The Daily Signal - What Maya Flores Victory Shows About Hispanics and Conservatism

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Republican Mayra Flores made history on Tuesday, winning a South Texas congressional seat that had been occupied by Democrats for more than 100 years. The district, which is largely populated by Latinos on the southern border, went for President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. So how did Flores win? "I think this speaks to Ronald Reagan's message of Hispanics are Republican, they just don't know it yet," says Cesar Ybarra, vice president of policy at FreedomWorks. "Republicans have been doing a better job at explaining the Republican Party platform to Hispanic voters. This has been amplified just by the terrible job that President Biden and the congressional Democrats have been doing with the economy." Ybarra thinks that Flores victory is the beginning of a resurgent GOP making inroads with minority voters, but that it will take time. "Big changes don't happen in two years, in four years. We've got to look at the long game," he says. "And what happens in politics too often is we get so bogged down in winning the day and winning the week that we forget about where we want to be in 2025, where we want to be in 2030." Ybarra joins the show to discuss the increasing shift of Latino voters from the Democrat party to the GOP, and what this means for future elections.  We also cover these stories: In May, there were 222,000 border apprehensions outside of official ports of entry, a new record. The average 30-year mortgage rate rises to 5.78%, the highest level since 2008. A group of conservative leaders writes a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke about ongoing violence against crisis pregnancy centers and churches. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, June 17th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Doug Blair. Republican Myra Flores made history on Tuesday by winning a South Texas congressional seat that had been occupied by Democrats for more than 100 years. The district, which is populated by Latinos on the southern border, went definitively for Biden in the 2020 presidential election. So how did Flores win? Cesar Ibarra, Vice President of Policy at Freedom Works, joins the show to discuss the increasing shift of Latino voters from the Democrat

party to the GOP and what this means for future elections. But before we get to Doug's conversation, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Once again, apprehensions on the southern border are rising. In May, there were 220,000 border apprehensions outside of official ports of entry. According to CBS News, that's a new record for Border Patrol. Previously, 220,000 apprehensions had been the record set in March of 2000. Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy tweeted, our border is wide open and the Democrats in power are doing nothing to stop the crisis. Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf tweeted, Biden's border crisis is unsustainable.

The roughly 1 million illegal aliens allowed into the U.S. this fiscal year is the equivalent of the 10th largest U.S. city. This is burdening schools, hospitals, and all other taxpayer-funded resources. buying a home just got a lot more expensive. Following a decision by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to increase interest rates by 75 basis points in order to fight inflation, Fox Business reported the average 30-year mortgage rate rose to 5.78 percent, the highest level since 2008. 15-year mortgages rose to 4.81%. Market Watch reported that this rise in mortgage rates is affecting consumer behavior already. According to a recent survey of 900 realtors by real estate tech startup homelight,

almost 50% of homebuyers are choosing to wait around 6 to 12 months before entering the market again. A group of conservative leaders has written a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clark about the violence against crisis pregnancy centers and churches after the leak of the Dobbs draft, which suggested that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. The conservative leaders write, under 18 U.S. Code 247, it is the duty of the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute when necessary for substantial justice, those who do damage to religious property or participate in the obstruction of persons in the free exercise of religious beliefs. We appreciate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been assisting at least one affected religious organization on this matter, and we understand through media reports that the FBI is at least investigating the fire bombing in Madison. However, the severity of the situation calls for your leadership.

This continued assault on religious and pro-life groups because of their beliefs is a manifest injustice that requires prompt, comprehensive, and public response. We call on you to publicly condemn these unlawful attacks to commit two vigorous efforts to prevent them and to investigate and prosecute them and to proactively engage with the affected faith communities to ensure their concerns and security needs are being met. Signatories of the letter include Catholic vote President Brian Birch, Dr. Ben Carson, Susan B. Anthony, pro-life America president, Marjorie Dan & Felser, and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Heritage Action for America Executive Director Jessica Anderson also signed the letter. The Daily Signal, of course, is the news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. That's all for headlines. Now, stay tuned for my conversation with Cesar Ibarra as we discuss Myra Flores' victory in Southern Texas and what it means for Latinos and the GOP.

As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas. bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation,

my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you. And I want to ensure freedom for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show wherever you get your podcast. My guest today is Cesar Ibarra, Vice President of Policy at FreedomWorks. Cesar, welcome back to the show. Great to be back at the Heritage Foundation.

Of course. Well, we're always happy to have you. Let's talk about that election in South Texas. So Republican, Mara Flores, just won a massive victory in a South Texas district that hasn't elected a Republican in more than 100 years and that went for President Biden back in the 2020 election. So how did we get here? How did this shift happen? Yeah, I think, you know, this speaks to Ronald Reagan's message of Hispanics are Republican. They just don't know it yet. And I think since then, Republicans have been doing a better job at, at explaining the Republican Party platform to Hispanic voters. And this has been amplified just by the terrible job that President Biden and the congressional Democrats have been doing with the economy, right? We have high-rising inflation. The border is in a state of disaster. And if you look at a recent poll just came out and they poll people in Texas 34 district on what the biggest issues were for them, number one, the border.

Number two, inflation. Guess what? The Democrats did not have a plan to get that fixed, which is how, Meyer Flores was able to promote her message of what she was for, and she got across the finish line with 51%. I mean, we would have been happy if she would have gone to a runoff in August, but she crushed it and got that 51% and is going to be a U.S. Congresswoman next week. I mean, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. It's awesome. Well, let's talk about Flores herself.

