Latinos across the nation are looking for leaders championing the American Dream, not destroying it. And as the fastest growing ethnic community in the United States, their political clout could tip the scales for Republicans come November.
The numbers don’t lie. In 2004, when Hispanic voter engagement really started taking center stage, Latinos made up 14.3 percent of the population, or 40.5 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2020, Hispanics accounted for 62.1 million, or 18.9 percent of the U.S. population, with 60,000 Latinos turning 18-years-old every month.
With this growing voting pool, it’s much more than mariachis, breakfast tacos, and bodegas, especially since Hispanic-American voter turnout continues growing. In 2004, it was six percent of the overall turnout, or approximately 7.5 million votes. From 2016-2020 there was upwards of 30 percent growth resulting in approximately 16.1 million votes.
Reducing Hispanics and their importance as voters to a stereotype has been working against the Democrat Party since I started in politics. However, it is just now that the reality of the situation is setting in.
HISPANICS REJECTING DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR GOP OVER CONCERNS ABOUT ECONOMY, CRIME, AND FAMILY VALUES
I have made a career of engaging the ever-growing constituency of Latinos for the better part of 20 years. From my days as a volunteer registering voters in Los Angeles, CA to serving in the White House, I know the strategy, grit and hard work it takes to build a national coalition state-by-state and neighborhood-by-neighborhood.
Engaging and mobilizing the Hispanic vote takes much more than knocking on doors and making calls, it is about sharing with the people, it is about delivering for the people, and it is about giving a voice to the people. President George W. Bush’s campaign was a prime example of this where we garnered 44 percent of the Latino vote. Fast-forward to 2020, where President Trump won 38 percent of the Hispanic electorate, not because he spoke Spanish, but because he spoke the language of Latino values— faith, family and opportunity.
And that scenario is currently playing itself out again on the national stage. Democrats are bleeding Latino support and that is a direct result of a party hijacked by a far-Left extremist branch, drowning in the in-roads President Donald J. Trump was able to make with this once historically reliable voting bloc.
This noticeable shift in the Hispanic community is benefiting the Republican Party because we have gone back to the basics. We have seen how overcoming superficial impressions and truly understanding Hispanics, as Americans, goes a long way.
Like all residents of the United States, Latinos are suffering under the weight of record gas and grocery prices, rampant crime, disastrous border policies, labor shortages and a progressive agenda in our children’s education.
According to a Pew Research Center poll, eight in ten Hispanic registered voters (80 percent) say the economy is very important in making their decision for the 2022 midterm elections. Education and violent crime come in at 70 percent for these same voters.
Latinos want solutions to the economic problems affecting their families; therefore, education and crime are growing issues for our community. For this bloc, our country is still the place where the American Dream is attainable, but if politicians are ignoring the issues that make this dream possible, we must go elsewhere for action.
Undeniably, the Hispanic community is seeing that pandering from the Democrats is no longer an effective strategy. Republicans, on the other hand, stand on a record of achievement ushered in by President Trump with three million new jobs for Hispanics, the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded, more than 600,000 Latinos lifted out of poverty, homeownership increasing by more than half a million homes and Hispanic businesses seeing a 46 percent increase in revenues.
To put it plainly, Latinos are about results and Biden’s administration is doing an abysmal job on delivering. In the last presidential election, Biden won 65 percent of the Hispanic vote with a promise to defend the working class and fix the U.S. immigration system. However, with two years under his belt, this president has allowed more than 4.7 million illegal immigrants to cross the border. How is this playing out?
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In South Texas, recent polling indicated that 57 percent of Hispanics and 60 percent of South Texas Hispanics want tougher border enforcement. For these residents, President Biden’s lack of serious diplomacy and the crisis caused by open borders has taught them precisely the same lessons so many other white working-class voters learned over the past 10 years—Democrats are blinded by cultural wokeness, lack substance and leadership in the critical matters, and are unwilling to listen to those they are courting for votes.
Latinos as a crucial electorate will continue growing. The idea for Republicans is to continue walking the walk and talking the talk—serve as the vanguard for the working class Hispanic community to achieve the American Dream, while the Democrat Party continues its one-way track to extinction.
