His 25-year-old son, Zadrac, was at the house that night. He has an MBA, works as an accountant, and finds himself unsure about how to vote. “A couple of years ago, I was like, ‘I’m never going to vote for the Republicans,’” Zadrac explained. “But I know this upcoming election, I’m more on the fence about it.”
Like his dad, he felt that Democrats often did not share his Christian principles. Still, he was concerned by some of the supporters Trump attracted. “The people that are going for him, they seem kind of racist,” he explained. “They may be opposed to people like me. So it makes me wary. Why would you vote for someone if the people that are supporting him don’t seem to care about you?”
Zadrac’s attitude was common. Many of the Latino voters I spoke to who are considering voting Republican were aware of the nativism—and sometimes overt racism—of MAGA. Even if they are Mexican American, they don’t like seeing Puerto Ricans being called “garbage.” But for many, other issues seem more important this year.
Duarte has gone out of his way to differentiate himself from Trump to allow Latinos to move to him. His rhetoric is nothing like the former president’s, and he supports a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants. I told Duarte I was skeptical that right-wing Republicans, who have tanked multiple bipartisan immigration reform bills in recent decades, would ever allow such a path. “I can’t convince them,” Duarte said of his colleagues. “Donald Trump can.”
“I think as he turns a lot of Hispanic votes this time, he’s going to say, ‘This is a durable majority if I address their needs,’” the congressman said.
Ramirez, the Fresno-based political consultant and community leader, said messaging about Trump’s promises about mass deportations and other immigration crackdowns often does not resonate with the Latino voters in the area. Many believe Trump is talking about other people, or thinks that he won’t actually follow through on his campaign promises.
He tries to explain that Trump’s immigration agenda was often blocked by Congress or the courts, and that a second term would be different. “Nah, I think he’s saying it just to get elected,” Ramirez, who is himself undocumented, said about what he hears in response. “You’ll see, once he gets elected, he’ll be fine.” Many of these voters want progressive immigration reforms but they’ve lost faith that Democrats will ever get them done.
More surprisingly, Ramirez said some of the Latino voters he talks to even respect Trump on immigration despite not liking what he did. “They might not agree with what he did in terms of the deportations and enforcement mechanisms. [But] people will say at least he actually acted on what he said he was going to do,” Ramirez explained. “Whereas again, the Democrats have yet to deliver on immigration.”
Ramirez at his Fresno office earlier this week
In 2022, Duarte and Valadao’s districts had some of the lowest turnout in the country. Only about 100,000 people voted in the Valadao race, compared to more than 350,000 in the nation’s highest-turnout congressional races. (Members of Congress each represent nearly 800,000 people, although the number of eligible voters varies by district.) And of the 25 races with the lowest turnout, Duarte and Valadao were the only Republicans who won two years ago.
In an effort to boost turnout, Grita Canta Vota, a nonpartisan campaign, organized a free concert in Visalia on Thursday. It was part of a well-funded and highly produced national tour called Vota Palooza that has been coming to Latino communities where there are close races. Los Tucanes de Tijuana, a veteran norteño act with a major following, was the headliner. Thousands attended.
Outside the venue, organizers had set up a little plaza featuring mariachis, food, and lowriders. Most of the people I talked to, particularly women and those who were older, supported Harris and fellow Democrats. The disgust with Trump I heard from one of them, a Latino man originally from Oakland, was visceral.
But Sara, a 38-year-old life insurance agent originally from Mexicali, was at the other end of the spectrum. Her husband couldn’t understand why but she was voting for Trump. She said the economy was by far the most important issue for her and she thought Trump would handle it better.
Inside the venue, the crowd filled in as Lupita Infante and Grupo Control opened for Los Tucanes. In between the sets, speakers tried to make sure they planned to vote. One of these exhortations came via a video message from Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor leader who helped to organize the era-defining 1965 grape strike with Cesar Chavez in nearby Delano. “If we vote, we can prevent that horrifying future,” Huerta, now 94, stressed in Spanish wearing a flat-brim hat. “Because we’re the winners: Latino people, people of color, all the young people fighting for a better future.”
A couple watching Grupo Control in Visalia on Thursday
Most of the people in attendance had not been born when Huerta and Chavez became icons. In many cases, neither were their parents. The movement Huerta emerged from is increasingly distant.
I ran into Ramirez, the political consultant, later that night. When we’d spoken earlier in the week, he’d stressed the potential electoral consequences of Latino voters in the area struggling to get by. “That’s really what most voters are looking at right now is that: their actual bank account,” he said.
He has a master’s degree in public policy and runs a nonprofit when he isn’t being paid to elect Democrats. But the issues aren’t abstractions for him. “Honestly,” he explained about his own life. “I’m trying to buy a house, and it’s like, I can’t even afford it.”
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Publish date : 2024-11-04 07:32:00
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