July 13, 2025 • 53 mins
As Democrats confront declining Latino support across three consecutive presidential elections, a fierce debate is unfolding within the party: Are Latino advocacy groups and polling firms helping or hurting the Democratic cause? Critics argue that a flawed messaging strategy —and a complacent advocacy infrastructure— have led to Latino voters drifting right, even toward Donald Trump. But advocates push back, warning that the narrative of a dramatic rightward shift is exaggerated and politically dangerous. In the final episode of our series collaboration with LAist podcast Imperfect Paradise, we take you inside the high-stakes debate over the future of Latino political power in America.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear listener, Before we begin today's show, we have some
news to share. Starting next week, the podcast version of
Latino USA is going to be distributed by the Makurdura
Network at iHeartMedia. That is the biggest Latino vertical in
the podcast industry with over two hundred and fifty million
monthly listeners. So doing this is an opportunity for our
(00:23):
stories to reach more listeners than ever at a critical
time in our country's history. It also makes us more
resilient as an independent news nonprofit. What happens for you,
dear listener, is we maintain one hundred percent of our
editorial independence and will be an amazing company which shows
we love. Like Radio Mulande, will remain in public media.
(00:45):
PRX will continue to distribute Latino USA weekly to public
radio stations all over the US and Canada. Now this
is important, dear listener, because moving forward, you will hear
more ads in our podcasts, but we are going to
rely on your support as a lit That's really where
the vast majority of our funding still comes from from
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(01:09):
support us and get the benefit of listening to these episodes,
ad free It's easy. Join futuro plus. Go to Futuromedia
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all our content. You support futuro Media, you don't get
any ads.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Easy.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Thank you and as always, yes, dear listener, a little
history right here. You know, Americans started using the term
Hispanic back in nineteen seventy. That's when the category was
added to the census, and ever since then there's been
this perception that Hispanics would need their own political representation.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Chop psnia fera via nostrom nois.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now for us and frankly the entire country. Theerred term
has become Latino, and the number of Latinos and Latinas
in this country since that first census has continued to boom.
As of July of twenty twenty three, there are more
than sixty five million Latinos in the United States, making
(02:17):
up over nineteen percent of the nation's population, and they
are a growing percentage of the country's electorate.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Latinos make up nearly fifteen percent of all eligible voters,
according to the Pew Research Center.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
The hope for the Democratic Party, especially since the mid oughts,
was that the Latino vote would be reliably theirs, especially
because they were the party pushing for more progressive immigration policies,
or so they said, And Latinos have historically favored Democrats,
often more than sixty percent of Latino voters choose Democratic
(02:56):
presidential candidates. However, the result also the recent presidential election
which elected Donald Trump, have led a lot of people
to question that notion that Latinos and Latinas would be
more reliably Democratic voters. Well by now, it's been more
than half a year after the election, and political strategists
(03:18):
seem to have very different opinions about why Latinos are
voting less for the Democratic Party than ever before. Is
it faulty data, is it tone deaf messaging, is it
an agenda that's too progressive or too moderate.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
For Latino and Latina voters? Or is it something bigger?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
A question about whether actually a unified Latino vote with
shared values and interests does it even exist in the
United States? From Fuduro Media and PRX, it's Latino USA
Today diagnosing the Democratic deficit. This episode is a collaboration
(04:04):
with Imperfect Paradise from Lais Studios. I'm Maria Inojosa and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm Antonia Today. He though, Maria, are you familiar with
the iconic two thousand and six film The Devil Worst Product.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I mean, come on, of course I think you are.
Oh my god, I love that film.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's such a New York film, and Meryl Streep is
such an amazing actor.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
It's such a comfort movie for me. There's the reason
I'm bringing it up, and that's because there's this scene
in that movie where the character Andy, who's played by
Anne Hathaway, she's in one of her early meetings with
her new boss, Miranda Priestley, who's played by Meryl Streep,
and Meryl Streep is like picking between these two belts.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
This is so so Vogue, so Vogue magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yes, and she goes, oh, it's so hard because these
two belts are so so similar, and Hathaway's character like scoffs.
And then Miranda Priestley gives her this like chilling look
where she's like, oh, you think you're better than this,
and then goes on to do this incredible monologue where
she explains how actually the sad blue sweater that Anne
Hathaway's character is wearing, what you.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Don't know is that that sweater is not just blue,
it's not to requoice, it's actually ceruleum.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The choice even to wear that sweater has a lot
to do with like millions of dollars of corporate money
that goes into people's paychecks. That it has this like
trickle down effect and that has influenced Anne Hathaway's fashion choices.
And it's sort of comical.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
How do you think that you've made a choice that
exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're
wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the
people in this room from a pile of stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Like a whole infrastructure that she can't even avae.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It's an amazing takedown.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yes, what's interesting is like that dynamic that Miranda Priestley
is describing in this scene, it's not unique to the
fashion world, I mean, and the story that you and
I are telling today is about the people in an
equivalent room, but in the realm of politics, the people
who gather and study public opinion and then help shape
the political messaging that ultimately trickles down into the bumper stickers,
(06:15):
political law and signs, desperate campaign emails and texts that
we get asking for donations and the TV campaigns we see. Maria,
You've reported a lot on how this political world operates.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I mean, I've been covering elections since the early nineteen nineties,
so yeah, I've been covering this and the question of
the money spent to reach out to Latino and latin
Have voters first of all in both parties, and the
kind of messaging and who's doing the messaging and who's
getting the money. Yeah, it's deep. It's fascinating political journalism,
(06:51):
you know. But the truth is is that Latinos and
Latinas have not always been welcome at the highest levels
of where the decision are being made in terms of
electoral politics and campaigns, et cetera. So appealing specifically to
the Latino community as a political power is actually a
(07:11):
phenomenon that really took off when the Latino population in
the country grew from roughly thirty five million in the
year two thousand to fifty million in the year twenty ten,
which by the way, is the year that we launched Futuro.
And we did that because we were looking at those numbers,
I was like, this is what the future looks like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Absolutely, this is the mid offs for this moment, more
people are like, Wow, the Latino population and the Latino
electorate have like arrived, you know. And for Democrats, the
hope was that this Latino vote would act like the
Black vote, which by the mid twentieth century had become
this reliably democratic bloc.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
The belief, the orthodoxy of the Obamba years, was that
there was this new emergent coalition of college educated white
people and people of color.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
This is Mike Madrid. He's a veteran political strategist that
founded the Lincoln Project, a political action committee made up
of moderate conservatives and former Republican Party members who opposed
US President Donald Trump and trump Ism.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
And where you had black people who were a racially
polarized vote politically, there needed to be an issue that
created a racial voting block amongst Latinos where none existed.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And there was one issue that seemed like it could
galvanize this potentially massive voting block.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
For whatever reason, immigration was the number one issue for
Latino voters.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So data started to emerge backing up this idea. A
firm called Latino Decisions released a poll in twenty fourteen
that had immigration as the number one issue to Latino voters.
At forty four percent.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But the results of the last presidential election has really
called into question whether immigration is an issue that in
fact unites the Latino and Latina electorate, and going even deeper,
it calls into question whether, well, is there a Latino
vote worth organizing at all or is it just too fractured.
(09:18):
We're going to go inside the fierce debate within the
Latino polling and advocacy world. Yes it's nerdy politics, but
boy is it revealing. I'm going to be back later
in this episode, but for now, Antonia Saidehilo is going
(09:39):
to set the scene.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Take it away, Antonia.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Six days after Donald Trump won the twenty twenty four
presidential election, Unidos US, formerly known as the National Council
of La Rasa, held a virtual press briefing. The webinar
is currently being live streamed and there will be a
video recording of this soon after. Unidos US is an
profit that aims to quote challenge the social, economic, and
(10:03):
political barriers that affect Latinos at the national and local levels.
Seven zoom squares populated their feed that day. The expressions
ranged from glum to sobered. Lettisa Latinez from Unidos us
set the tone for the conversation.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
There's been a lot of chatter about Latino voters, many
of us who have been working to increase Latino voter
participation at times where joking that it felt like Latino
voters were being more talked about than talk two.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
The overall sentiment of the press briefing was wariness about
the narratives around Latino voters that were emerging after the election.
Headlines like the one Reuters published quote Trump's return to
power fueled by Hispanic working class voter support or cal
matters a pivotal moment why many Latino voters in California
chose Trump. Also the New York Times Latinos bolted to
(10:57):
the right in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Unfortunately, the headlines get written with imperfect information, and so
in order to inform that in the here and now,
as we continue to look ahead, we wanted to make
sure that people had very robust information about is Spamic voters,
(11:20):
who the majority of home voted for Vice President Harris
in every state except Florida.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
The we that GLDISA is referring to is the people
in this webinar. Some of the most respected names in
the Latino Polling and Advocacy space, people who represented organizations
like America's Voice, the Immigrant Rights Group SO, the largest
independent Latino voter, civic and voter engagement program in the country,
and BSP Research, one of the pre eminent Latino polling firms.
(11:52):
Its co founder, Matt Baretto, was part of the Kamala
Harris presidential campaign. Gary Segura, the other co founder of
BSP Research, was participating in this webinar. In it, he
shared exit poll data the firm had gathered and concluded that.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
Latino voters were not instrumental in the Trump victory. If
no Latino had voted, the outcome would have been unchanged.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Sigura's polling firm, BSP Research, found that thirty seven percent
of the Latino vote went for Donald Trump this past election.
Another exit poll from Edison Research had forty six percent
of the Latino vote going for Donald Trump. That's nearly
ten points more either way. Latinos skewed more right than
they ever had in modern politics. BSB and many of
(12:40):
the other organizations represented in this webinar have claimed that
they understand Latino voters better and more precisely than other institutions.
