The Daily Signal - Trump's Unexpected Allies: Are Black and Hispanic Voters Really Ditching Democrats?

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Recent polling suggests that some traditionally Democrat-leaning voters, particularly black and Hispanic men, appear to be reconsidering their political allegiances. Their concerns about the high cost of living and rising crime have them trending toward former President Donald Trump, which could make them the deciding factor in the 2024 presidential election. Gabriel Nadales, national director of Our America, spoke with The Daily Signal about these surprising developments—and shared first-hand accounts of why voters are switching sides. Watch our full interview in the video above. “It’s kind of insane that there are so many Hispanic Americans out there who are very much voting for Trump,” Nadales said. “They see that, unfortunately, the Democrat Party no longer represents them.” Nadales’ organization, Our America, is active in the key battleground states of Arizona and Georgia, attempting to unite Americans at a time when it seems we’re hopelessly divided. Our America has organized local events with the goal of inspiring Americans to be active citizens in their local communities. “If you want to affect policy at the national level,” Nadales explained, “you have to get people engaged at the local level with things that they actually can directly affect to show them that they can make a difference in long term.” The group’s core issues are promoting safer communities, lowering the cost of living, defending freedom of speech, and ensuring fair elections. Learn more about the work of Our America at JoinOurAmerica.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's kind of insane that there are so many Hispanic Americans out there who are very much voting for Trump because they understand and they see that the, unfortunately, the Democrat Party has no longer represents them. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, October 17th. I'm your host, Rob Blewey. And those were the words of Gabriel Nadalas, national director of Our America, an organization that is attempting to unite Americans at a time when it seems were hopelessly divided. As we count down the days until November 5th, today we're taking a closer look at the shifting political alignments among American voters. Some traditionally Democrat-leaning voters, particularly black and Hispanic men, appear to be reconsidering their political allegiances. Find out why their concerns on the economy and crime have them trending toward Donald Trump and why that could be the deciding factor in the 2024 presidential election. Before we get to today's interview,

let me tell you about the Daily Signal's newest show. The Signal Sit Down with Bradley Devlin. Each Thursday, Bradley pulls back the curtain to reveal how Washington really works. He interviews guests who have experience on the inside. And on today's episode, you'll hear from New House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris. He's a conservative from Maryland who just became leader of the influential group in Congress. You won't want to miss an episode, so please subscribe to the Signal Sit Down and stay informed on the fights that matter most. in Washington, D.C.

Now, here's my interview with Gabriel Nadalus. We are just weeks away from the 2024 election on November 5th, and all eyes are on some groups of Americans who are increasingly finding themselves aligned with conservative ideas and gravitating toward conservative policies. And joining us today on The Daily Signal, we are talking to Gabriel Nadalas from our America. He's the national director there. and he's keeping a close eye on all of these trends that are happening throughout our country.

Gabriel, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Well, let's begin by learning a little bit more about your organization and the work that you're doing. You know, our America is an organization that seeks to unite Americans, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans fighting for our America. One of the things that we've noticed over the last several years is that there's a lot of people who don't self-identify as conservative and they don't want to self-identify. as progressive, yet they hold these ideals that are very much pro-American. We're talking about the need to support the police, as well as the need to fight for freedom of speech, as well as to combat the cost of living by taking the government out of the economy.

These are some issues that really unite Americans, and they don't really fall in the conservative or liberal spectrum. So we reach out to these Americans who maybe don't identify themselves as Republicans or as conservatives, but they definitely have principles that align with a, what it means to be an American, that is that equal opportunity, what it means to reach the American dream. Particularly, we engage with people who are, especially in some of these demographics that are really important. We're talking about black Americans, Hispanic Americans, as myself, and many others. Well, and you are quite active on the ground in some key locations

across the country. What are some of the vibes that you're getting from, from individuals that you interact with, what are the issues that are really motivating them as we look toward this election? Certainly. I mean, I was just in Georgia just this past week. And I was at an HPCU, Clark Atlanta University. I was talking to some students. And let me tell you, when I asked them, like, okay, who are you voting for? Well, you'd hear like, you know, Kamala, nobody was really excited about it. They just was, they were just kind of voting because it was Kamala. But there's this one gentleman who I asked them, like, hey, so like, what do you think about what's going on today versus four years ago. And he said that he told me, you know, frankly speaking, I can tell you

this, my life was better four years ago. And I wasn't broke four years ago. So, you know, it kind of gives you a little inclination of how he feels. There's a lot of Americans who really understand that right now, four years ago, we were a lot better. And it just speaks to the failures of this administration that's not only have they failed to really unite Americans, but they've also promoted policies that make it incredibly difficult to live in America. Well, and now one of the issues that we see motivating so many people is obviously the economy that is consistently the number one issue poll after poll. But there are some other things that perhaps are below the surface that are really motivating voters.

