With reports that GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump is focusing on Latino outreach this week, we at La Unión del Pueblo Entero wanted to take the opportunity to talk about what meaningful outreach to our community would actually look like.
First, let’s take a look at what Donald Trump has been saying that has resonated with the Latino community. He launched his campaign characterizing Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” saying, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Trump later said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn’t be fair with him because of Curiel’s race. Trump said, “I’ve been treated very unfairly by this judge. Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage. I’m building a wall, OK? I’m building a wall.”
This drew backlash not only from Latinos but figures of all backgrounds and political stripes. Speaker Paul Ryan said of Trump’s comments, “Claiming a person can’t do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.”
These are the messages from Donald Trump that have resonated with the Latino community. They have resonated so much that Trump is doing even worse with Latino voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012.
A recent poll of registered Latino voters by Latino Victory Project, Latino Decisions, and Fusion showed Trump as having an unfavorable rating of 80 percent. By contrast, George W. Bush in 2004 had the support of about 40 percent of Latino voters. Mitt Romney lost the presidency in 2012 partially because he only had 27 percent of the Latino vote. Further, when voters in the Latino Decisions poll were asked to characterize Trump, “the descriptors that were chosen most frequently were ‘racist’ and ‘makes America more divided’ (83 percent).” Such opinions don’t bode well for Trump’s Latino outreach efforts.
If Donald Trump or any candidate for president would like to make meaningful connections with Latino voters, their message would need to resonate with the issues closest to our hearts. Among those are immigration, education, and the economy.
Immigration is not the top issue for Latino voters, but it is the most mobilizing one. That’s because how a candidate talks about immigrants tells Latinos what the candidate thinks about all Latinos. Our community feels that if a candidate or politician doesn’t do right by immigrants, they likely aren’t going to do right by the rest of us.
Rather than policy positions that attack immigrants and separate families, our communities are looking for support for keeping families together, legalization, and a roadmap to citizenship. We are looking for positions that expand opportunity-creating programs, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and that get rid of punitive rules that keep folks without documents from being able to fix their status.
Like most voters, Latino voters want to know what candidates will do to improve the economy and create more jobs. Our community still believes in the American Dream and we are doing our best to give our children a better life than we had. But we also want to know what role government can play in helping us to succeed. Candidates that tell us we are on our own and that government should have no role in improving our economic prospects sound cold, indifferent and like turning a blind eye to our struggle.
Our community also wants to hear how candidates will support public education and make college more affordable. In Texas and around the nation, Latinos, Asians and African Americans make up a majority of public school students. While Latinos in the valley out-perform Latinos in the rest of the state, we still see local schools struggling under the weight of budget cuts, and state legislatures failing to give public education the support it needs. Though Latinos are attending college at higher rates than a decade earlier, college debt is mounting.
We want to know that candidates care about the issues we care about. But talk alone will not secure the backing of Latino voters. Candidates have to invest heavily in outreach to Latino communities so that these voters turn out. Our communities want to learn more about the candidates’ positions. We want candidates to visit our communities and listen to us. Our neighbors need help registering, finding their polling place, and learning how to cast their ballot.
The Latino community is working hard to move our families and communities forward, despite struggles brought on by the immigration system, meager funding for education and a sluggish economy. Any candidate that hopes to do well with Latino voters will need to show that they are committed to making our struggle their own.
Editor’s Note: The main photo accompanying this guest column was taken by Pat McDonogh and first used in The Courier-Journal and USA TODAY.