Many of the organizations in this webinar have been leaders
in messaging to Latino voters over the past decade.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
We wanted to make sure that anyone in DC, whether
it was a candidate, a campaign, an interest group, or
the news media, that they could understand our community more accurately.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's Matt Bretto, the other founder of BSP Research. He
and Segura have been pioneers when it comes to specializing
in polling that look at the Latino population. Before BSP,
they started Latino Decisions, the polling firm that found that
immigration was the top issue for Latino voters in twenty fourteen,
(13:26):
coming up why Democrats thought immigration could be a winning issue,
but the messaging maybe missed the mark. Stay with us, Notois,
Welcome back. You're listening to the final episode in a
series collaboration between Latino USA and Imperfect Paradise. I'm Antoniaes
(13:51):
today Hido immigration has been an issue that has mobilized
a lot of Latino voters, at least here in California.
Speaker 9 (13:59):
Things are very anti immigrant here in California.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Ahilicasadas is the president of Chile, the Coalition for Human
Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. She started working at the
organization as a volunteer thirty years ago.
Speaker 9 (14:12):
It was also with the height of the aftermath of
Proposition one eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Proposition one eighty seven was a ballot measure passed in
California in nineteen ninety four that limited undocumented immigrants from
getting essential public services like public education and health care.
It also required some agencies to report on folks they
suspected to be undocumented. The proposition was later ruled unconstitutional,
(14:37):
but the fight against Prop one eighty seven inspired more
Latinos than ever before to register to vote and run
for office in California.
Speaker 9 (14:46):
We have completely transformed our state, so it's to California
for All. Instead of punishing and persecuting immigrants, we're embracing
their families as students, as workers, so that we then
have things like access to a driver's license, access to
a college education. The California Valley Is Act Healthcare for All.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And fast Forwarding to June twenty twelve, immigration seemed to
be a winning issue again, this time on the national stage.
President Obama passed DHAKA Deferred Action for childhood Arrivals through
executive order during the midterms. Later that year, President Obama
would be elected with a historic amount of Latino support.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
Darcott thought that the immigration issue was the centerpiece, the
be all, end all issue for Hispanics.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But Fernando Mandi, Obama's former lead Latino focused polster and strategist,
was suspicious that immigration was in fact the hot button
issue that mobilized Latinos to go to the polls.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
I think it was important. I reject that it was
the silver bullet. That is what by itself caused him
to have record Hispanic support in twenty twelve. It rounded
out all of these offerings that he had done on
the economy, on healthcare, on public education, and then the
final piece of the puzzle was showing that he was
(16:09):
compassionate to those that were really Americans and everything, but
name only those young children that had been brought to
this country and had been raised and lived and grew
up as Americans.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So how did that become an assumption that immigration was
the number one issue for Latino voters.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
You'd have to ask those that were running the Hispanic
operation in the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time. It's
certainly a lot of the messaging and certainly a lot
of the activists in the space said that that was
the best way to win with Hispanics and to really
draw that contrast with Donald Trump. There certainly was a contrast,
I mean, certainly on the positions that Senator Clinton took
(16:50):
versus what Trump was saying, I will introduce legislation for
comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizen.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yet Democrats, or i should say, the Democratic power establishment
think the Miranda priestleys of politics had clung to this
idea that immigration should be the number one issue to
campaign to Latinos. But Amandi points to the past three
presidential elections as proof that the messaging to Latino voters
around immigration has not been effective.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
You can argue with the trend support has declined in
three consecutive presidential cycles when in previous cycles it had
only been growing. You're either winning or you're losing. If
there's not accountability, then why are they even doing this work?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
And it's true Latino's support for Democrats has dwindled across
the last three elections. According to Latino Decisions, in twenty sixteen,
seventy nine percent of Latinos voted for Hillary Clinton. In
twenty twenty, seventy percent of Latinos voted for Biden and
in twenty twenty four, sixty two percent of Latinos voted
(17:59):
for Harris. Other polling firms have those numbers even lower.
Even here in California, it seems that Latinos are not
the guaranteed Democratic stronghold that they once were. In this
last presidential election, the counties in California that took the
sharpest turns to the right were the counties with the
highest percentage of Latino residents. But Silas, the president of JIJRA,
(18:24):
doesn't think that's necessarily a reflection of Latino's abandoning immigration
rights as an important issue, but rather it's a reflection
that they no longer see Democrats as a party that
can deliver on their promises about immigration.
Speaker 9 (18:39):
People also want competent leaders, leaders who are actually truthfully fighting,
engaging in an agenda. And I think sometimes, you know,
immigration is used as a perfect example. Every year there's
a promise for Pats's citizenship, there's a promise that you know,
we're going to move in a direction that is, you know,
whether it's to include dreamers, et cetera, and then there's
(19:00):
no results. And so that also creates a sense of
who is able to get things across the finish line.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So you're saying, the Democrats keep promising that things are
going to happen on that front, but they are not delivering,
and so migrants have seen that time and time again,
and so they don't trust them.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 9 (19:17):
Democrats need to invest so much more in the Latinal community,
and that means that really a year long engagement, investment
and invitation so that they can feel within the Democratic
Party at home. But they also have to make sure
that they deliver on the promises that they have laid
(19:38):
out and that there are concrete results that people feel
in their lives.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
In fact, Sanas finds the argument that atinos don't care
about immigration to be really dangerous.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
It has been used in order to excuse the Republicans
from actually doing incredible harm to our community and some
of the Democrats. It's also created an excuse not to
stay end up boldly against some of the worst actions
of this administration.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
This interview with Silas happened back in April, but I
am writing this episode in June, literally on the day
that massive protests have broken out across Los Angeles in
reaction to ice coming into the city and conducting raids.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
As most of you know, today, we had an unprecedented
attack on our community. Hundreds of federal agents attacked workplaces
and took people, kidnapped our people. What do we say
tobout hell No.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I logged onto x this morning and saw someone make
the very argument. Silas was worried about a local. Angelina
tweeted quote, I'm going to keep it a buck. If
you're black and in Los Angeles, sit this one out.
It's in our DNA to be defenders of civil rights
and injustices. However, ice supporting illegal immigrants is none of
the above. Fifty three percent of Latino men voted for this,
(20:58):
thirty eight percent of Latino women for this, which is
an eight point increase over twenty twenty. We said this
would happen, We're still on vacation end quote. The Latino
votes shift to the right was invoked as a reason
to not fight for the rights of undocumented immigrants. The
argument is they wanted this. The thing is, immigration is
(21:21):
not an issue that only impacts Latinos in the US.
Folks from Haiti, all over Asia, all over Africa, the
Middle East. They also come to the US looking for opportunities.
The tweet I read illuminates the limitations that can emerge
when the Latino vote is synonymous with immigration. And yet
here's how Mike Madrid, veteran political strategist formally tied to
(21:43):
the Republican Party.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Puts it.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
The whole town DC is built on a lot of
these immigration advocacy groups.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Madrid says that a whole cottage industry has been created
around the belief that immigration is the most important issue
to the Latino voter.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
When you have people who build organizations and get contracts
with polsters and field organizers on any issue, their primary
objective is to perpetuate that that gives them their standing
in their party, gets them on the White House Christmas
card list, get some contracts, get some titles, get them
(22:19):
appointed as delegates to the party. You create an identity
and a livelihood based off of your interest. When you
create immigration as an interest, there's a vested purpose for hundreds,
if not thousands of people in the Democratic Party to
perpetuate the narrative that this is the primary issue around
which Latinos are motivated by.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So did we set up the Latino political advocacy machine wrong? Madia.
When we started reporting this, the person we were absolutely
most excited to hear from was Matt Barreto, who is
a veteran Latino pulling an advocacy strategist, and also he's
(23:09):
worked in the most high stakes campaigns of the last
decade here in the United States and including this most
recent presidential election when he was working with the Kamala
Harris campaign.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So, dear listener, this stuff is complicated, it's internal. There's
again a world of debate that's going on amongst a
part of the country that probably you're not thinking about,
and it's pretty intense. And it took me a while
(23:39):
to get Matt Barretto to say yes that he would
join me for an interview and a conversation to kind
of unpack all of this. Matt Barreto was born in
San Juan, Puerto Rico in nineteen seventy six. His family
moved to Kansas City, Missouri, a year later. His father
(24:01):
is Peruvian and he's an Army vet who served in
the US military. Matt's first foray into political holy was
as an academic. He met Gary Segura, who would go
on to become his close collaborator when they were both
working at the Tomas Ribera Policy Institute at the Claremont Colleges,
(24:22):
and this was back in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
You know, I think it started for us in wanting
to make sure that there was an accurate portrait of
Latinos being discussed and debated. We felt that that was lacking.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Segura and Matt Barreto, they were both studying Latino voting patterns.
They were studying demographics and political outcomes, and they were
working together at the beginning of the Latino population boom
in the early two thousands, that's the one that we
talked about earlier. So they saw the urgency around understanding
(24:54):
this potential political constituency voters. They started working with Latino
groups like NALEO, this is the National Association of Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials. They started working with the National
Council of La Rasa, which today is known as unidos US.
And they were also working with LULAC, the oldest and
(25:17):
largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States, and
these organizations are pretty much the trusted Latino mainstream civil
rights organizations in the country.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Civil rights and political.
Speaker 8 (25:31):
As professors were helping them gather data about our community.
But we noticed that that was lacking in the DC debates,
that they weren't interviewing people in Spanish, they weren't talking
to any immigrants, they didn't understand mixed status families. None
of this made sense to them, and so we wanted
to bring what we thought was highest level social science data,
accurate polling data, accurate qualitative focus group data that we
(25:57):
would publish in social science journals, and we wanted to
bring that into the political arena.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So Gary Segura and Matt Barretto they went on to
found the polling firm Latino Decisions. This happened in two
thousand and seven, and what set them apart from other
potentially similar polling firms in terms of polling Latinos was
that they made a decision to interview more Spanish speaking
families and immigrants, and they felt that this kind of
(26:24):
polling was missing from DC politics, right, But it did
take some time for them to break into this pretty
insular world of political polling.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
For many years we were shut out. They would ask us, well,
what presidential or senate campaigns have you worked on, and
we would always say, well, none, until you give us
a chance.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Barretto and Segura caught their big break when they made
a big prediction that put them on the map in
the world of political polling.