You've identified some issues related to criminal justice, for instance. What are some of the things that you hear from voters who are out there that we may not be seeing from those of us who work in Washington, D.C., and only see those top lines on the polling. Of course, you know, one of the campaigns we have at Our America is called the Safer Streets, brighter futures campaign. And we did this by going into specific cities like Tucson, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia, and really looking into cities that are incredibly important and key cities, but yet they don't get enough attention and support.

And instead, people will talk about Los Angeles, New York, D.C., San Francisco, you know, these cities are incredibly mismanaged. let's call it that. And yet they always get the most attention. But the problem is that the same problems that are happening in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, they're happening in minor cities like Atlanta, like Tucson. And unfortunately, many of these residents, they're just ignored by the mainstream media. So we went into Tucson and we actually recruited several dozens different activists to go speak in front of the city council to make sure that the issue of crime is addressed at the local level. Now, we're not a local or an organization that is solely at the city based, but we work with activists on the ground because one of the failures,

unfortunately, of the movement is that everyone's always talking at the 10,000 foot level, and nobody ever really goes into communities and to establish long-lasting infrastructure to be able to talk to these people. And this is what we desperately need. We need to engage with local communities in order to really hear their problems and to work for solutions at the local level because those solutions eventually become national issues. Gabriel, what you just said there is so important. I think what we've seen happen from Washington, D.C. is some organizations parachute in every two to four years when there's an election coming up. They will do a very basic treatment in that community to try to get out the vote or do the messaging that's necessary,

but then they will disappear. And so to have an organization like yours that is committed for the long term to establishing and developing these relationships and carry on the communication beyond just an election time is so critically important. One of the things that I'd like to hear more about is some of the events that you've done. So you've talked about Georgia and now Arizona. Obviously, these are voters. These are states that are getting a lot more attention because of their swing state status. What are some of the things that your organization does when it will go into a community and bring people together? Well, one of the things about that. organization is that we're not solely a political organization. We're definitely a cultural

organization because one of the things that I've noticed is that unfortunately, you know, as political talking heads, we go into communities and we want to talk about politics. But as you mentioned, when you do that every two years, every four years, you parachute in, people don't trust you. People are saying like, what are you doing here? Instead of thinking of going into communities, we have to become part of these communities. So some of the things that our America will do will participate in cultural events. I know that in Wenette County, in Atlanta, Georgia, some of our staff, they would go to some cultural events, especially for Hispanic Heritage Month. Same thing for, for, in the Tucson area, as well as Phoenix. You know, we,

we participate in some of these events. And not only are we in our outside organization that goes into these communities, but the members that are residents, residents from Arizona and from Georgia, they become part of the organizations. And it just shows you how it's important to create, to plant roots in these that will eventually flourish. Now, when it comes to the political, and we definitely do some of that, your traditional political activism, we go into city councils, we talk to community members, we organize postcard parties, you know, right now we're in the process of doing door knocking campaigns, you know, some of the more traditional things, because that is incredibly important if you want to really lead a movement that leads you to victory. You need to

have that on the ground presence. But one thing, another thing that I should mention is the fact that you have to obviously have digital. One of the things that we've spent quite a little bit of investments in is to make sure that our message resonates with the communities that we're trying to reach because we are not just going out there with a message that we think is works. We go and we poll them, we talk to them, and we hear what they're saying, and then go back to them and then say, you know what, your issue is crime? Well, these are some of the solutions that we think are going to help you with crime.

You think that the issue is that groceries are too expensive. Well, these are some of the solutions we think that will help alleviate every time that you go spend money at the grocery store. We are dedicated to being part of the community, not just parachuting every two to four years. What has it been like to recruit people to some of these causes? And not only to get them to maybe engage with you, but to take that next step where they become involved, showing up at a city council meeting or taking a next step in terms of helping people register to vote, it seems like there's maybe a barrier that they cross where they decide that they want to contribute a little bit more to making their community better. You really have to personalize the issue because a lot of times, you know, I know for especially for people like my parents, for example, they go into the grocery store.

They might complain a little bit, you know, but a lot of people, they just don't feel like they have the power to affect policy, especially when we were talking about national. politics, which is, again, goes to the strategy of our America. We help people get active at the local level, so then they feel empowered to work in these kind of national races, more statewide, or some of these campaigns where they really didn't think they had the power to affect national policy. But this is really how it works. If you want to affect policy at the national level, you have to get people engaged at the local level with things that they actually can directly affect to show them that they can make a difference in long term. So it's about getting them at the local level to then plug them into national efforts. Oh, it's incredibly important

to get started there as somebody who started my own career in journalism at a small weekly newspaper. You had a tremendous ability to affect local change by just simply showing up and taking an interest. So I applaud the efforts that you're doing. But let's zoom out and talk about some national trends. One of the things that we've seen in recent polling is a surprising number of black and Hispanic men who seem to be trending in the direction of a more conservative approach to governing. And by that, I also mean supporting Donald Trump specifically. What can you tell us about some of these observations that we've seen at a national level and what that might mean come election day?

