driving that?

• Carlos Odio, Co-Founder, Equis Research:

  That's right.

  And the shift really, Laura, is, there were three in 10 Latino voters who voted for Trump in 2016. It was closer to four and 10 in 2020. That seems small, but, in this very hyperpolarized electorate, where most people have chosen their sides, that ends up feeling seismic.

  Today, as you said, we are not seeing Democrats rebound among Latino voters, nor are we seeing their margins necessarily decrease. What we're seeing is a lot of Latino voters in limbo. And everything we see points to the role of the economy. They have concerns about the economy and Democrats' approach and handling of the economy and handling of other crisis that have emerged over the last year.

  And yet Republicans haven't sealed the deal. And so, still, they're here on the fence, deciding which party they will be with at the end of the day.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Mike, talking about Latinos that are in limbo, what issues could provide further opportunity for Republicans to persuade Latinos, particularly in states like Arizona and Nevada, where the Latino population, mostly of Mexican descent, as we know, is different than the population in Florida?

• Mike Madrid, Republican Strategist:

  That's a great question.

  And, again, most of the undecideds, the area that Carlos is correctly pointing out, tends to be a Mexican American vote. That's where about 80 percent of the competitive races in the country are dealing with that segment of the electorate. But the answer in brief is the economy.

  It's been the economy as a top issue for the past three decades. It continues to be. As the essential work force in this country, it's overwhelmingly disproportionately impacting Latinos, whether it's inflation or whether it's job instability, those are the concerns, those bread-and-butter issues that are driving the remaining segment of the electorate that Carlos is pointing out has not made a decision yet as we enter the final stretch of the midterms.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Mike, just very quickly, is there anything, in addition to the economy, any other issue that you think Republicans could use to persuade Latinos?

• Mike Madrid:

  Well, look, there's a really fascinating debate that's playing out in the Latino community.

  For Democrats, the abortion issue has decidedly moved Latinos, Hispanic women, back into the Democratic call, essentially blunting this rightward shift that was happening. But what you're seeing play out in the Rio Grande Valley, for example, and really throughout the Southwest is that Republicans doubling down on this border security and this crime and law enforcement issue seems to be working in Texas, not as much in Arizona.

  But you do have other states that may not be border states with large migrant communities like Nevada, very contentious states, where the data is decidedly mixed on not just between the parties, but on the issue set. And so this complication of how we're approaching the vote in different states is really, I think, part of this American story that's really unfolding in a really rather unique way.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And on the issue of abortion, as well as gun policy, Democrats are favored by Latino voters.

  And a recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 63 percent of Latinos oppose the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, compared to the 22 percent who support it.

  Carlos, could that Dobbs decision outweigh Latinos' concerns about the economy?

• Carlos Odio:

  Well, look, here's the thing about abortion when it comes to Latino voters.

  First of all, there is this somehow a conventional wisdom in certain parts that Latinos are more socially conservative, perhaps on something like abortion. I don't think there's a lot of evidence of that, actually.

  What I will say is, if you ask an abortion question 1,000 different ways, you're going to get 1,000 different answers. And there is a lot of nuance. Where the nuance disappears is when it comes down to taking away rights, like we see in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision, in the action that now states are taking to strip away existing rights.

  What we are seeing is outright rejection across the Latino electorate, and especially among these swing voters, who are the ones who are going to tip this thing in critical states one way or the other. You see other issues like guns. Guns, again, can be very complicated. I will say, Uvalde hit a very personal way in Latino communities.

  And the importance, the salience of that issue rose to top three in most of our states, and hasn't gone away. It isn't about, again, the intricacies of policy. At the end of the day, it's about, who's going to protect me and my family? And there's a larger narrative there that can be told that weaves into the economy and how people are thinking about insecurity in this moment.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  I also want to get to the different facets of the Latino vote.

  Mike, you have said that generational and gender divides are becoming more pronounced among Latinos. Ahead of 2020, Equis found that young Latino men were drifting more towards former President Trump, while young Latinas are squarely with Democrats. Do you think that these divides are going to grow in November?

• Mike Madrid:

  I think they may actually close a little bit because of the nature of the issue set that Carlos just brought up.

  But I think the long-term trend is absolutely going to play that out. I think he's exactly right. Generational divisions have almost always been the largest dividing line between Latino voters. How far we are removed from the immigrant experience says a lot about the way we identify ourselves as Americans, with our own Hispanicity and the issue sets that we focus on.

  But there is an also an extraordinarily large gender gap that is getting bigger. It's quite remarkable how big it is. And Latino culture, despite the myth of machismo, we are an oftentimes a very feminized culture. And what I mean, by that is, we often look to women as leaders politically in our community, whether it's simply as community organizers, or this really large number of Latinas, elected officials who literally officially take public policy positions on behalf of our community.

  There is a very big gap, and, I would argue, probably going to get bigger over time between men and women in the Hispanic community.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And, Carlos, there have been a record high number of migrants arriving at the U.S. Southern border this year. I know Mike touched on the immigration issue.

  But how is that impacting racism states like Arizona and Nevada?

• Carlos Odio:

  Immigration, the issue of immigration served for a very long time to help differentiate between the parties among Latino voters. It was a good, like, decade where really the Republican Party brand was defined by the rhetoric around an issue like immigration.

  We have seen that that's not the same right now, that actually some of the president's lowest approval ratings in this moment are on his handling of immigration. And that's because it's driven by essentially everybody, all Latinos on all sides of the issue. Really, there hasn't been a lot of action on immigration.

  And so what you see is, even among a set of Latinos who heavily favor a pathway to citizenship, want to see a humane and orderly system, they do have some concerns about the border, especially the border as it might be depicted in the media, not as a immigration issue, but as a law and order, public safety concern. Are we handling yet another crisis that has emerged in the country?

  And so it is not the issue that it has been for Latinos in past elections. It's not going away. And there are different ways to talk about it. And the ways that, for example, Governor DeSantis is talking about immigration in recent weeks, the actions he has taken, put him squarely on the wrong side of that issue when it comes to Latinos, because, in his case, it's not about problem-solving.

  It's not about public safety and order. It's really about humanity and cruelty and how do we treat those who have come to this country, and what does that mean about the ways that the United States welcomes Latinos, especially those who are fleeing difficult situations?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And, Carlos, very quickly, I did want to ask you.

  There has been a lot of anxiety among pollsters about the accuracy of polls, given the history of the past few cycles. So is it — are polls of Latinos, which is such a diverse, multifaceted group, actually reliable?

• Carlos Odio:

  Well, that's a good question.

  And I think the skepticism about polling is, obviously, it's hard to defend the profession in this point — at this point, given the recent track record, and yet polling is a lot like weather reports, right? It is not about the exact accuracy, but directionally understanding the environment, understanding what we're headed into, understanding the range of scenarios that are possible.

  And so, for all of its misses, at this point, the data is still helpful in kind of elucidating, what are the concerns of voters? What is on their minds as they're making decisions at this point? It's what leads Mike and I to be talking about the role of the economy, because you see it coming up in poll after poll, in addition to focus groups and conversations that people are having at the doors or on the phones.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Carlos Odio, Mike Madrid, thank you for your time.