Latino Voters Key to Senate, Arizona Gubernatorial Race

Guadalupe, Arizona – Over the past decade, Latinos in Arizona have responded to the crackdown on immigration by helped the Democrats come to powerturned the longtime stronghold of the Republican Party into one of the most competitive states.

The strength of the movement is that of Tuesday’s selectionwhen Democrats expect strong support from Latinos to help them overcome economic concerns.

That’s because the Democrats standing among latinos slipping.the party suffered amazing loss In 2020, in places like South Florida and South Texas, where immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela tend to be more conservative. In Arizona, where Latinos tend to be younger and more recent immigrants, they may prove decisive in the battle for control of the Senate and the crucial race for governor.

“The question is whether the young Latinx voters will go to the polls, because that will really determine whether we will come out on top,” said the predominantly Latino voters south and west of Phoenix. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic lawmaker representing the region, said.

Democratic Senator. Mark Kelly We are counting on Latinx voters to replicate our victory in the special election two years ago. So does gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, as Democrats seek to win the top office in the state for the first time since 2006.

Latinos, who make up about one-third of Arizona’s population, made up less than one-fifth of voters in 2020, but they’ve long supported the Democratic Party. The same goes for Nevada, where Katherine Cortez Mast, the first Hispanic woman elected to the Senate, is one of the most endangered Democrats in the House.

Democrats watching the early polls said turnout in Latinos trailed Arizona’s whites.

Gallego said it wasn’t necessarily a cause for alarm. In the 2018 midterm elections, young Latinos waited until the last minute to vote or return their mail-in ballots, he said.They helped bring victory in the end Kirsten Cinemathe first Democrat to win the Arizona Senate election in 20 years.

donald trump He advanced to the 2020 presidential election, increasing his Latino vote share to 38% from 28% in 2016, according to an analysis of valid voters by the Pew Research Center.

Although it wasn’t enough to re-elect Trump, the victory among Latinos allowed Republicans to win congressional seats, especially in South Texas and Florida.

In Arizona, young Latinos were organized after a law went into effect in 2010. The law requires the police to verify the immigration status of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. The move sparked a wave of immigration laws across the country.

The leaders of that movement now hold important positions. Gallego is a member of the House of Representatives and Raquel Terran is an Arizona Senator and chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party.

Latinos are an integral part of the coalition that has propelled Arizona into Democratic-winnable territory, but they alone cannot make the state a reality, according to Unite Here Local 11 and its affiliated political group Worker. Co-Political Director Brendan Walsh said. Power.

“If we let Latinos behave the way we want them to, but we lose our status in the suburbs, we lose,” Walsh said. And there’s no amount of votes you can get in Suburbs, you have to be great to win.”

Unite Here hotel and food service employees six days a week to find black and Latino voters who back Hobbs and Kelly but say they may need an extra push to vote is focused on

“We’re working really hard to find new supporters, but also to make sure people who have told us they’re Hobbes supporters in the past few weeks are voting.

Republicans believe that rising prices and economic insecurity are giving Latinos an opportunity to argue that they cannot afford Democratic leadership. Republicans actively lobbied to tie the Democratic candidate to Arizona’s unpopular President Joe Biden. election delaybut First Lady Jill Biden campaigned in the state on Saturday for Kelly and Hobbes.

“Hispanics are interested in jobs. They are against inflation. “They want their children to get a good education. I’m sick and tired of trying to teach critical racial theories.”

Democrats point to Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters against a path to citizenship for young people called “dreamers” who were brought into the country illegally as children. . The Democrat also cites his propaganda of racist conspiracy theories that Democrats are taking advantage of immigrants instead of Americans.

Masters said his focus on border security resonates with most Latinos.

“The Latino voters I’ve spoken to are fed up with the wide open southern border,” Masters said. “These people are thrilled to be voting Republican this November. They came legally. The amount is zero.”

During the gubernatorial race, Lake caught the moment when Hobbes attended a candidate forum sponsored by the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Asked what he learned from the Latino community, Hobbes struggled, frozen with an awkward answer stating that he enjoys “practicing Spanish” with his Latino sister-in-law. .

“She stuttered and answered a softball question about what she learned from the Latino community. She couldn’t come up with one thing,” Lake said at a press conference last month.

Asked to answer the question herself, Lake said her husband and daughter are Latino.

“They are the hardest working and most dedicated to their families,” Lake said of Latinos. “They show that there is balance in life. If you believe in God, love your family, and work hard, you can achieve the American Dream.”

Hobbs prioritized outreach to Latinos in the last few weeks. She spent her weekends touring the Latino community and last week met with her owner of a Latino business.

“You can’t separate Latino culture as Arizona or as a state,” Hobbes told the Associated Press. “I have thought a lot about what I learned from the people I worked with in her career as a social worker, and especially from the Latina woman who had the opportunity to work with her in her domestic violence shelter.”

Hobbes was a social worker and leader of a domestic violence shelter before turning to politics in 2010 when he was elected to Congress. She is currently Arizona’s Secretary of State.

For Felipa Alvarez of Guadalupe, a small Latino and Indigenous community a few miles from where Hobbs grew up in Tempe, any support from Lake would be enough to overcome her embrace of Trump. you can’t.

“In my opinion, Kari Lake is a Trump puppet,” Alvarez said. “Forget when Trump endorsed her, you are invisible to me.”

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