(upbeat music) - Good evening, and welcome to Horizonte, a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host, Catherine Anaya.

Tonight we take a look at the Hispanic electorate, which with every election cycle becomes a bigger part of the total set of voters.

I'll talk to two political consultants about that growth.

But first, here are some quick facts about the Latino electorate in the United States.

Now, according to the Pew Research Center, an estimated 36.2 million Hispanics are eligible to vote compared to 32.3 million in 2020.

That represents 50% of the growth that occurred in that time among the entire electorate.

Latinos account for 14.7% of all eligible voters, which is a new record high.

About 53% of the entire Hispanic population is eligible to vote, and they also skew younger.

Only 33% were 50 or older that's compared to 48% of the general electorate.

Joining me now to talk more about how the Latino vote might impact the election this year are Lorna Romero Ferguson, owner of the consulting firm, Elevate Strategies, and Jason Barraza, a partner in Veridus Consulting.

Thank you both for joining me, it's been a while.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- It's good to see you.

So a lot has changed since the last time we've talked.

What kind of a shift have both of you noticed since we have a now Harris-Trump ticket, and when I talk about shift, what kind of a shift have you seen among Latino voters with this change?

I'll start with you, Lorna.

- Well, definitely, I mean, obviously when you have a new Democratic candidate, it changes the math about the election, right?

And I think that you have a female, a woman of color really presents an opportunity for Democrats to appeal to a broader audience, specifically the Latino community in Arizona.

And you've seen, you know, Donald Trump over the past few election cycles really make some key inroads with that demographic.

But now, that he's not up against Joe Biden and it's Kamala Harris instead, it's a different kind of calculus for him in how he engages the audience.

- What have you noticed Jason, among Latino voters?

Has there been a shift in terms of their attitudes with this new ticket?

- It's an excitement factor, I think that those inroads that Donald Trump was able to make were available because there just wasn't a lot of excitement about Joe Biden and his potential candidacy in this race.

When there was a change and Harris became the candidate, I think that that opened up the opportunity for Hispanics and most Democratic voters to be renewed and re-invigorated about the candidate and the campaign.

- Well, speaking of growth, the Latino electorate has grown, according to Unidos US, Latinos are the second largest voting age population.

What issues do Latino voters in Arizona consider important right now, Lorna?

- Yeah, right now we're seeing it's the pocketbook issues.

You know, inflation, cost of living, housing prices, you know, just general pocketbook issues that are impacting their families every single day.

And that's in alignment with just the general electorate altogether.

Immigration, border security ranks pretty high, but it's really what are the issues that are impacting me on a daily basis?

And it's really cost of living and how much that's increased over the past four years under the Biden-Harris administration.

- And Jason, I know you and I have talked about that very same thing, I mean, people just want to know how their needs can be met, right, in their communities?

- It's, where am I gonna make my money?

And then what is that money gonna be able to buy for me?

That is the driving factor amongst many voters across the board.

And it doesn't change when we talk about Hispanic voters specifically, but that's what they want to know about.

It's an economic question for them right now.

- Well, that same report also said that Latino voters are skewing younger.

1 in 5 of them will vote for the first time in a presidential election this November.

So when we're talking about these issues that are driving voters, are they different when you're talking about these younger voters, especially those who are gonna be voting for the first time?

Are the issues the same or different when you're talking about younger versus older?

- Yeah, I think when you look at even just the larger electorate, but I think it mirrors pretty well when you look at Latinos, the issues that impact the older generation are somewhat different than the younger generation.

I think overall, folks are concerned about the economy, but when you start looking at more of the social impact issues like climate change, abortion, usually the younger electorate care about those more than the older electorate.

And so at this point, you see jobs, the economy, cost of living being high amongst both older and younger voters.

But again, abortion, climate change, gun control issues, younger voters tend to care about those more than older voters.

- [Catherine] What about you, Jason, would you agree?

- Yeah, absolutely, I think with the younger voters, there's different things that are impacting where they are in their life, right?

So many of them are just entering the workforce.

So the economy is that big question.

You know, they're interested in how much they're gonna make, right?

And so, where's that job gonna come from?

They're interested in starting their family, they're interested in buying a home.

These are the types of things the young Hispanic voters are being confronted with for the first time in their life.

And so, it's a driving factor in how they're making decisions for politics.

- Well, we've talked a lot in the past about there's this relatively high percentage of Hispanics who don't vote so I guess, my question is two part why is that?

And then also, do you think we'll see a bigger turnout this election cycle especially with these younger voters and how will that change?

- It's a question about engagement, right?

If you don't do the voter outreach and you don't put the work as a candidate or a campaign, how do you expect that person to turn out and vote for you?

And this has been an issue that you've seen with Republicans and Democrats every election cycle since I've been in this profession, is everyone talks about the Latino vote.

But there's not really a concerted effort to actually drive out those voters.

There's been one-offs every election cycle, depending on certain issues during the time of 1070, you saw some, you know, organizations that were really focused on that issue and focused on voter registration and turnout.