You know, there was this poll recently that said something like 40% of Latinos not supported Trump. And a lot of people are asking me, well, why is this happening? Well, I mean, let's look at what happened in the last couple of weeks. We saw Donald Trump go on a show by Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey is this well-known fellow. He talks about managing wealth, you know, how to really live responsibly and how to really make sure that you don't go broke. And then you, around the same time, you also saw Kamala Harris on a sex podcast called Call Her Daddy. You know, it seems a little bit, when you actually look at the types of audiences that they're going to, you notice that Donald Trump is really cares about the issues that Americans care about, which is, I can't

afford to go to the grocery store every week. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is talking about sex and about all these different things, you know, and it just goes to show you that the Democrat Party, unfortunately, in some of the far-left people, they've gone so far on into theory. They've forgotten what it means to go into communities. And they've really left this void in a lot of communities. which is exactly what our America is trying to do. We're going into communities that have unfortunately been forgotten by the extreme left.

And, you know, unfortunately, some of the people who are on the right, they really haven't been talking to them as much as they should over the last several decades. So it just goes to show you that the priorities of some of the people on the right tend to be aligned much more with the everyday American. Do you get the sense from some of the people that you work with kind of at a micro level now, that they feel that their vote is maybe taken for granted, and they don't necessarily, the politicians don't necessarily have to work for it as hard simply because that's the way that trends have always been, particularly I'm talking now about the black and Hispanic communities.

You know, as I mentioned, I was in Clark Atlanta University, which is a historically black college just last week. And some of the people that I talked to, they would say they were voting for Kamal Harris, and I would ask him, well, why? And they would just say, well, you know, she's not Donald Trump. You know, a lot of times that there's a lot of people out there who are voting for Kamala Harris just because she's not Trump or just because they've been doing this for such a long time. But unfortunately, that we're seeing many, many more people from this communities, from black communities,

Hispanic communities that are saying, like, well, what's the point? You know, why is it that, that, why should I be voting Democrat when, in fact, like, they really have not done anything for me? I know a little bit more about like my mom. She tells me, it's surprising, actually. She tells me a lot of her friends, they're voting for Trump. You know, a lot of Hispanic Americans and Mexican Americans. And it's kind of insane that there are so many Hispanic Americans out there who are very much voting for Trump because they understand and they see that the, unfortunately, the Democrat Party has no longer represents them.

Let me ask you this. We've seen in states like Georgia and Arizona, numbers come out that suggest that when people are, asked about their own personal finances, almost by a two to one margin, they say they're getting worse today than getting better. It seems that there's more pessimism about the economy than there is optimism. How much of those issues do you think are factoring in to those decisions in terms of these groups that have traditionally supported Democrats may be shifting over to Trump and Republicans? I think one of the biggest issues for Hispanic Americans and as well as black Americans is really the cost of living. When you look at...

the price of basically everything, you realize that what the mainstream media is telling you, that the economy is great, that it's doing fantastic, we had a jobs report that is supposedly like a high record. When you look at those things, people know they are lying because you feel it every single time that you go into a grocery store and you realize that it's no longer $100, and that's $120. Now it's $150. Now it's close to $200 sometimes. I know that some families, And for example, in California, my brother spends about $3 to $400 like a week on groceries. And now this is California. It's probably worse there than everything.

But you see that happening time and time again. Now, I have a small family. My wife and I just had a son. And so we're seeing the price of groceries increase slowly and slowly. A couple of years ago, I remember I used to spend about $100 a week on groceries. Now we're looking at $150, $200. You know, these are real numbers. And it just goes to show you that many Hispanic Americans understand that the polls and the economy that say the economy is great, they're just flat out lies.

And you see that every single time that you go to the grocery store. Gabriel, when you talk to some of these people who support your work, what type of solutions are they looking for when it comes to lowering the cost of living? You know, surprisingly, one of the things that we poll for at our America, was whether your issue was to decrease the cost of living by getting the government out of the economy. And a lot of people are seeing the connection between government involvement and the economy. And I think this really has to do with the fact that in 2020, the government, federal government, printed out millions or billions of dollars in stimulus checks. And people were able to finally see the direct connection when the government gets involved in the economy,

that all of a sudden everything started to increase. So I think that's really a point that we can always point to. When we look at the economy, if you get the government, more of the government involved, you will see higher prices. And it's actually something that's clicked with a lot of people. They see it, you know, at first when they got that check, I don't forget how much it was, like $1,200, whatever it was. It felt good, you know. I know I got one. A lot of people got one just because a lot of millions of people.