Speaker 8 (26:53):
It was the twenty ten midterms. This was the year.
It was the rise of the Tea Party and a
real backlash to Obama. And we started doing polling for
a lot of Latino interest groups demonstrating that Latinos were
not part of that right wing backlash to Obama. In fact,
Latinos were upset about the Tea Party, which eventually, as
we all know, morphed into the Freedom Caucus and now MAGA.
(27:16):
They were wanting to take healthcare away from everybody, and
that wasn't sitting right with Latinos. And we did a
series of polls on Nevada. It was one of our
most important states we were looking at. Harry Reid was
up for election, He was the majority leader and he
was facing off against Sharon Engle, a very right wing
Tea Party candidate. And what our research showed, and the
(27:37):
mainstream polling was missing this was that Latinos in Nevada
were energized, they were mobilized, they were upset.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The national news media was predicting that Harry Reid was
going to lose data from Latino decisions though, suggested that
not only would Harry Reid win, but that he was
going to turn Nevada blue to high Latino.
Speaker 8 (28:01):
Voter turnout, and later we were able to document with
validated voter turnout data voter files post election that it
was the Latino vote that saved Harry Reid in that election.
I think that really brought us a lot of attention,
but it took us a long time until twenty sixteen
that we finally got onto a campaign, and that was
the Hillary Clinton presidential.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Campaign, which is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
It was a good place to start. Yeah, we had
a lot of polling experience and research experience, but that
was our first presidential and that was quite a ride.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Barretto went on to work with every Democratic presidential campaign
from twenty sixteen till today. Latinos they were finally in
the room. They were helping to make those messaging decisions.
But then instead of success in every single election, Latino
support for the Democratic Party was waning. Now, Matt Barretto
(28:53):
has two reasons that he says that happened. He says
the first has to do with Donald Trump and the
way that he has spoken to Latino voters.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
The message that I think Latinos eventually took from Trump
was that there was this belief that he was a
good businessman and that he was fighting to make the
economy better for people. And he would say that. He
would say crass things, and he would say unbelievable things,
and he didn't care if the Republicans didn't like him.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
The second reason has to do with the new, younger
group of Latino and Latina voters that has cropped up
since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 8 (29:29):
The Latino electorate is so evolving and so new that
you know, forty percent of the voters in twenty twenty
four were not voters in twenty sixteen. They weren't even there.
So it's not as though people have changed their mind.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
The brand new that younger Latino population is less likely
to speak Spanish. Mike Madrid, that political veteran analyst who
we heard from at the top and who is a
veteran anti Trump Republican, he brought this up.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
The fastest growing segment, which is the US born, particularly
the third and fourth now generation Latino voter, doesn't speak
any Spanish at all.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
For Madrid, part of why he thinks Latino Decisions, the
polling organization and the sp research why they may not
have accurately been reading the temperature of the Latino electorate
is because of the percentage of Spanish speakers represented in
their data. Remember, the new generation of Latinos is speaking
(30:32):
Spanish less.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
They were starting to have these very large subsamples of
Spanish speaking interviewees. And when you do that, you start
to naturally skew towards recently migrated voters, who understandably have
a higher level of concern amongst of immigration issues broadly.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
When I ask Matt Barreto specifically about this critique that
let You Decisions, his polling company had oversampled Spanish speakers
in their polls and how this may have led them
to over emphasize immigration as a top issue for Latino
voters in previous presidential elections. Here's how Barretto responded.
Speaker 8 (31:16):
We stand by those analyzes. They've been published in social
science journals, and in fact, what we think has happened
over the years is that the exit polls have started
to adapt and they offer more accurate data. They do
Spanish language polling now, and so I think the critics
are sort of misguided and they were sort of too
focused in on the past, because I think most of
(31:36):
the data lines up in twenty twenty four. We certainly
don't disagree that there was shifts on the Latino vote.
We were advising the campaign and telling them about this.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
In twenty twenty four, Barretto's firm had immigration and border
security as the fifth most important issue to Latino voters,
behind things like inflation and the economy. So Barreto was
not advising the Harris campaign that immigration was the top
issue for Latino voters. Barretto also says that the critique
(32:06):
that Democrats were messaging in overly progressive ways on immigration
during the Harris campaign. He says that critique doesn't make
sense for him.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
I think this is probably one of the funniest criticisms
i'd say of the Harris campaign in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Okay, I like the fact that we're talking funny. Now,
what do you mean?
Speaker 8 (32:27):
Because she ran on border security, her work as Attorney
General of California on border enforcement, and ran and delivered
her speech at the DNC on border security, and I
think to the point you were making you and others
were saying, like, hey, maybe you should talk about pathway
(32:48):
to citizenship more. The reason you were saying that is
because she was not talking about it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Now, It's true, Harris did not champion immigration reform pretty
much at all in her campaign, for example, Barack Obama did.
Speaker 8 (33:02):
She was talking about border security. So it's funny when
people come along and make up that, oh, she was
just too liberal on immigration and as the daughter of immigrants,
like she was for amnesty and Latinos, no one was
saying that. Go look at all the ads that were produced.
Speaker 11 (33:21):
Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crimes. As a
border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed
gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border.
As Vice President, she backed the toughest border control bill
in decades, and as president, she will hire thousands more
border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.
(33:44):
Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I'm Kamala Harris, and I approved this message.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you're saying basically.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
That now you have people in retrospect saying, oh, the
problem would come Harris and Latino and Latina voters on
the issue of immigration is that she was too soft,
and you're saying that's ridiculous.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
Yes, people are saying that there's this perception, and this
could separately be true, that there's a perception among some
that the Democrats are too week on immigration, and I
think what they mean is two week on border security.
I think by the time Harris got in, she was trying,
and she gave so many speeches about border security. She
was trying to provide more attention to that issue that
(34:29):
Democrats had done a bad job on.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And this is where the opposing viewpoints of Mike Madrid
and Matt Barreto, in terms of their understanding of what
happened with the Latino vote in twenty twenty four, where
it actually converges. Madrid agrees with Barreto that Harris made
an attempt to message differently about border security in particular.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
That's the problem. They could not make the adjustments or
the pivots. Kamal Harris tried to. She adjusted dramat to
the rights. But with ninety days, you can't make up
for fifteen years of bad branding in ninety days you
just can't do it.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And coming out of the election, both strategists believed that
there was little Harris could do to gain traction with
Latino voters, that she was doomed from the start, But they.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Disagree on why.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Madrid thinks that the problem was that it was impossible
for Kamala Harris to buck those so called progressive immigration policies.
The Madrid says the Democrats were pushing for decades. Barretto,
though he doesn't buy that. He thinks voters in general,
across all demographics were simply really unhappy with the Democrats.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
Latinos are not the ones who quote lost this election.
There was shifts in every single demographic in the United States,
and yes there were shifts than the Latino vote, but
there was something much larger going on here. We saw
a lot of it as about the moment, not necessarily
about Biden or Harris, but the sort of national and
(36:11):
even international moment that we were in Following COVID and
the economic recovery. People were frustrated and inflation was only
slowly getting addressed and getting abated. The president was not
able to wave a magic wand and make inflation go away,
so people were frustrated.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
So Breto's co founder Gary Segura he presented in that
webinar that we referenced earlier, and this is what he said, quote,
if no Latino had voted in this past presidential election,
the outcome would have been unchanged.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So this idea, dear listener, it flies directly in the
phase of the kind of political analysis that I have
been talking about throughout the entirety of my career, which
is an analysis that says that Latino and Latina vot voters,
that they are in fact change makers, that they do
make an impact on our country, and that they do
(37:06):
strengthen our democracy. So I wonder, Matt, if Latinos and
Latinas are not going to be this kind of transformational
source of vibrancy in democracy kind of the way I've
been talking about Latino and Latina voters for years, right,
then Latino and Latina voters end up turning more towards
(37:29):
Donald Trump, mostly men. And so honestly, there has been
for me, una crisis consciencia, Like I'm just like, okay, well,
so what am I not understanding about what's happening? And
so I'm wondering if you too are having a crisis
of conscience in the sense of you know, Latinos and Latinas,
(37:50):
they're voting like everyone else. Did we get it wrong
that we were like their Latini dad is going to
be central to how they vote.
Speaker 8 (37:59):
People want to see themselves, their families, and their communities represented.
We're very proud people, a very proud community, and we
want to see our heritage reflected in our politicians, in
our communities, in our leaders. And I don't think that
has gone away at all. I don't think Latinos have
become more culturated. They haven't become anglicized. I think the opposite.
(38:22):
I think we are providing more Latino influence across America.
But I think the issue is that we've always known
that there are conservative and liberal principles within Latino culture
and religion and practice, and the rest of the country
is now catching up to that and seeing that. And
(38:43):
you layer on top of it, what was the most
important factor in twenty four which was the economy. This
is still an overwhelmingly working class community, overwhelmingly first and
second generation immigrant immigrants and children immigrants, just trying to
achieve the America dream. And that is the way that
we have to continue to understand and that has never
(39:04):
changed in the one hundred years of Latino migration to
the US. The desire to achieve the American dream, to
work hard, and the Democrats used to be good at
embracing that, and at some point along the way, Trump
somehow became the candidate, perhaps because of his business success,
to embrace the American dream. And I think if we
(39:26):
get back to that, that is still very strongly wrapped
around latinidd and opportunity and thinking about a better opportunity
for the next generation our kids and sending them to
college and they're going to become business owners. That's the
Latino experience. And I think again the Democratic Party needs
to come back to that, and when they embrace that,
(39:46):
you're going to see very very high success rates. I
think you're going to be back into the seventies, if
not the high seventies when those candidates emerge who hit
those principles and they're Latino principles.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
I'm wondering, Matt as we wrap up, so all right,
so we've had time to think about this, right, is
there a lesson for Latino posters for your group or
advocacy groups Latino and Latina advocacy groups that should come
out of this election, and would you say that this
(40:25):
election has even changed how you think about your own
work or are you more kind of dug in and
saying you weren't listening now.
