Illustration of Vice President Kamala Harris made by Connectas and used with permission.

This article is from our media partner CONNECTAS and was written by the Argentine journalist Leonardo Oliva.

“Latino voters, we see you and we are willing to win this together.” This post from September 27 is by Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the first Latina to lead a presidential campaign in the United States. This 46-year-old Californian, granddaughter of a famous labor leader, is in charge of getting Kamala Harris to win the elections on November 5 against Donald Trump.

Both the Democrat and the Republican candidates have been trying to attract the Latino vote, a community that has become the first ethnic minority in the country. But Harris has more at stake in this contest: Hispanics, historically voters for her party, see in the vice president — who is mixed race, woman and daughter of immigrants — a representative of minorities. They consider her someone more empathetic to their needs than Trump, who in the last debate shamelessly spread fake news: that Haitian immigrants are eating family pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio.

Julie Chavez's post should be understood in this context. Since Harris became the Democratic nominee at the end of August, the party's hopes of retaining the presidency have been renewed, after Joe Biden decided not to seek re-election. And this momentum is also evident among Hispanic voters.

Latino voters we see you and are ready to win this together 💪🏽💙🇺🇸 https://t.co/yoV89aOMfO

— Julie Chavez Rodriguez (@JulieR2022) September 27, 2024

Latino voters, we hear you and we are ready to win this together💪🏽💙🇺🇸

The organization Voto Latino reported that voter registration has increased by 200 percent since Harris's nomination. This translates to about 112,000 new voters, of whom more than half (56 percent) are between 18 and 29 years old. In addition to young people, women have also been motivated to vote as a result of the “Kamala effect.”

As CONNECTAS published in March, the number of Latino voters in 2024 grew by 6.5 percent compared to the 2020 presidential election that Biden won; and it exceeds by 20.5 percent the number of those eligible to vote in 2016, when Trump won. This year, more than one in 10 voters (14.7 percent) will be of Latino origin, a record number. However, of the 36.2 million potential Hispanic voters, only 26 million are registered to vote. Harris's team has its sights set on those 10 million undecided voters who have never set foot in a polling station.

With one month left before the election, the official candidate has focused part of her campaign on the issues that most concern Latinos: the economy, housing and, to a lesser extent, the right to abortion. On the other side, Trump does not hesitate to attract voters with a hardline approach against immigration, much of which comes from Latin American countries.

Ernesto Castañeda, director of the Immigration Laboratory at American University and head of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at that university in Washington, D.C., says:

No creo que la migración en sí misma vaya a definir la elección. El tema más importante en las encuestas ahora es la economía, seguido de la inflación.

I don't think immigration in itself will define the election. The most important issue in the polls now is the economy, followed by inflation.

Castañeda argues that Harris's nomination has changed voting trends not only among Latinos but also among African Americans, and insists that economic issues will be a priority for people casting their votes. He explains:

Son los mismos temas que le incumben a la clase media trabajadora de cualquier otro tipo de comunidad. Los migrantes indocumentados son solo un 3 por ciento de la población estadounidense y los latinos son casi el 20 por ciento de la población y un 18 por ciento de la fuerza laboral, entonces sus temas son el salario mínimo o los derechos laborales, no la situación migratoria.

These are the same issues that concern the working middle class in any other type of community. Undocumented immigrants make up only 3 percent of the US population, and Latinos are almost 20 percent of the population and 18 percent of the workforce, so their issues are minimum wage or labor rights, not immigration status.

Political scientist Franklin Camargo agrees with Castañeda on what drives the Hispanic vote:

La prioridad de los latinos es la economía; es el costo de vida y la inflación. En esta área desaprueba enormemente a la administración Biden–Harris.

For the Latinos the priority is the economy; it is the cost of living and inflation. In this area, they strongly disapprove of the Biden–Harris administration.

Camargo, who is also a political commentator for Univisión Noticias (Univisión News), further disagrees that Harris is a favorite among Latinos.

