Jobs, family, and education are how to reach most Latino voters. Many progressive ideas are certainly worthy, but things like abortion, gay rights, and transgender rights do not put food on the table or pay the mortgage or rent at the beginning of the month. Republicans don’t intend to help Latinos. However, they convince them that Democrats will make their lives harder.
For the most part, the Republicans have carte blanche here in Harris County, as the Democrats don’t put any money or time into working for the Latino community.
Several years ago, I wanted to mail potential Latino voters who were not likely to go vote, so I asked the Democratic Party for a list of people I could call, text, or mail. I never got a response. I was a Democratic precinct chair at the time.
The few times they spend some money in the Latino community, they go to the same people they have been going to forever. The results are always the same: tiny movements by new Latino voters to vote or to vote for the Democrats.
For years, Carmen Cavazos’ neighborhood in southeast Houston has voted reliably for Democrats up and down the ballot. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 68% of the vote in Cavazos’ voting precinct, a mostly residential enclave of about 3,000 people near Hobby Airport.
But something is changing in the precinct, where about nine out of 10 residents are Hispanic. President Joe Biden carried it by 20 points in his 2020 race against Donald Trump — a solid showing for Democrats, but half of Clinton’s 40-point advantage from just four years earlier against the same Republican.
Cavazos, a 44-year-old flight attendant and Republican precinct chair, said she expects the trend to continue in November. She has been trying to accelerate the political shift, helping organize regular meetings of the Saturday Menudo Club, a group that meets monthly at local Mexican restaurants to hear from conservative candidates and other speakers.
“The messaging and voter engagement in our community is critically important,” Cavazos said. “When presented with data, facts, and statistics, the false narrative of identity politics and ideology propaganda encouraged by Democrats crumbles.”
Below is one of the Spanish ads that Ted Cruz has paid for.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is launching a $4.4 million campaign targeting Hispanic voters in Texas — with a majority going to Spanish-language advertising, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: It is the largest investment the Cruz campaign has ever made into Hispanic advertising as the GOP continues to court the country’s largest non-white voting bloc.
- The demographic is particularly crucial in Texas, where Latinos now make up a larger share of the population than non-Latino whites and 28% of Texans speak Spanish at home, according to Census data.
Zoom in: The Cruz campaign’s $4.4 million investment includes broadcast and digital ads, as well as billboards, text messages and phone calls targeting Hispanic Texans. The effort started this month and will run through Nov. 5.
- Spanish-language broadcast ads will air in 20 different market areas and will be focused on the border, jobs and family values; Bilingual text and phone calling will specifically zero in on the swingy Rio Grande Valley area in South Texas.
- The first such ad adopts the format of a traditional Mexican ballad, called a “corrido.”
- “It has long been said that Hispanics are Republican, they just don’t know it yet, which is why Senator Cruz is committed to ensuring that every Hispanic household hears his message loud and clear,” Cruz campaign spokesperson Macarena Martinez said in a statement.
- Source