Speaker 8 (40:35):
I think every election should cause all of us to
think about our work. Certainly that's the case for me.
I want to get to the truth. I want to
understand what happened and why and what can be done better.
I think the sort of immediate first twenty four hours
and twenty four days after the election, people were not
taking the time to reflect on the data and reflect
(40:56):
on what happened, and so that's sort of a media
analysis should all be thrown away, but we should be
invested in a much deeper reflection and look at the
data and what happened and figure out how we can
do a better job. If you're on the side that
you would like to see democratic policies and actin and
democratic politicians elected, then there's no question that all of
(41:19):
us have to do a better job of communicating with
Latinos and convincing Latinos. How can we understand the community
better and making sure that we're positioning candidates and messages
that feel authentic. As I said, for me. That was
the biggest lesson. Let's be more authentic, let's be real,
let's talk to people honestly, and let's earn their vote.
I think if we do that, then the next candidates
(41:41):
that emerge, if they follow that path, they're going to
do quite well.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
All right, Well, Matt Barretto, thank you so much for
joining me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (41:54):
Yeah, thank you for reaching out. Mideos. It was great
to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Coming up.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Antonia, Si, Rahitho and I reflect together what exactly does
this erosion between the Democratic Party and Latino voters mean.
At the beginning of the episode, we told you how
Latino data in politics really got going. When Democrats, when
they believe that Latinos could vote as a consistently liberal
(42:21):
block like black voters, that is proving to be less
and less true. So what does that mean about the
elusive so called Latino vote and does it actually exist?
We're going to break that down when we come back. Yes, hey,
(42:50):
we're back and you're listening to the final episode of
a collaboration between Latino USA and in Perfect Paradise, and
I'm here with that show's host anton and yes Sidehilo, Antonia, Hi.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Madiya so Amadia, I'm curious, like what were your main
takeaways from that conversation you had with Polster Maparetto.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I mean, I think the takeaways is that people like
to make broad analyzes about what is happening with these
voting so called blocks, and that it's actually much more
complicated than that. I think something that I've known and
talked about for a while, right that Latinos and Latinas
(43:31):
in this country, you know, using this term assimilate right,
that they will maybe not be the change force, that
in fact they'll begin to vote like everyone else. So
what does that mean about the power of our vote?
Speaker 3 (43:46):
For me, Like, it actually resonated a lot to me
to hear you talk about the crisis consciencia, because that's
something that I've really been struggling with, you know, like
what my latinida means to me, Like that term has
meant a lot to me over the years, and it's
always been something that I think is associated with like
a belief in human rights and that immigrants are people
(44:08):
who deserve humane and good treatment and like all of
these things that sort of like encompass my identity and
like this election, frankly had me feeling a little bit
like am I part of the Latino vote?
Speaker 8 (44:20):
Like?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Who are these people? Kind of is sort of how
I felt.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, And it's really complicated, and we're taking on one
particular side of the conversation, right yeah, now for me,
I actually and now I don't want to say I'm
gonna go to the grave with this because that's terrible
to say. But I do believe that immigration is deeply
important to Latino and Latina voters. But I do believe
(44:47):
that the way you talk about it is what's.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Going to make them move one way or another.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Like it is an important issue, but if you're not
giving anything that's interesting, then probably it's not going to
be the number one issue. So like if again, if
Kamala Harris was meeting build the Wall with pathway to citizenship,
I think it could have been different. Right, But Okay,
there's a question about this about how important is immigration?
(45:17):
And in that sense, yes, I mean obviously I have
to be questioning. That's like the nature of us as
journalists is to be questioning everything in ourselves. And then
I think it does get complicated because we do operate
in this view that our Latini that is actually going
to be central to how people vote, and sometimes maybe
(45:40):
it is, but also maybe it's not. And we've always,
like at Latino USA, we've always said Latinos and Latinas
are not a block. We don't vote as a block.
We have always said that that's true. But I also
think that we also talk about Latinos and Latinas as
if they could be a potential block like the black voter, which,
(46:00):
like the black voters who are reliably blue, reliably blue,
although they did lose some support as well. So I
think it's important for a journalists, et cetera, that we're
able to say, look, we are really having this precis
e conciencia, really trying to break down what Latino and
Latina voters want, who they are, and how we can
(46:23):
do our job better and get it right as much
as possible totally.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
One thing that did come through with every single strategist
we spoke to for the story is that they talked
a lot about the importance of working class identity within
the Latino vote and how much a lot of the
things that ultimately determined who people voted for was working
class ideals, striving to one day own a home, to
have a better life for their kids, you know, is
(46:48):
Suenoa Medica. I know, like that part still felt very
relevant to them, and I think that's something that we
saw also throughout all of this reporting that we've done
in this collaboration. Like Lupita like that was so important
for her, was like having a home and having a
space to raise her sons, and people leaving the United
States to go to Mexico because I think, again, a
higher quality of life, like these issues of like where
(47:09):
is the dream still? I think is very present for
Latino voters and it's very tight to class. Do you
remember this was very early in me working at that USA,
that Code Switch came out with a piece about the
Obama Effect. Do you remember about that? Yeah, of course,
And like the idea behind the Obama effect is that
like once President Obama was elected, a lot of people
(47:30):
in their workplaces at institutions, they like looked around and
they were like, oh my god, no people of color
or women are in positions of power.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
But we have a black president.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Right. So it was this moment where like there was
a lot of emphasis on identity politics, and I think,
like you know, when Mike and fernand bring up this
idea that immigration became the silver bullet. I also think,
like probably even more importantly, is that like identity politics
took this like very centered role in our conversation about politics,
but the class part of that conversation sort of took
(48:05):
a back seat. And I think when we see what
politicians are resonating on the left right now, seemed to
be exciting, like the Bernie's, the aocs zoron Mom Donnie
in New York, Like they're talking much more about class
issues than the politicians of the mid afts. I'm curious
what you think about that.
Speaker 11 (48:23):
Look.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I think that the Latino voter is fascinating because we
cannot separate this political reporting Antonia from what just happened
in Los Angeles and what has happened in multiple cities
across the country the United States. That on the one hand,
people want to wag their finger and blame Latinos for
(48:48):
giving the election to Donald Trump. Well, on the other hand,
you kind of have to look at what has happened
with Latinos taking to the streets, like there are not
immigrants who are out there with green cards protesting it's
just too dangerous. They are the ones who actually are
changing the historical dynamic of politics in this moment by
(49:10):
taking it to the streets. And so I think now
there is a question of like, wow, like this, if
you want to talk about that term, which I don't like,
identity politics, Like this is a moment where Latinos in
La Latinos in New York, Latinos in Chicago, in Miami,
in Dallas are actually leading kind of a political moment
(49:33):
to okay, safe democracy. I think that what we're living
through right now actually kind of is going to have
an impact on all of this polling that we've been
analyzing because I actually think that the moment, the historical moment,
is going to change this. So I'm really glad that
we did this reporting. But I think history is rearing
(49:54):
its head right now. And you know, the President Trump
that had that Latino support and the Democratic Party that
lost all of that Latino support because of the policies
of Donald Trump and attacking Latinos as immigrants and as
American citizens.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
That could change. You could change right now.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
And so that I think is really fascinating and we
can't walk away from that because it is literally being
led by Latinos and Latinas and LATINX and Latina people.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I will push back on one thing, which I will say,
like I do think the Democrats do have to understand
and it seems like there is a conversation already happening that,
like the Latino voter cares so much about immigration, but
it seems that they have lost based on other things.
And I think that this idea of like the Democratic
Party being the working class party, that's something I'm more
curious to see if the Democrats are going to be
(50:44):
able to deliver on in the next couple of years.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Which is essentially what we've been reporting here at Latino USA,
which is that the Democratic Party was not reaching out
to working class Latinos and Latinas and giving them an
alternative to what Donald Trump was saying, which was basically,
you're a victim. You don't get treated right. I'm a
great businessman, the economy is going to be great.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Vote for me totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
But on the issue of Latini that Antonia, you know
that question right that Grisis de Conciencia, Does Latini that exist?
I think for what I think this particular moment right now,
summer of twenty twenty five, I think that's going to
have so much to do with answering that question. So
I think we need to come back to this, like
(51:31):
whatever in six months or a year.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, totally. And like as far as this question about
whether Latino pulling firms and adovcacy groups have helped or
hurt the Democratic Party after all this reporting, I really
don't think there's a clear answer. Well, Maria, I have
loved reporting the series out with you. It's been such
a joy for me.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
As we say, iwanas ranis if you know, you know
all right.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
This episode was written and produced by Antonia Serejido, the
host of Imperfect Paradise from Elaist. It was edited by
Futuro Media's Maria Garcia. Senior producers for this episode were
Emily Garren and Angelie Sastri Kurbachek. Production support from James
Child and montiguat Morelis Garcia.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
It was mixed by E.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Scott Kelly from Elaist. Fact checking for this episode by
Roxanna guire Di. Latino USA team also includes Julia Caruso,
Fernanda Echavari, Jessica Elis, Victoria Estrada, Dominique Inestrosa, Renando Leanos
Junior Stephanie Lebau, Andrea Lopez, Gruzsado, Luis Luna, Flori, Ma Marquez,
(52:41):
Marta Martinez, J. J. Carubin, Tasha Sandoval, Mour Saudi and
Nancy Druquigo, Penilee Ramidiez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garzia and I
are co executive producers and I'm Your Host Maria jo Josa.
Catherine Mailhouse is the executive producer of the Imperfect Paradise
podcast and the director of content Development ele East Buro
Hinte Aestelapproxima Chao Choo.
Speaker 9 (53:05):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the John D.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
And Catherine T.