Estamos viendo encuestas que dicen que Donald Trump no solamente aumentaría el voto latino con respecto a las dos contiendas anteriores, sino que sería uno de los candidatos republicanos de la historia reciente en conseguir la mayor cantidad de votos latinos.

We are seeing polls that show that Donald Trump would not only increase the Latino vote compared to the two previous races, but that he would be one of the Republican candidates in recent history to get the largest number of Latino votes.

Recent polls by The New York Times show how close the election will be, which is partly due to the changing trend in the Latino vote. If in 2020, 65 percent were in favor of Biden over Trump; this time only 55 percent say they would vote for Harris. And the rest of the predictions show that both candidates are in a technical tie after the September 11, 2024 debate.

Young, undocumented and apathetic

A report by the Pew Research Center reflects a contrasting reality of the universe of Latino voters in the United States. Although they are currently the largest minority (surpassing African Americans), they are still less likely to vote than Americans in general (53 percent versus 72 percent). This is partly due to the fact that the Latino population includes a large number of very young people; and also because many others are not citizens (19 percent of Latinos).

And there is another factor that diminishes the electoral weight they may have: almost half of Latino voters live in only two states, California and Texas. But according to all analysts, the campaign will probably be defined in three states of the so-called Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin), where the voters to be wooed are not Latinos, but white working-class men.

Map created by Connectas using Flourish. Source: Pew Research Center, using data from the American Community Survey (IPUMS) 2022. Used with permission.

Furthermore, it must be taken into account that Hispanics are the most apathetic group when it comes to voting. In the last election, only 51 percent of those who were eligible voted, compared to 63 percent of African Americans and 74 percent of whites. For Camargo,

Hay una falta de interés en el grueso de nuestra comunidad en tener algún tipo de acción política y esto obedece a varias razones. Puede ser falta de asimilación o poca expectativa de cambio, creer que lo que hagas no va a cambiar absolutamente nada.

The majority of our community lacks the interest in having any kind of political action and this is due to several reasons. It may be a lack of assimilation or a low expectation of change, believing that what you do will not change anything at all.

Another reason, says the Venezuelan-born political scientist, is that:

Estados Unidos en términos de seguridad, de economía, etcétera, es mucho más próspero que los países de los que venimos, y eso hace que no tengas tanto interés en la política dado que te sientes cómodo.

The United States, in terms of security, economy, etc., is much more prosperous than the countries we come from, and that makes you not have as much interest in politics because you feel comfortable.

So, if the key states to decide the election are not those with the largest Latino presence and, in addition, Hispanic voters are not the most participative at the polls, will the enthusiasm that her candidacy generated among part of the Latino population be enough for Kamala Harris to achieve victory?

NALEO Educational Fund, an NGO dedicated to promoting the participation of Latinos in the American political process, recognizes that Harris's nomination has increased enthusiasm in that community. But according to Dorian Caal, director of Civic Engagement Research for that organization, the Latino vote is no longer so predictable:

Los candidatos o las campañas tienen una oportunidad de hablar con la comunidad latina de los asuntos que son importantes para ella. A los latinos les importan asuntos como la migración, pero también otros como el costo de la vida, que ha sido bien importante no solo en esta elección, sino también en el 2022 y en el 2020.

Candidates or campaigns have an opportunity to speak to the Latino community about issues that are important to them. Latinos care about issues like immigration, but also others like the cost of living, which has been very important not only in this election, but also in 2022 and 2020.

Caal, however, praised the role that women from the Latino community, who are more active, will play in this presidential race. In addition, Caal maintains that:

La comunidad latina es especialmente una comunidad joven [68 por ciento tiene menos de 50 años, contra el 52 por ciento del resto de los estadounidenses]. Por eso serán un segmento importante en estas próximas elecciones.

The Latino community is especially a young community [68 percent are under 50 years old, compared to 52 percent of the rest of the Americans]. That is why they will be an important segment in these upcoming elections.