The sudden selection of Kamala Harris over Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee has galvanized the party’s two core constituencies — pro-abortion women and African Americans — as well as millions of young voters who are upset by the Hobson’s Choice of two old white men in the presidential race.
But for Latino voters, who number an estimated 36 million voters in the country, the situation may be different.
Latinos have been increasingly prominent in presidential races over the past 50 years, and Latinos are expected to represent about 15% of the nationwide electorate by November.
Historically, Latinos have been among the Democratic party’s most reliable sources of votes, roughly in the same league as Black and Jewish voters. But the party’s once-held edge is waning. Hillary Clinton trailed Donald Trump 81% to 16% among Latinos nationwide in 2016, but four years later the former president has increased his share to one in four Latino votes.
Since the president dropped out of the race on July 21, a number of prominent Latino politicians and union members have endorsed the vice president, including some progressive Democrats who have condemned Harris’s terse message to Latin American immigrants seeking to immigrate to the United States at a news conference in Guatemala City in 2021: “Don’t come.”
But it remains unclear whether Latino voters overall will give Harris a big boost in her bid to defeat Trump. First, they are diverse in terms of national origins and the immigration circumstances and histories of their communities.
Most Chicanos in Southern California reflect the liberal leanings of their state and have little in common ideologically with Miami’s majority of right-leaning Cuban Americans. Latino voters, whose roots lie in Colombia, Venezuela and other South American countries, have shifted toward the Republican party over the past four years, says Phoenix-based pollster Mike Noble.
Latinas are not yet shelling out much money to support Harris. Two consecutive Zoom fundraising calls with black women and men on two nights immediately after Biden’s withdrawal brought in a combined $2.8 million. Similar Zoom calls with Latinas and Latinas for Kamala on July 24 and 31, respectively, netted a combined $188,000.
Axios Latino has been tracking U.S. Latinos’ views of Harris since the first year of the Biden administration, along with Noticias Telemundo and the market research and public opinion firm Ipsos. At the end of 2021, Axios Latino found that 48% of Latinos had a favorable view of Harris — but that figure had dropped to 39% last March. A separate poll of Latinos in 10 states found that sentiment persisted in Arizona and Nevada, days after Biden’s fateful debate performance in late June.
But a more recent poll of 800 Latino voters in seven swing states had some very good news for Harris and Democrats. The poll, conducted by pollster Gary Segura for the Washington-based Somos Political Action Committee shortly after Biden’s bombshell announcement, gave Harris an impressive 18 percentage point lead over Trump and a surprisingly high approval rating among Latino voters in Arizona and Nevada, states with the highest percentage of eligible Latino voters among the swing states.
Harris is still a few points away from Biden’s support among Latino voters in the 2020 election, but she is 19 points ahead of Trump among registered Latino voters in the seven most competitive states, according to a separate poll released Wednesday by Equis Research.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, spoke at rallies in Phoenix and Las Vegas last weekend, and a new 30-second TV ad aimed at Latino voters has begun airing in both English and Spanish.
“She has worked throughout her career to win the support of Latino voters and has focused on key issues like health care, child care and combating gun violence,” said Maca Casado, the campaign’s Hispanic media director. “Vice President Harris’ campaign understands the political power of Latinos, and we will not take their votes for granted.”
Harris’s performance among Latinos in her home state of California helped her win a majority of the Latino vote in her two successful campaigns for state attorney general in 2010 and 2014.
But Latinos are not expected to play a decisive role in the Golden State or the three other states where they are most numerous. Both California and New York are considered key for Democrats, and the same goes for Texas and Florida.
That leaves Arizona and Nevada, and the outlook for Democrats remains uncertain.
In November 2020, CNN exit polling showed Biden easily beating Trump by 27 points among Latino voters in Arizona, thanks in part to people like Matthew Sotelo. The 37-year-old leader of a community nonprofit in Phoenix is a registered Democrat who thinks Biden is doing a “solid” job as president. But Sotelo feels there’s been a welcome change in the political climate since Harris became the party’s standard-bearer.
“The energy is different, and although polls say Harris is neck and neck with Trump, the momentum is swinging in her favor,” says the Arizona-born Mexican American.
During Harris’ unsuccessful 2019 presidential run, Sotelo had some reservations about her record as a prosecutor in San Francisco seeking prison sentences for people arrested for possession of small amounts of controlled substances, but he sees her as an open-minded politician.
“Do I think he did an excellent job? [on the border]? Absolutely not,” Sotelo says. “But I understand there is an opportunity for Harris to grow as a leader, and he will continue to learn and grow.”
One veteran Latino pollster warns that Republicans are making big gains in Arizona. “Democrats are losing ground there, and a lot of it has to do with the border,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a political science professor at Florida International University who oversaw a survey of Latino voters in 10 states last month.
Felix Garcia agrees. Born in the Mexican state of Sonora and living in Phoenix since 2000, the 42-year-old business consultant has spent his entire life on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“There are so many people from different countries at the border every day, and Kamala has never tried to fix the situation at the border,” said the registered Republican, who describes himself as a moderate like the late Arizona Senator John McCain.
Garcia’s problems with Harris don’t end with immigration. “We have so many problems with the Biden administration — inflation, Ukraine, Russia, Israel — and she’s part of that administration,” he says.
At a campaign rally in Arizona last Friday, Harris highlighted her years as California attorney general. “I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers,” she explained. “I prosecuted them case after case and won.”
Mike Noble, a former consultant and manager of Republican legislative campaigns in Arizona, found that many Latino voters in Arizona and Nevada are focused on pocket issues like inflation and housing affordability. Those concerns are unlikely to boost Harris.
“She did a little bit better in places like the Midwest and Pennsylvania, but in the Sun Belt, Harris is starting in basically the same position as Biden,” he says.
Harris’ rise has not affected David Navarro. The 27-year-old Las Vegas native is a registered Democrat who supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential bids in 2016 and 2020 and voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. But he says he’s done with both major political parties and will vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in the fall.
“I don’t support their views or policies on Israel and Gaza, and neither Democrats nor Republicans are doing anything to address the corporations and price hikes that are causing the inflation,” said the systems engineer, whose father immigrated from El Salvador. “They don’t value us as Americans, and I don’t want a presidential candidate who is run by big donors like billionaires and corporations.”
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A scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) warns that many Latinos in the state, like millions of Americans nationwide regardless of race or ethnicity, currently don’t know much about Harris beyond her name and current job title.
“People know Biden and Trump, but when it comes to Harris, she has a lot more opportunity to shape the narrative, to promote herself and to recalibrate things,” said Rebecca Gill, an associate professor of political science at UNLV. “She has the potential to move more numbers than either Trump or Biden.”
In a volatile election cycle already punctuated by an assassination attempt, a debate disaster of historic proportions and the selection of a major political party’s first black female presidential candidate, Latino voters could spring their own surprises, even in swing states with relatively small Latino populations.
“In almost every state in the U.S., including Pennsylvania and Georgia, the Hispanic vote is so large that it can make the difference between winning and losing,” says Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who specializes in tracking voting trends in the Latino community.
“That’s exactly why most people are so focused on the Hispanic vote.”