Speaker 9 (53:10):
MacArthur Foundation, Michelle Mercer and
Speaker 6 (53:13):
Bruce Golden, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for
more than fifty years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to
promote a better world at Hewlett dot org.
Dear listener, Before we begin today's show, we have some
news to share. Starting next week, the podcast version of
Latino USA is going to be distributed by the Makurdura
Network at iHeartMedia. That is the biggest Latino vertical in
the podcast industry with over two hundred and fifty million
monthly listeners. So doing this is an opportunity for our
(00:23):
stories to reach more listeners than ever at a critical
time in our country's history. It also makes us more
resilient as an independent news nonprofit. What happens for you,
dear listener, is we maintain one hundred percent of our
editorial independence and will be an amazing company which shows
we love. Like Radio Mulande, will remain in public media.
(00:45):
PRX will continue to distribute Latino USA weekly to public
radio stations all over the US and Canada. Now this
is important, dear listener, because moving forward, you will hear
more ads in our podcasts, but we are going to
rely on your support as a lit That's really where
the vast majority of our funding still comes from from
you and other nonprofit sources. So if you want to
(01:09):
support us and get the benefit of listening to these episodes,
ad free It's easy. Join futuro plus. Go to Futuromedia
group dot org slash join plus. That way you get
all our content. You support futuro Media, you don't get
any ads.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Easy.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Thank you and as always, yes, dear listener, a little
history right here. You know, Americans started using the term
Hispanic back in nineteen seventy. That's when the category was
added to the census, and ever since then there's been
this perception that Hispanics would need their own political representation.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Chop psnia fera via nostrom nois.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now for us and frankly the entire country. Theerred term
has become Latino, and the number of Latinos and Latinas
in this country since that first census has continued to boom.
As of July of twenty twenty three, there are more
than sixty five million Latinos in the United States, making
(02:17):
up over nineteen percent of the nation's population, and they
are a growing percentage of the country's electorate.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Latinos make up nearly fifteen percent of all eligible voters,
according to the Pew Research Center.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
The hope for the Democratic Party, especially since the mid oughts,
was that the Latino vote would be reliably theirs, especially
because they were the party pushing for more progressive immigration policies,
or so they said, And Latinos have historically favored Democrats,
often more than sixty percent of Latino voters choose Democratic
(02:56):
presidential candidates. However, the result also the recent presidential election
which elected Donald Trump, have led a lot of people
to question that notion that Latinos and Latinas would be
more reliably Democratic voters. Well by now, it's been more
than half a year after the election, and political strategists
(03:18):
seem to have very different opinions about why Latinos are
voting less for the Democratic Party than ever before. Is
it faulty data, is it tone deaf messaging, is it
an agenda that's too progressive or too moderate.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
For Latino and Latina voters? Or is it something bigger?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
A question about whether actually a unified Latino vote with
shared values and interests does it even exist in the
United States? From Fuduro Media and PRX, it's Latino USA
Today diagnosing the Democratic deficit. This episode is a collaboration
(04:04):
with Imperfect Paradise from Lais Studios. I'm Maria Inojosa and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm Antonia Today. He though, Maria, are you familiar with
the iconic two thousand and six film The Devil Worst Product.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I mean, come on, of course I think you are.
Oh my god, I love that film.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's such a New York film, and Meryl Streep is
such an amazing actor.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
It's such a comfort movie for me. There's the reason
I'm bringing it up, and that's because there's this scene
in that movie where the character Andy, who's played by
Anne Hathaway, she's in one of her early meetings with
her new boss, Miranda Priestley, who's played by Meryl Streep,
and Meryl Streep is like picking between these two belts.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
This is so so Vogue, so Vogue magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yes, and she goes, oh, it's so hard because these
two belts are so so similar, and Hathaway's character like scoffs.
And then Miranda Priestley gives her this like chilling look
where she's like, oh, you think you're better than this,
and then goes on to do this incredible monologue where
she explains how actually the sad blue sweater that Anne
Hathaway's character is wearing, what you.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Don't know is that that sweater is not just blue,
it's not to requoice, it's actually ceruleum.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
The choice even to wear that sweater has a lot
to do with like millions of dollars of corporate money
that goes into people's paychecks. That it has this like
trickle down effect and that has influenced Anne Hathaway's fashion choices.
And it's sort of comical.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
How do you think that you've made a choice that
exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're
wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the
people in this room from a pile of stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Like a whole infrastructure that she can't even avae.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It's an amazing takedown.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yes, what's interesting is like that dynamic that Miranda Priestley
is describing in this scene, it's not unique to the
fashion world, I mean, and the story that you and
I are telling today is about the people in an
equivalent room, but in the realm of politics, the people
who gather and study public opinion and then help shape
the political messaging that ultimately trickles down into the bumper stickers,
(06:15):
political law and signs, desperate campaign emails and texts that
we get asking for donations and the TV campaigns we see. Maria,
You've reported a lot on how this political world operates.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I mean, I've been covering elections since the early nineteen nineties,
so yeah, I've been covering this and the question of
the money spent to reach out to Latino and latin
Have voters first of all in both parties, and the
kind of messaging and who's doing the messaging and who's
getting the money. Yeah, it's deep. It's fascinating political journalism,
(06:51):
you know. But the truth is is that Latinos and
Latinas have not always been welcome at the highest levels
of where the decision are being made in terms of
electoral politics and campaigns, et cetera. So appealing specifically to
the Latino community as a political power is actually a
(07:11):
phenomenon that really took off when the Latino population in
the country grew from roughly thirty five million in the
year two thousand to fifty million in the year twenty ten,
which by the way, is the year that we launched Futuro.
And we did that because we were looking at those numbers,
I was like, this is what the future looks like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Absolutely, this is the mid offs for this moment, more
people are like, Wow, the Latino population and the Latino
electorate have like arrived, you know. And for Democrats, the
hope was that this Latino vote would act like the
Black vote, which by the mid twentieth century had become
this reliably democratic bloc.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
The belief, the orthodoxy of the Obamba years, was that
there was this new emergent coalition of college educated white
people and people of color.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
This is Mike Madrid. He's a veteran political strategist that
founded the Lincoln Project, a political action committee made up
of moderate conservatives and former Republican Party members who opposed
US President Donald Trump and trump Ism.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
And where you had black people who were a racially
polarized vote politically, there needed to be an issue that
created a racial voting block amongst Latinos where none existed.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And there was one issue that seemed like it could
galvanize this potentially massive voting block.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
For whatever reason, immigration was the number one issue for
Latino voters.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
So data started to emerge backing up this idea. A
firm called Latino Decisions released a poll in twenty fourteen
that had immigration as the number one issue to Latino voters.
At forty four percent.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But the results of the last presidential election has really
called into question whether immigration is an issue that in
fact unites the Latino and Latina electorate, and going even deeper,
it calls into question whether, well, is there a Latino
vote worth organizing at all or is it just too fractured.
(09:18):
We're going to go inside the fierce debate within the
Latino polling and advocacy world. Yes it's nerdy politics, but
boy is it revealing. I'm going to be back later
in this episode, but for now, Antonia Saidehilo is going
(09:39):
to set the scene.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Take it away, Antonia.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Six days after Donald Trump won the twenty twenty four
presidential election, Unidos US, formerly known as the National Council
of La Rasa, held a virtual press briefing. The webinar
is currently being live streamed and there will be a
video recording of this soon after. Unidos US is an
profit that aims to quote challenge the social, economic, and
(10:03):
political barriers that affect Latinos at the national and local levels.
Seven zoom squares populated their feed that day. The expressions
ranged from glum to sobered. Lettisa Latinez from Unidos us
set the tone for the conversation.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
There's been a lot of chatter about Latino voters, many
of us who have been working to increase Latino voter
participation at times where joking that it felt like Latino
voters were being more talked about than talk two.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
The overall sentiment of the press briefing was wariness about
the narratives around Latino voters that were emerging after the election.
Headlines like the one Reuters published quote Trump's return to
power fueled by Hispanic working class voter support or cal
matters a pivotal moment why many Latino voters in California
chose Trump. Also the New York Times Latinos bolted to
(10:57):
the right in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Unfortunately, the headlines get written with imperfect information, and so
in order to inform that in the here and now,
as we continue to look ahead, we wanted to make
sure that people had very robust information about is Spamic voters,
(11:20):
who the majority of home voted for Vice President Harris
in every state except Florida.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
The we that GLDISA is referring to is the people
in this webinar. Some of the most respected names in
the Latino Polling and Advocacy space, people who represented organizations
like America's Voice, the Immigrant Rights Group SO, the largest
independent Latino voter, civic and voter engagement program in the country,
and BSP Research, one of the pre eminent Latino polling firms.
(11:52):
Its co founder, Matt Baretto, was part of the Kamala
Harris presidential campaign. Gary Segura, the other co founder of
BSP Research, was participating in this webinar. In it, he
shared exit poll data the firm had gathered and concluded that.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
Latino voters were not instrumental in the Trump victory. If
no Latino had voted, the outcome would have been unchanged.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Sigura's polling firm, BSP Research, found that thirty seven percent
of the Latino vote went for Donald Trump this past election.
Another exit poll from Edison Research had forty six percent
of the Latino vote going for Donald Trump. That's nearly
ten points more either way. Latinos skewed more right than
they ever had in modern politics. BSB and many of
(12:40):
the other organizations represented in this webinar have claimed that
they understand Latino voters better and more precisely than other institutions.
Many of the organizations in this webinar have been leaders
in messaging to Latino voters over the past decade.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
We wanted to make sure that anyone in DC, whether
it was a candidate, a campaign, an interest group, or
the news media, that they could understand our community more accurately.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's Matt Bretto, the other founder of BSP Research. He
and Segura have been pioneers when it comes to specializing
in polling that look at the Latino population. Before BSP,
they started Latino Decisions, the polling firm that found that
immigration was the top issue for Latino voters in twenty fourteen,
(13:26):
coming up why Democrats thought immigration could be a winning issue,
but the messaging maybe missed the mark. Stay with us, Notois,
Welcome back. You're listening to the final episode in a
series collaboration between Latino USA and Imperfect Paradise. I'm Antoniaes
(13:51):
today Hido immigration has been an issue that has mobilized
a lot of Latino voters, at least here in California.