But then that issue goes away, and then so does that effort.

So there's a lack of infrastructure when it comes to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party when it comes to voter engagement and making it meaningful, right?

You oftentimes see a public event, you know, Latinos for Trump, or Latinos for Harris, and they have a few Latino speakers, and then there's a few media stories about it, and it dies off within 48 hours.

And there's not a continued effort to reach out to those voters.

And so, if you don't make the effort, you can't expect those people to turn out and vote and actually be excited to vote for you.

- Well, Jason, why do you think that is?

'Cause I feel like we have the same conversation every election cycle, I remember reading just yesterday that there were some Latino groups coming out and saying, "Look, there was no mention "of our community during the debate."

So why does it become crickets?

You know, when the start of the cycle, we're all about, let's get the Latino vote, but then you don't hear much about the outreach.

- Well, because it hasn't necessarily been there specifically for the community in any broad pattern in the past, but I think what's important to look at is that youth population that we were just talking about, as well as the growth of the Hispanic community overall and its importance within the electorate.

I think campaigns are starting to really see that this is an important group to talk to and we need to find new ways to do that.

You couple that with a youth that is now coming up to be of voting age, this is the first time that many of them are getting that opportunity to participate.

And they have known nothing but our system of voting, our democracy here and so, they're excited about actually participating in it.

And I think that that's gonna drive an increased participation amongst Hispanics across the board.

- So given that we have a large Latino voting age population, what do you believe each candidate will need to do to secure the Latino vote in Arizona?

- They have to talk to the voters, right?

We've seen in some of the recent polling here in Arizona that up to 50% of the Latino voters say they haven't gotten any kind of political communication from a candidate campaign.

And that's kind of embarrassing at this point.

We're in 2024, you've heard the candidates talk about publicly how important this voter block is to them.

But to them not to even receive a text message, or a phone call, or a mail piece, or anything asking for their vote just kind of shows the sad state of affairs of both parties when it comes to this outreach effort.

And I really think, just to piggyback on what Jason was talking about, this needs to be part of something that's just the broader campaign strategy, right?

We've often talked about there's a campaign strategy, 'cause it's a numbers game at the end of the day, right?

They wanna be able to win over enough voters to be successful here in Arizona, and then they look at what their opportunities are with the Latino community.

Maybe we'll do some digital ads in Spanish.

And again, like I said before, it's not really a meaningful effort.

It needs to be ingrained into their campaign strategy as a whole, the majority of these Latino voters are bilingual, they do consume a lot of this information in English.

And so, why can't we just make sure that this is part of the overall campaign strategy?

Because especially from a Republican standpoint, the top three issues that they care about are the issues that Republicans are talking about.

- Yes.

- So go and meet them where they are and talk to them about it through the mechanisms, whether that be digital ads, or Facebook, or WhatsApp, whatever the means are.

Just make sure that's part of your campaign strategy.

- Meet them where they are, it sounds so simple, Jason, why does it seem so complicated at the same time?

- It does sound so simple when you say it, but then actually figuring out how to do it, that's where the real trick is.

Where are these voters, where do they consume information?

How do they like to receive their information?

These are big questions that I think campaigns for at least the last 5 to 10 years have been really kind of having to tackle and having to find answers for.

I think that they're gonna find solutions in the digital age, these are groups of individuals that live on their screens and so how can we figure out how to get our ads on those screens, our messaging in front of those voters so that they understand that they are an important aspect of this process?

- Would you both agree then that the approach needs to be different for the younger voter versus the older voter when you're talking about Latino voters in general?

In other words, don't lump 'em all into one, you know, group.

- No, definitely and it's just like if you look at any kind of older voter versus younger voter, the way that they consume information is very different.

As Jason said, a younger voter is on their device 24/7 getting their information.

My parents who are older voters are getting it off of TV or mail, they're paying attention to that.

A younger voter isn't paying attention to what's going into their mailbox very often.

And so, it does need to be a different approach.

And I do think with the young age of these Latino voters presents an opportunity because, I mean, you have a number of young voters coming in, whether they're Latino or not, that campaigns need to figure out what's the effective way to communicate with them, right?

They're not paying attention to maybe text messages or phone calls as much anymore.

But what are the digital applications that we have to start engaging, whether it's TikTok or something else, to get those voters to pay attention?

Nowadays, it's influencers.

We saw that a lot with the DNC and with Kamala Harris.

What are the interesting ways and new innovative ways that they're gonna have to do voter outreach?

- Times are a changing, aren't they, Jason?

- They absolutely are, but I think that the campaigns are gonna start adapting to that, and they are gonna start moving to where these voters are, we're seeing that already.

But the landscape is just different.

It's gonna take them time to respond to it.

- Well, we do have time so a lot can change, as we know, in the amount of time that we have.

So thank you both for sharing your insights with me.

I appreciate it, good to see you.

- Good to see you, thank you.

- Pleasure to see you.

- Thank you, and that's our show for tonight.

For Horizonte and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Thank you so much for joining us, have a great night.

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