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By Veronica Mackey
With barely 3 months until the November Presidential Election, Vice-President and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris finds herself in a whirlwind race to win the hearts and votes of Americans, and that includes young Latinos.
With hundreds of thousands of Latino citizens turning 18 by Election Day, this is a demographic Harris cannot afford to lose.
She is seeking to capture this group of voters through an aggressive campaign aided by three Democratic-leaning national Latino groups: Voto Latino, UnidosUS and Mi Familia Vota. Together, the groups are expanding efforts toward mobilization and registration of Latino voters.
Abortion rights is a hot button issue that seems to be resonating with Latinos. And one that Harris is relentlessly promising to restore if she is elected. According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of Latinos say abortions should be legal in all or most states.
NBC reported on a 29 year-old woman, Gabriela Torres, who stood outside the U.S. Supreme Court with her mom and sister when Roe vs. Wade (the 1973 decision giving women the right to have an abortion) was overturned. Her mother was in tears. “You could feel the world shift,” she said.
Torres, who caucused for Hillary Clinton in 2016, said she is hoping that “maybe with a female in power” those rights can be returned.
With a $50 million ad campaign released this week, Harris is focusing on battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia, as well as Texas and Florida, where more Latinas live, and states with serious restriction and bans on abortion.
Harris’ outspokenness on abortion could be helped by campaigns in Arizona and Nevada to get abortion rights measures on November ballots.
A May survey of over 2,000 voters under 40, including Latinos, found only one-third would vote for President Joe Biden.
Since Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, recent polls indicate an upward swing in Harris’ popularity She is energizing not only the base but voters who were previously on the fence.
Democratic polling firms like Equis Research and Barreto Segura Partners are reporting numbers which were previously declining under the Biden-Harris ticket are now doing better with voters under 40. Democratic pollsters Matt Barreto and Angie Guiterrez posted a July 14 memo online indicated Harris had a 46-point advantage over Biden and Donald Trump.
Carlos Odio, co-founder of Equis Research said data from a July 11-15 poll of Nevada Latinos shows Harris winning back some Latinos who had slipped away from Biden because they did not want to see a Biden/Trump rematch.
According to Meidas Touch, a channel on YouTube, tens of thousands of former Trump supporters are changing sides. Many are regretting voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
“I live in a very (MAGA) Trump area and I have seen the Trump flags go down on trucks and stickers go down and I just hope everybody realizes how dangerous he really is. I will vote for Kamala Harris,” one user commented.
Another wrote, “I’m a pro-choice, pro LGBT republican that did vote for Trump in 2016. I’m sorry!!! It won’t happen again.”
According to data by the Pew Research Center in 2022, most Latinos say Democrats care more about them and work hard for their vote. With Harris re-energizing the Democrats in general and young voters specifically, it appears that her hard work is paying off.