Speaker 9 (13:59):
Things are very anti immigrant here in California.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Ahilicasadas is the president of Chile, the Coalition for Human
Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. She started working at the
organization as a volunteer thirty years ago.
Speaker 9 (14:12):
It was also with the height of the aftermath of
Proposition one eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Proposition one eighty seven was a ballot measure passed in
California in nineteen ninety four that limited undocumented immigrants from
getting essential public services like public education and health care.
It also required some agencies to report on folks they
suspected to be undocumented. The proposition was later ruled unconstitutional,
(14:37):
but the fight against Prop one eighty seven inspired more
Latinos than ever before to register to vote and run
for office in California.
Speaker 9 (14:46):
We have completely transformed our state, so it's to California
for All. Instead of punishing and persecuting immigrants, we're embracing
their families as students, as workers, so that we then
have things like access to a driver's license, access to
a college education. The California Valley Is Act Healthcare for All.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And fast Forwarding to June twenty twelve, immigration seemed to
be a winning issue again, this time on the national stage.
President Obama passed DHAKA Deferred Action for childhood Arrivals through
executive order during the midterms. Later that year, President Obama
would be elected with a historic amount of Latino support.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
Darcott thought that the immigration issue was the centerpiece, the
be all, end all issue for Hispanics.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But Fernando Mandi, Obama's former lead Latino focused polster and strategist,
was suspicious that immigration was in fact the hot button
issue that mobilized Latinos to go to the polls.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
I think it was important. I reject that it was
the silver bullet. That is what by itself caused him
to have record Hispanic support in twenty twelve. It rounded
out all of these offerings that he had done on
the economy, on healthcare, on public education, and then the
final piece of the puzzle was showing that he was
(16:09):
compassionate to those that were really Americans and everything, but
name only those young children that had been brought to
this country and had been raised and lived and grew
up as Americans.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So how did that become an assumption that immigration was
the number one issue for Latino voters.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
You'd have to ask those that were running the Hispanic
operation in the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time. It's
certainly a lot of the messaging and certainly a lot
of the activists in the space said that that was
the best way to win with Hispanics and to really
draw that contrast with Donald Trump. There certainly was a contrast,
I mean, certainly on the positions that Senator Clinton took
(16:50):
versus what Trump was saying, I will introduce legislation for
comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizen.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yet Democrats, or i should say, the Democratic power establishment
think the Miranda priestleys of politics had clung to this
idea that immigration should be the number one issue to
campaign to Latinos. But Amandi points to the past three
presidential elections as proof that the messaging to Latino voters
around immigration has not been effective.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
You can argue with the trend support has declined in
three consecutive presidential cycles when in previous cycles it had
only been growing. You're either winning or you're losing. If
there's not accountability, then why are they even doing this work?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
And it's true Latino's support for Democrats has dwindled across
the last three elections. According to Latino Decisions, in twenty sixteen,
seventy nine percent of Latinos voted for Hillary Clinton. In
twenty twenty, seventy percent of Latinos voted for Biden and
in twenty twenty four, sixty two percent of Latinos voted
(17:59):
for Harris. Other polling firms have those numbers even lower.
Even here in California, it seems that Latinos are not
the guaranteed Democratic stronghold that they once were. In this
last presidential election, the counties in California that took the
sharpest turns to the right were the counties with the
highest percentage of Latino residents. But Silas, the president of JIJRA,
(18:24):
doesn't think that's necessarily a reflection of Latino's abandoning immigration
rights as an important issue, but rather it's a reflection
that they no longer see Democrats as a party that
can deliver on their promises about immigration.
Speaker 9 (18:39):
People also want competent leaders, leaders who are actually truthfully fighting,
engaging in an agenda. And I think sometimes, you know,
immigration is used as a perfect example. Every year there's
a promise for Pats's citizenship, there's a promise that you know,
we're going to move in a direction that is, you know,
whether it's to include dreamers, et cetera, and then there's
(19:00):
no results. And so that also creates a sense of
who is able to get things across the finish line.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
So you're saying, the Democrats keep promising that things are
going to happen on that front, but they are not delivering,
and so migrants have seen that time and time again,
and so they don't trust them.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 9 (19:17):
Democrats need to invest so much more in the Latinal community,
and that means that really a year long engagement, investment
and invitation so that they can feel within the Democratic
Party at home. But they also have to make sure
that they deliver on the promises that they have laid
(19:38):
out and that there are concrete results that people feel
in their lives.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
In fact, Sanas finds the argument that atinos don't care
about immigration to be really dangerous.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
It has been used in order to excuse the Republicans
from actually doing incredible harm to our community and some
of the Democrats. It's also created an excuse not to
stay end up boldly against some of the worst actions
of this administration.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
This interview with Silas happened back in April, but I
am writing this episode in June, literally on the day
that massive protests have broken out across Los Angeles in
reaction to ice coming into the city and conducting raids.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
As most of you know, today, we had an unprecedented
attack on our community. Hundreds of federal agents attacked workplaces
and took people, kidnapped our people. What do we say
tobout hell No.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I logged onto x this morning and saw someone make
the very argument. Silas was worried about a local. Angelina
tweeted quote, I'm going to keep it a buck. If
you're black and in Los Angeles, sit this one out.
It's in our DNA to be defenders of civil rights
and injustices. However, ice supporting illegal immigrants is none of
the above. Fifty three percent of Latino men voted for this,
(20:58):
thirty eight percent of Latino women for this, which is
an eight point increase over twenty twenty. We said this
would happen, We're still on vacation end quote. The Latino
votes shift to the right was invoked as a reason
to not fight for the rights of undocumented immigrants. The
argument is they wanted this. The thing is, immigration is
(21:21):
not an issue that only impacts Latinos in the US.
Folks from Haiti, all over Asia, all over Africa, the
Middle East. They also come to the US looking for opportunities.
The tweet I read illuminates the limitations that can emerge
when the Latino vote is synonymous with immigration. And yet
here's how Mike Madrid, veteran political strategist formally tied to
(21:43):
the Republican Party.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Puts it.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
The whole town DC is built on a lot of
these immigration advocacy groups.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Madrid says that a whole cottage industry has been created
around the belief that immigration is the most important issue
to the Latino voter.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
When you have people who build organizations and get contracts
with polsters and field organizers on any issue, their primary
objective is to perpetuate that that gives them their standing
in their party, gets them on the White House Christmas
card list, get some contracts, get some titles, get them
(22:19):
appointed as delegates to the party. You create an identity
and a livelihood based off of your interest. When you
create immigration as an interest, there's a vested purpose for hundreds,
if not thousands of people in the Democratic Party to
perpetuate the narrative that this is the primary issue around
which Latinos are motivated by.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So did we set up the Latino political advocacy machine wrong? Madia.
When we started reporting this, the person we were absolutely
most excited to hear from was Matt Barreto, who is
a veteran Latino pulling an advocacy strategist, and also he's
(23:09):
worked in the most high stakes campaigns of the last
decade here in the United States and including this most
recent presidential election when he was working with the Kamala
Harris campaign.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So, dear listener, this stuff is complicated, it's internal. There's
again a world of debate that's going on amongst a
part of the country that probably you're not thinking about,
and it's pretty intense. And it took me a while
(23:39):
to get Matt Barretto to say yes that he would
join me for an interview and a conversation to kind
of unpack all of this. Matt Barreto was born in
San Juan, Puerto Rico in nineteen seventy six. His family
moved to Kansas City, Missouri, a year later. His father
(24:01):
is Peruvian and he's an Army vet who served in
the US military. Matt's first foray into political holy was
as an academic. He met Gary Segura, who would go
on to become his close collaborator when they were both
working at the Tomas Ribera Policy Institute at the Claremont Colleges,
(24:22):
and this was back in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 8 (24:24):
You know, I think it started for us in wanting
to make sure that there was an accurate portrait of
Latinos being discussed and debated. We felt that that was lacking.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Segura and Matt Barreto, they were both studying Latino voting patterns.
They were studying demographics and political outcomes, and they were
working together at the beginning of the Latino population boom
in the early two thousands, that's the one that we
talked about earlier. So they saw the urgency around understanding
(24:54):
this potential political constituency voters. They started working with Latino
groups like NALEO, this is the National Association of Latino
Elected and Appointed Officials. They started working with the National
Council of La Rasa, which today is known as unidos US.
And they were also working with LULAC, the oldest and
(25:17):
largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States, and
these organizations are pretty much the trusted Latino mainstream civil
rights organizations in the country.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Civil rights and political.
Speaker 8 (25:31):
As professors were helping them gather data about our community.
But we noticed that that was lacking in the DC debates,
that they weren't interviewing people in Spanish, they weren't talking
to any immigrants, they didn't understand mixed status families. None
of this made sense to them, and so we wanted
to bring what we thought was highest level social science data,
accurate polling data, accurate qualitative focus group data that we
(25:57):
would publish in social science journals, and we wanted to
bring that into the political arena.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So Gary Segura and Matt Barretto they went on to
found the polling firm Latino Decisions. This happened in two
thousand and seven, and what set them apart from other
potentially similar polling firms in terms of polling Latinos was
that they made a decision to interview more Spanish speaking
families and immigrants, and they felt that this kind of
(26:24):
polling was missing from DC politics, right, But it did
take some time for them to break into this pretty
insular world of political polling.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
For many years we were shut out. They would ask us, well,
what presidential or senate campaigns have you worked on, and
we would always say, well, none, until you give us
a chance.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Barretto and Segura caught their big break when they made
a big prediction that put them on the map in
the world of political polling.