people got it. And it feels good at the time, but I remember thinking this is going to end up hurting us in the long term. And it did. As we see time and time again, now about four years ago since we had those checks, everything is just so much more expensive. Well, and it's also, I think, why when we see these billion dollar proposals being floated on the campaign trail, it's right for the American people to be suspicious. Because at the end of the day, somebody's going to have to pay for all of those government programs. Especially Kamala Harris. I mean, right now, she is struggling with Hispanic Americans, especially with black Americans. We saw President Barack Obama, you know, talk about the brothers who are not excited to go vote for Kamala Harris.

And she immediately started talking about giving, I believe, some stimulus money specifically to black entrepreneurs. First of all, that's kind of racist. You know, don't give money out to black entrepreneurs because they're black. Give people to, if you're going to get money, you have to give money to people who are hardworking and just, regardless. of their race. But second of all, is she's just trying to buy their boats very blatantly buy votes of black Americans. And it's just, it's a little gross to see that. But again, a lot of people understand that when you give money or the federal government gives money, it's just going to end up hurting everybody else in the long term.

Gabriel, shifting topics, I know one of the other issues that you work on is voter integrity. There's so much, obviously, at stake. And we've seen over the course of the last eight, maybe even longer years, a number of Americans who just simply don't have faith or confidence in our election system, depending whether you're a Republican or Democrat. I think that the same concerns exist. What are you hearing at the local level from people who are involved with our America? And what are some of the steps that you're trying to take to make sure that we can have trust and confidence in the election results? You know, when it comes to voter integrity, I think one of the best solutions that we can really look for is voter ID. It's surprising to me.

the fact that voter ID is such a controversial issue in America. Because virtually every single European nation has voter ID. In Latin America, they have voter ID. I know in Mexico you have the, la credential electoral, which is basically a, it's a voter ID. You know, that's what it is. You picture ID and all that. And surprisingly, in America, it seems that it's a divided. You would think that conservatives and Republicans want voter ID while Democrats say that

they don't want it. But when you look at the polls, you have 70 to 80% of people from both parties wanting voter ID. Yet it's become this hot button issue that becomes, if you call for voter ID, it is, you're somehow racers or something else. But when you look at what some of the states have done, say, for example, Ohio, I know that in Ohio, they implemented voter ID, and they also made it incredibly easy for you to get a license or to get a state ID so you can go vote. I think that really solves the problem. When you look at a voter voter ID, they're going to look at a voter ID, and they also made it ID, all you really have to do is enforce it, but also make it easy for people to get an ID. It's really as simple as that.

And by requiring border ID, which is basically the standard in most liberal democracies, you will have a lot of faith in the elections once again. Absolutely. And it's one of those issues that may seem like it's divisive between parties, but when you actually look at some of the polling numbers, it's overwhelmingly popular. So one of those winning issues. On that note of political division, what is your sense right now? I mean, are we hopelessly divided or are we a nation that you think will come together and ultimately prevail?

The vast majority of Americans believe in America. When you look at the polls, they love America and you have 80, 90 percent of Americans who say, I really do support America. And I mean, a couple of months ago, there was a poll released by, I believe, Chase, J.P. Morgan Chase. And it said that somewhere around 60 to 70% of Americans still, especially Gen Z and millennials, still believed in the American dream. The problem, though, is that you have the mainstream media who they thrive on division and toxic politics because they want more viewers to their sites. And when you look at the media and politicians, they drive on, they thrive on division. That's really what it gets them.

Unfortunately, we all know this. There's so many politicians who are narcissists. They just want all the attention to themselves. And how do you get that attention by creating outrage? By creating this outrage. But again, the vast majority of Americans aren't political talking heads. They want to be able to talk to their neighbors. They want to be part of their community.

They want to participate in these things that communities have to offer. So Americans are much more united than the mainstream media would like you to believe. Well, that's good and a good optimistic note to end on. Gabriel, tell us about the organization in terms of how people can take that next step and get involved or learn more about your work. Sure. People can check us out at join our America.org or they can follow us on Twitter again at join our America.org. Gabriel, thanks so much for being with the Daily Signal today. We'll make sure to leave a link in the show notes and our story.

And I encourage you to keep up the good work. I know you're going to be busy over the next few weeks. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the good thoughts. You bet. Gabriel, thanks again, and we'll be keeping tabs on the organization again. The website to join or learn more is join our America. And that'll do it for today's episode.

Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. Be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed. We help you cut through the clutter and bring you the top news at 5 p.m. each day. Also, please subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We appreciate your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Make it a great day or not. The choice is yours.

The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Louis and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.