Overconfidence often confuses political leaders. The Democrats can pay dearly for this sin, in the mid-term legislative elections on November 8; specifically, for having taken for granted a large majority support of Latinos for his party. The Republicans are on the hunt for that vote, which in fact they have been recovering after a few years of notable losses of their candidates in the Hispanic fishing grounds. The insufficient Democratic attention to this population in recent years, recognized and censured by not a few strategists from the progressive environment, can help the conservatives in that attempt.
There is a recent example of noted carelessness.
On October 19, the White House invited the local leaders of Georgia to one of its conferences to disseminate the impact that the laws promoted by Joe Biden have in the different states of the country: "Communities in action: Building a better Georgia", the act was titled. The president's team convened 40 leaders from the southern territory. With resounding oblivion: as a Hispanic informer Armando Guzmán pointed out a few days later in the Los Angeles Times, "all those summoned were African-Americans!"
The Latino population in Georgia is 10% of the total state: a modest proportion that is half of what it represents in the entire nation (19%) and a quarter of its rate in California (39%) and Texas (37 %). But it turns out that the vote of that mere 10% of voters from Latin America is seen as crucial in deciding the close race for the Senate seat at stake in Georgia, and the Democrats have not a spare ballot to try to retain control of that Camera. Not surprisingly, Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock spent months trying to convince the popular Broadway artist Lin-Manuel Miranda, of Puerto Rican descent, to help him with Latino voters, to which the actor and creator agreed. Sen. Warnock is slightly ahead of former football star Herschel Walker, the Republican contender for the job, but trails by six points among Hispanic voters.
According to the Ipsos survey published by The Washington Post a fortnight ago, in the US as a whole, Democrats are 27 points ahead of Republicans in terms of Latino voting intentions. It seems like a large margin, but it is not at all if you take into account that in 2018 the margin was almost 40 points.
Donald Trump's undisguised contempt for racial minorities in general and Hispanics in particular resulted in a scant 29% of the Latino vote for his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections, a percentage that was two points above the disastrous result achieved in 2012. by Mitt Romney. In 2020, however, Trump advisers advised him to take care of Hispanic communities in states like North Carolina, Texas, Nevada and Colorado. And, despite the wall project and the incurable supremacist tendency of the former president, that last year his Latino support rate rose to 32%.
In the special elections held in Texas in June to replace the retired Democratic representative Filemon Vela, Republican Mayra Flores became the first woman born in Mexico to reach the United States Congress. She and she did it in the very Hispanic south of Texas and defending the closure of the border to stop the "dangerous" illegal immigration. Now, when in a week she competes with Democrat Vicente González to stay in office, she Flores will demonstrate the solidity or fleetingness of that victory. She will do so flanked by fellow Republican and Hispanic candidates from Texas Mónica De La Cruz, Cassy García and Carmen Montiel.
Immigration is far from being the number one concern of American Latinos; it is the seventh they cite, in order of importance, after the economy, health care, education, violent crime, gun policy and abortion, according to a comprehensive survey just released by the Pew Research Center. Pure pragmatism.
It is clear that nothing can be taken for granted in politics. And less, it seems, in the United States today.