Speaker 8 (26:53):
It was the twenty ten midterms. This was the year.
It was the rise of the Tea Party and a
real backlash to Obama. And we started doing polling for
a lot of Latino interest groups demonstrating that Latinos were
not part of that right wing backlash to Obama. In fact,
Latinos were upset about the Tea Party, which eventually, as
we all know, morphed into the Freedom Caucus and now MAGA.
(27:16):
They were wanting to take healthcare away from everybody, and
that wasn't sitting right with Latinos. And we did a
series of polls on Nevada. It was one of our
most important states we were looking at. Harry Reid was
up for election, He was the majority leader and he
was facing off against Sharon Engle, a very right wing
Tea Party candidate. And what our research showed, and the
(27:37):
mainstream polling was missing this was that Latinos in Nevada
were energized, they were mobilized, they were upset.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The national news media was predicting that Harry Reid was
going to lose data from Latino decisions though, suggested that
not only would Harry Reid win, but that he was
going to turn Nevada blue to high Latino.
Speaker 8 (28:01):
Voter turnout, and later we were able to document with
validated voter turnout data voter files post election that it
was the Latino vote that saved Harry Reid in that election.
I think that really brought us a lot of attention,
but it took us a long time until twenty sixteen
that we finally got onto a campaign, and that was
the Hillary Clinton presidential.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Campaign, which is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
It was a good place to start. Yeah, we had
a lot of polling experience and research experience, but that
was our first presidential and that was quite a ride.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Barretto went on to work with every Democratic presidential campaign
from twenty sixteen till today. Latinos they were finally in
the room. They were helping to make those messaging decisions.
But then instead of success in every single election, Latino
support for the Democratic Party was waning. Now, Matt Barretto
(28:53):
has two reasons that he says that happened. He says
the first has to do with Donald Trump and the
way that he has spoken to Latino voters.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
The message that I think Latinos eventually took from Trump
was that there was this belief that he was a
good businessman and that he was fighting to make the
economy better for people. And he would say that. He
would say crass things, and he would say unbelievable things,
and he didn't care if the Republicans didn't like him.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
The second reason has to do with the new, younger
group of Latino and Latina voters that has cropped up
since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 8 (29:29):
The Latino electorate is so evolving and so new that
you know, forty percent of the voters in twenty twenty
four were not voters in twenty sixteen. They weren't even there.
So it's not as though people have changed their mind.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
The brand new that younger Latino population is less likely
to speak Spanish. Mike Madrid, that political veteran analyst who
we heard from at the top and who is a
veteran anti Trump Republican, he brought this up.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
The fastest growing segment, which is the US born, particularly
the third and fourth now generation Latino voter, doesn't speak
any Spanish at all.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
For Madrid, part of why he thinks Latino Decisions, the
polling organization and the sp research why they may not
have accurately been reading the temperature of the Latino electorate
is because of the percentage of Spanish speakers represented in
their data. Remember, the new generation of Latinos is speaking
(30:32):
Spanish less.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
They were starting to have these very large subsamples of
Spanish speaking interviewees. And when you do that, you start
to naturally skew towards recently migrated voters, who understandably have
a higher level of concern amongst of immigration issues broadly.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
When I ask Matt Barreto specifically about this critique that
let You Decisions, his polling company had oversampled Spanish speakers
in their polls and how this may have led them
to over emphasize immigration as a top issue for Latino
voters in previous presidential elections. Here's how Barretto responded.
Speaker 8 (31:16):
We stand by those analyzes. They've been published in social
science journals, and in fact, what we think has happened
over the years is that the exit polls have started
to adapt and they offer more accurate data. They do
Spanish language polling now, and so I think the critics
are sort of misguided and they were sort of too
focused in on the past, because I think most of
(31:36):
the data lines up in twenty twenty four. We certainly
don't disagree that there was shifts on the Latino vote.
We were advising the campaign and telling them about this.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
In twenty twenty four, Barretto's firm had immigration and border
security as the fifth most important issue to Latino voters,
behind things like inflation and the economy. So Barreto was
not advising the Harris campaign that immigration was the top
issue for Latino voters. Barretto also says that the critique
(32:06):
that Democrats were messaging in overly progressive ways on immigration
during the Harris campaign. He says that critique doesn't make
sense for him.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
I think this is probably one of the funniest criticisms
i'd say of the Harris campaign in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Okay, I like the fact that we're talking funny. Now,
what do you mean?
Speaker 8 (32:27):
Because she ran on border security, her work as Attorney
General of California on border enforcement, and ran and delivered
her speech at the DNC on border security, and I
think to the point you were making you and others
were saying, like, hey, maybe you should talk about pathway
(32:48):
to citizenship more. The reason you were saying that is
because she was not talking about it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Now, It's true, Harris did not champion immigration reform pretty
much at all in her campaign, for example, Barack Obama did.
Speaker 8 (33:02):
She was talking about border security. So it's funny when
people come along and make up that, oh, she was
just too liberal on immigration and as the daughter of immigrants,
like she was for amnesty and Latinos, no one was
saying that. Go look at all the ads that were produced.
Speaker 11 (33:21):
Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crimes. As a
border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed
gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border.
As Vice President, she backed the toughest border control bill
in decades, and as president, she will hire thousands more
border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.
(33:44):
Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I'm Kamala Harris, and I approved this message.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you're saying basically.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
That now you have people in retrospect saying, oh, the
problem would come Harris and Latino and Latina voters on
the issue of immigration is that she was too soft,
and you're saying that's ridiculous.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
Yes, people are saying that there's this perception, and this
could separately be true, that there's a perception among some
that the Democrats are too week on immigration, and I
think what they mean is two week on border security.
I think by the time Harris got in, she was trying,
and she gave so many speeches about border security. She
was trying to provide more attention to that issue that
(34:29):
Democrats had done a bad job on.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
And this is where the opposing viewpoints of Mike Madrid
and Matt Barreto, in terms of their understanding of what
happened with the Latino vote in twenty twenty four, where
it actually converges. Madrid agrees with Barreto that Harris made
an attempt to message differently about border security in particular.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
That's the problem. They could not make the adjustments or
the pivots. Kamal Harris tried to. She adjusted dramat to
the rights. But with ninety days, you can't make up
for fifteen years of bad branding in ninety days you
just can't do it.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And coming out of the election, both strategists believed that
there was little Harris could do to gain traction with
Latino voters, that she was doomed from the start, But they.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Disagree on why.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Madrid thinks that the problem was that it was impossible
for Kamala Harris to buck those so called progressive immigration policies.
The Madrid says the Democrats were pushing for decades. Barretto,
though he doesn't buy that. He thinks voters in general,
across all demographics were simply really unhappy with the Democrats.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
Latinos are not the ones who quote lost this election.
There was shifts in every single demographic in the United States,
and yes there were shifts than the Latino vote, but
there was something much larger going on here. We saw
a lot of it as about the moment, not necessarily
about Biden or Harris, but the sort of national and
(36:11):
even international moment that we were in Following COVID and
the economic recovery. People were frustrated and inflation was only
slowly getting addressed and getting abated. The president was not
able to wave a magic wand and make inflation go away,
so people were frustrated.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
So Breto's co founder Gary Segura he presented in that
webinar that we referenced earlier, and this is what he said, quote,
if no Latino had voted in this past presidential election,
the outcome would have been unchanged.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So this idea, dear listener, it flies directly in the
phase of the kind of political analysis that I have
been talking about throughout the entirety of my career, which
is an analysis that says that Latino and Latina vot voters,
that they are in fact change makers, that they do
make an impact on our country, and that they do
(37:06):
strengthen our democracy. So I wonder, Matt, if Latinos and
Latinas are not going to be this kind of transformational
source of vibrancy in democracy kind of the way I've
been talking about Latino and Latina voters for years, right,
then Latino and Latina voters end up turning more towards
(37:29):
Donald Trump, mostly men. And so honestly, there has been
for me, una crisis consciencia, Like I'm just like, okay, well,
so what am I not understanding about what's happening? And
so I'm wondering if you too are having a crisis
of conscience in the sense of you know, Latinos and Latinas,
(37:50):
they're voting like everyone else. Did we get it wrong
that we were like their Latini dad is going to
be central to how they vote.
Speaker 8 (37:59):
People want to see themselves, their families, and their communities represented.
We're very proud people, a very proud community, and we
want to see our heritage reflected in our politicians, in
our communities, in our leaders. And I don't think that
has gone away at all. I don't think Latinos have
become more culturated. They haven't become anglicized. I think the opposite.
(38:22):
I think we are providing more Latino influence across America.
But I think the issue is that we've always known
that there are conservative and liberal principles within Latino culture
and religion and practice, and the rest of the country
is now catching up to that and seeing that. And
(38:43):
you layer on top of it, what was the most
important factor in twenty four which was the economy. This
is still an overwhelmingly working class community, overwhelmingly first and
second generation immigrant immigrants and children immigrants, just trying to
achieve the America dream. And that is the way that
we have to continue to understand and that has never
(39:04):
changed in the one hundred years of Latino migration to
the US. The desire to achieve the American dream, to
work hard, and the Democrats used to be good at
embracing that, and at some point along the way, Trump
somehow became the candidate, perhaps because of his business success,
to embrace the American dream. And I think if we
(39:26):
get back to that, that is still very strongly wrapped
around latinidd and opportunity and thinking about a better opportunity
for the next generation our kids and sending them to
college and they're going to become business owners. That's the
Latino experience. And I think again the Democratic Party needs
to come back to that, and when they embrace that,
(39:46):
you're going to see very very high success rates. I
think you're going to be back into the seventies, if
not the high seventies when those candidates emerge who hit
those principles and they're Latino principles.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
I'm wondering, Matt as we wrap up, so all right,
so we've had time to think about this, right, is
there a lesson for Latino posters for your group or
advocacy groups Latino and Latina advocacy groups that should come
out of this election, and would you say that this
(40:25):
election has even changed how you think about your own
work or are you more kind of dug in and
saying you weren't listening now.
