‘Holding our breath’: Will Latino turnout make a difference in these California House races?
The Spanish version of this article is available here.
Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign doesn’t look like the operation that turned out a surge of Latinos in 2018, when the party flipped seven Republican-held California congressional districts.
The coronavirus outbreak took that door-knocking plan off the table.
But the party through a Latino-outreach campaign costing north of $1 million is targeting the same voters, this time with a phone-banking and advertising campaign aimed at voters in battleground districts.
Matt Barreto, founder of Latino Decisions, said the efforts appear to be succeeding – 77% of Latino registered voters in California say they are “certain” they will vote in the election, with another 14% saying they will “probably” vote. And 69% to 20%, Latinos in California say they plan to vote Democrat in their congressional race.
His polling firm began partnering with Democrats in September 2019 to understand which issues they should focus on in advertisements targeted to Latinos, finding health care, the pandemic, jobs and immigration were top of mind. Those trying to juice Latino turnout are optimistic that they’ll break records again in 2020, aided by the efforts of Democrats and local Latino groups, health care concerns and the rhetoric of President Donald Trump.
Those trends mean California Republicans are going to have a hard time convincing Latinos to vote for them, said Republican political strategist Luis Alvarado.
“It would be against their own interest because you cannot shake off the effect that the Trump administration has had on the Latino voters,” he said, unless Republicans can target specific groups of Latino conservative voters.
Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and an expert in Latino voting trends, said data and the political environment suggests there will be a record turnout of Latino voters in California, and nationally.
That projected turnout, however, could be “mitigated somewhat by the pandemic and the inability to do door-to-door organizing, which is really central to getting the Latino vote out as much as possible,” he said. “We’re kind of holding our breath a little bit.”
Here’s a look at the races that the parties say hinge on Latino turnout.
San Joaquin Valley rematch
Republicans think they have their best chance of reclaiming a California congressional district is in the San Joaquin Valley, where former GOP Rep. David Valadao is challenging Democratic Rep. TJ Cox.
Cox unseated Valadao by less than 1,000 votes in 2018, a victory Democrats say wouldn’t have happened without that increased Latino turnout.
The district encompasses Kings County, and portions of other Latino-majority communities in Fresno and Kern counties. Latinos represented 46% of all voters in the 2016 race, according to the California Civic Engagement Project.
Alvarado said Valadao is one of the few Republicans who can overcome “the Trumpism shadow” when it comes to connecting with Latino voters. His genuine connection with Latinos is, in part, due to his advocacy for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to Alvarado.
Valadao’s campaign manager, Andrew Renteria, said they’ve been engaged in outreach to Spanish voters as well, including Spanish text messages, Spanish media interviews with Valadao, issue pamphlets in Spanish, and having Spanish-speaking volunteers knock on doors while wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines.
“As the child of immigrants and having grown up translating for my own parents, I understand personally the importance of reaching people and talking to them in a way that reflects their own homes,” Valadao, whose family is of Portuguese descent, said in a statement to McClatchy. “Our campaign has always and will continue to communicate with all voters in both Spanish and English so they can hear about my record of independence and bipartisanship.”
Cox’s campaign, meanwhile, has a slew of Spanish TV ads, some of which feature Latino people in the district, daily Spanish-language phone banks and frequent events with local Latino leaders. He emphasizes his work to pass action in the House for immigrants.
Cox’s ads seek to tie Valadao to Trump, noting that some of Valadao’s votes in 2017 and 2018 aligned with Trump’s agenda, including a vote to replace the Affordable Care Act. Many Spanish language ads against Valadao have mentioned that point.
Of those who have already returned their mail-in ballots in the 21st district, about 60% are Latino, according to Political Data Inc. A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson said those numbers showed the advantages of investing in Latino communities.
The spokesperson also said they’ve doubled the numbers of newly registered Latino voters in the district this cycle, from 15,868 after the 2016 general election to 31,281 after the 2018 general.
A purple district
Republican candidate Ted Howze is challenging incumbent Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, in the 10th Congressional District. About 35.6% of the eligible voter population in the district is Hispanic, according to Pew Research Center. Latinos represented 22% of voters in the race in the 2016 primary, according to the California Civic Engagement Project.
Howze lost party support at the state and national level after offensive posts on his social media accounts surfaced in May. One of those posts compared immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers, to pedophiles. Many local Republicans still support Howze.
A Democratic Party spokesperson said Howze’s comments were emblematic of the attitude with which Latino voters are “fed up,” and part of the reason they expect higher turnout this year.
Democrats say they doubled the numbers of newly registered Latino voters in that district this cycle as well, from 13,383 after the 2016 general election to 26,112 after the 2018 general.
Southern California replay
In Los Angeles and Ventura counties, Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia is running against Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D-Santa Clarita, for the 25th Congressional District race. About 33% of eligible voters in this district are Latino.
Garcia, a former Navy pilot who is the son of a Mexican immigrant, claimed the seat this year against Smith during a special election after former Rep. Katie Hill stepped down from her position after she was accused of having inappropriate relationships with staffers.
Latino voters living in that congressional district are likely to be homeowners with stable jobs and a higher level of education, according to Alvarado. The district was long-represented by former House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon, and the defense industry is a significant player in its economy.
“There are many Latinos there that are not Republican, but they’re conservative Democrats who might find their Democrat candidate to be too progressive for their taste, and may give (Garcia) a second win,” Alvarado said. “They probably have government jobs and find Mike Garcia — being a product of the military and a product of the aerospace industry — as somebody who may represent their income interest more.”
Democrats’ stretch
Early in 2019, Democrats set their sights on expanding their congressional majority by naming Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, one of their targets. That effort seems mostly abandoned now, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee making no major investments in the race.
In the 22nd Congressional District, about 39% of the eligible voter population is Hispanic. And this year, the Democratic candidate is Phil Arballo, a Latino a financial adviser from Fresno.
But even in majority Latino regions, Mayra Macías, executive director of the progressive D.C.-based Latino Victory, said “demography is not destiny.”
Macias said the district contains a large farmworker community. As a Latino candidate from Fresno, Macias hopes Arballo can engage with Latino voters. But without the right infrastructure in place – like what the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee invested in other parts of California – she says winning the Latino vote can be difficult.
“A quarter of all Latinos voters in this country reside in California,” she said. “If we’re not putting the infrastructure (or) we’re not supporting the development of leaders on the ground to offer a vision to voters, then we cannot expect voters to just turn out to vote.”
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