Speaker 8 (40:35):
I think every election should cause all of us to
think about our work. Certainly that's the case for me.
I want to get to the truth. I want to
understand what happened and why and what can be done better.
I think the sort of immediate first twenty four hours
and twenty four days after the election, people were not
taking the time to reflect on the data and reflect
(40:56):
on what happened, and so that's sort of a media
analysis should all be thrown away, but we should be
invested in a much deeper reflection and look at the
data and what happened and figure out how we can
do a better job. If you're on the side that
you would like to see democratic policies and actin and
democratic politicians elected, then there's no question that all of
(41:19):
us have to do a better job of communicating with
Latinos and convincing Latinos. How can we understand the community
better and making sure that we're positioning candidates and messages
that feel authentic. As I said, for me. That was
the biggest lesson. Let's be more authentic, let's be real,
let's talk to people honestly, and let's earn their vote.
I think if we do that, then the next candidates
(41:41):
that emerge, if they follow that path, they're going to
do quite well.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
All right, Well, Matt Barretto, thank you so much for
joining me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (41:54):
Yeah, thank you for reaching out. Mideos. It was great
to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Coming up.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Antonia, Si, Rahitho and I reflect together what exactly does
this erosion between the Democratic Party and Latino voters mean.
At the beginning of the episode, we told you how
Latino data in politics really got going. When Democrats, when
they believe that Latinos could vote as a consistently liberal
(42:21):
block like black voters, that is proving to be less
and less true. So what does that mean about the
elusive so called Latino vote and does it actually exist?
We're going to break that down when we come back. Yes, hey,
(42:50):
we're back and you're listening to the final episode of
a collaboration between Latino USA and in Perfect Paradise, and
I'm here with that show's host anton and yes Sidehilo, Antonia, Hi.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Madiya so Amadia, I'm curious, like what were your main
takeaways from that conversation you had with Polster Maparetto.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I mean, I think the takeaways is that people like
to make broad analyzes about what is happening with these
voting so called blocks, and that it's actually much more
complicated than that. I think something that I've known and
talked about for a while, right that Latinos and Latinas
(43:31):
in this country, you know, using this term assimilate right,
that they will maybe not be the change force, that
in fact they'll begin to vote like everyone else. So
what does that mean about the power of our vote?
Speaker 3 (43:46):
For me, Like, it actually resonated a lot to me
to hear you talk about the crisis consciencia, because that's
something that I've really been struggling with, you know, like
what my latinida means to me, Like that term has
meant a lot to me over the years, and it's
always been something that I think is associated with like
a belief in human rights and that immigrants are people
(44:08):
who deserve humane and good treatment and like all of
these things that sort of like encompass my identity and
like this election, frankly had me feeling a little bit
like am I part of the Latino vote?
Speaker 8 (44:20):
Like?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Who are these people? Kind of is sort of how
I felt.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, And it's really complicated, and we're taking on one
particular side of the conversation, right yeah, now for me,
I actually and now I don't want to say I'm
gonna go to the grave with this because that's terrible
to say. But I do believe that immigration is deeply
important to Latino and Latina voters. But I do believe
(44:47):
that the way you talk about it is what's.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Going to make them move one way or another.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Like it is an important issue, but if you're not
giving anything that's interesting, then probably it's not going to
be the number one issue. So like if again, if
Kamala Harris was meeting build the Wall with pathway to citizenship,
I think it could have been different. Right, But Okay,
there's a question about this about how important is immigration?
(45:17):
And in that sense, yes, I mean obviously I have
to be questioning. That's like the nature of us as
journalists is to be questioning everything in ourselves. And then
I think it does get complicated because we do operate
in this view that our Latini that is actually going
to be central to how people vote, and sometimes maybe
(45:40):
it is, but also maybe it's not. And we've always,
like at Latino USA, we've always said Latinos and Latinas
are not a block. We don't vote as a block.
We have always said that that's true. But I also
think that we also talk about Latinos and Latinas as
if they could be a potential block like the black voter, which,
(46:00):
like the black voters who are reliably blue, reliably blue,
although they did lose some support as well. So I
think it's important for a journalists, et cetera, that we're
able to say, look, we are really having this precis
e conciencia, really trying to break down what Latino and
Latina voters want, who they are, and how we can
(46:23):
do our job better and get it right as much
as possible totally.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
One thing that did come through with every single strategist
we spoke to for the story is that they talked
a lot about the importance of working class identity within
the Latino vote and how much a lot of the
things that ultimately determined who people voted for was working
class ideals, striving to one day own a home, to
have a better life for their kids, you know, is
(46:48):
Suenoa Medica. I know, like that part still felt very
relevant to them, and I think that's something that we
saw also throughout all of this reporting that we've done
in this collaboration. Like Lupita like that was so important
for her, was like having a home and having a
space to raise her sons, and people leaving the United
States to go to Mexico because I think, again, a
higher quality of life, like these issues of like where
(47:09):
is the dream still? I think is very present for
Latino voters and it's very tight to class. Do you
remember this was very early in me working at that USA,
that Code Switch came out with a piece about the
Obama Effect. Do you remember about that? Yeah, of course,
And like the idea behind the Obama effect is that
like once President Obama was elected, a lot of people
(47:30):
in their workplaces at institutions, they like looked around and
they were like, oh my god, no people of color
or women are in positions of power.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
But we have a black president.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Right. So it was this moment where like there was
a lot of emphasis on identity politics, and I think,
like you know, when Mike and fernand bring up this
idea that immigration became the silver bullet. I also think,
like probably even more importantly, is that like identity politics
took this like very centered role in our conversation about politics,
but the class part of that conversation sort of took
(48:05):
a back seat. And I think when we see what
politicians are resonating on the left right now, seemed to
be exciting, like the Bernie's, the aocs zoron Mom Donnie
in New York, Like they're talking much more about class
issues than the politicians of the mid afts. I'm curious
what you think about that.
Speaker 11 (48:23):
Look.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I think that the Latino voter is fascinating because we
cannot separate this political reporting Antonia from what just happened
in Los Angeles and what has happened in multiple cities
across the country the United States. That on the one hand,
people want to wag their finger and blame Latinos for
(48:48):
giving the election to Donald Trump. Well, on the other hand,
you kind of have to look at what has happened
with Latinos taking to the streets, like there are not
immigrants who are out there with green cards protesting it's
just too dangerous. They are the ones who actually are
changing the historical dynamic of politics in this moment by
(49:10):
taking it to the streets. And so I think now
there is a question of like, wow, like this, if
you want to talk about that term, which I don't like,
identity politics, Like this is a moment where Latinos in
La Latinos in New York, Latinos in Chicago, in Miami,
in Dallas are actually leading kind of a political moment
(49:33):
to okay, safe democracy. I think that what we're living
through right now actually kind of is going to have
an impact on all of this polling that we've been
analyzing because I actually think that the moment, the historical moment,
is going to change this. So I'm really glad that
we did this reporting. But I think history is rearing
(49:54):
its head right now. And you know, the President Trump
that had that Latino support and the Democratic Party that
lost all of that Latino support because of the policies
of Donald Trump and attacking Latinos as immigrants and as
American citizens.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
That could change. You could change right now.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
And so that I think is really fascinating and we
can't walk away from that because it is literally being
led by Latinos and Latinas and LATINX and Latina people.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I will push back on one thing, which I will say,
like I do think the Democrats do have to understand
and it seems like there is a conversation already happening that,
like the Latino voter cares so much about immigration, but
it seems that they have lost based on other things.
And I think that this idea of like the Democratic
Party being the working class party, that's something I'm more
curious to see if the Democrats are going to be
(50:44):
able to deliver on in the next couple of years.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Which is essentially what we've been reporting here at Latino USA,
which is that the Democratic Party was not reaching out
to working class Latinos and Latinas and giving them an
alternative to what Donald Trump was saying, which was basically,
you're a victim. You don't get treated right. I'm a
great businessman, the economy is going to be great.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Vote for me totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
But on the issue of Latini that Antonia, you know
that question right that Grisis de Conciencia, Does Latini that exist?
I think for what I think this particular moment right now,
summer of twenty twenty five, I think that's going to
have so much to do with answering that question. So
I think we need to come back to this, like
(51:31):
whatever in six months or a year.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, totally. And like as far as this question about
whether Latino pulling firms and adovcacy groups have helped or
hurt the Democratic Party after all this reporting, I really
don't think there's a clear answer. Well, Maria, I have
loved reporting the series out with you. It's been such
a joy for me.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
As we say, iwanas ranis if you know, you know
all right.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
This episode was written and produced by Antonia Serejido, the
host of Imperfect Paradise from Elaist. It was edited by
Futuro Media's Maria Garcia. Senior producers for this episode were
Emily Garren and Angelie Sastri Kurbachek. Production support from James
Child and montiguat Morelis Garcia.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
It was mixed by E.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Scott Kelly from Elaist. Fact checking for this episode by
Roxanna guire Di. Latino USA team also includes Julia Caruso,
Fernanda Echavari, Jessica Elis, Victoria Estrada, Dominique Inestrosa, Renando Leanos
Junior Stephanie Lebau, Andrea Lopez, Gruzsado, Luis Luna, Flori, Ma Marquez,
(52:41):
Marta Martinez, J. J. Carubin, Tasha Sandoval, Mour Saudi and
Nancy Druquigo, Penilee Ramidiez, Marlon Bishop, Maria Garzia and I
are co executive producers and I'm Your Host Maria jo Josa.
Catherine Mailhouse is the executive producer of the Imperfect Paradise
podcast and the director of content Development ele East Buro
Hinte Aestelapproxima Chao Choo.
Speaker 9 (53:05):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the John D.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
And Catherine T.
Speaker 9 (53:10):
MacArthur Foundation, Michelle Mercer and
Speaker 6 (53:13):
Bruce Golden, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for
more than fifty years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to
promote a better world at Hewlett dot org.
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