Can you give us a profile on Flores? What's like? Is she a moderate? Is she pretty conservative? She's pretty conservative. I wouldn't say she's a moderate. She came to America when she was six years old through the legal way. You know, grew up in South Texas.

Her husband is a border patrol agent. So she has some skin in the game when it comes to how our border patrol agents are being treated by this administration. She has some skin in the game and living in a border town and a border community where her constituents are living the day-to-day, you know, flaws of the border insecurity that is being perpetuated by the Biden administration. So I wouldn't call her a moderate. I would say she's strong conservative. I mean, if you look at her yard signs, they said, Dios, family, familia, patria, God, family, country. Those three things are super conservative.

And again, I was talking to some of my friends today who were sending me stories about Myra Flores. And I said, this is exactly, when I tell you guys that Hispanics are conservative, this is exactly what we're talking about. We're talking about someone like Maida Flores, right? And she spread that message, and I think she speaks on behalf of all Hispanics.

when they talk about God family country. Given that there was such a radical shift, obviously this district, like we said, hadn't elected a Republican in over 100 years, and it still went for President Biden just two years ago. Is this something where we're seeing Latinos shift based on their own policy preferences changing, or is it based on the parties like the Democrats and the Republican changing? I would say it's more on policy. I would say it's more on policy because, again, right, when you start talking about inflation

and border insecurity, you talk about, well, what's costing this? It's policy. and it's policy that is being driven by Democrats and frankly by a squishy Republicans, right? I mean, we know that Hispanics identify more as conservative than as Republican or Democrat. So that's what I would say. They're starting to realize that their policy preferences are best aligned with Republican candidates. And that's something that is being demonstrated in the polls that we've done at Freedom Works through Hispanic Grassroots Alliance.

And it was definitely validated in Midas race. Now, you mentioned you've done some polling data about this. Are we seeing this race as a one-time, a one-off, or are we seeing this pattern emerge in other elections? Yeah, I mean, you know, we have Adam Lacksalt in Nevada. I mean, I've been seeing a lot of trending topics of him, you know, kind of doing well with Hispanic voters out in Nevada. Hopefully we can perform well in Arizona. You know, in the polling that we've done, it seems like Hispanics down in the Tucson area are not as strong as folks in Florida or in Texas or maybe Nevada. So there's still some work to do.

You know, this is not something for us to puff our chest and say we're there. I just think Maita Flores is a good case study of what happens when we do the right kind of messaging and campaign investing. So yeah, I think, but I just think that it's not going to happen in two years and four years. This is a 10 year, 20 year project where we have to continue to continue spreading our message and not get complacent. Well, let's look at that big picture.

You mentioned that this is a 10, 20 year project. What does that look like in the sort of aftermath of this election? How does this election impact that 10 to 20 year plan? Well, so for one, so let's just go back to Mita Flores a little bit. Now she's going to be running, so she won a D plus 4 district. Now she's going to be running in a new district in November, which is D plus 15. So, you know, with the national environment of how politics are, we still believe that there may be a shot for Mita Flores to pull off the big upset, right?

I think we just cannot get complacent. We need to double down and go harder than we did in this past race. But broadly speaking, I think, you know, we just got to, you know, it's going to take groups, local, national, regional to continue spreading this message, continue investing in not only polling, but outreach to the Hispanic community. If you look at what the R&C has been doing in setting up their local offices for communities in Hispanic districts and black districts and just every minority, demographic generally. And I don't want to, you know, I don't want our efforts to be solely focused on

Hispanics because when you look at, when you look at Middle Eastern folks, Muslims, when you look at, you know, people that come from African countries, when you look at Asian, people from Asian countries, they are also pretty conservative. So this is not only a Hispanic opportunity. This is an opportunity just to win with minorities across the board, which has been a demographic that has been, you know, where the Democrats have had a stronghold on, and now they're losing that. And, man, I don't know if you read a political story today, but, you know, Vicente Gonzalez, who's the incumbent running against Meyer Flores, was fuming at the Republican leadership for literally forgetting. Even the Democratic leadership.

The Democratic leader. Yeah, for forgetting about Texas 34, for forgetting about the quote-unquote brown people in South Texas. I mean, it's, it's, it's, now they're starting to notice that Republicans are in the up and up in a positive direction with Hispanics. So that's the type of lesson that we're learning from this election that the GOPs, start reaching out to these communities more. Are there any other lessons that they took from this? That our policy platform is resonating and that our policy is right. I think we just got to double down on it.

You know, we don't need to shy away. You know, we got to realize that these folks are conservative and we need a, we just, when you have trust and when you are a true believer, you have more conviction in how your message penetrates more with these communities. When you're not being wishy-washy and sort of talking like moderate still with like, well, I support this, but not. No, no, no, no, we don't need to go, but. We need to be firm in our beliefs, and the people will come because good policies, good politics,

and this is what happened with Myra Flores. It seems like in Meyer Flores' case, going hard on conservative principles does make sense. Is that a sort of across-the-board rule? Is there a, as the left will always say, sort of like these minority groups will vote as a monolith? Is that the case that we can sort of say, generally speaking, Latinos tend to vote for more conservative, unapologetically so candidates? I wouldn't say it's monolithic because, look at California. I mean, 40% Hispanic and they vote like, like, like, lives. It is what it is, right? But if you were to go out in those communities, you know, I don't have any data or evidence to show

this, but I would love for the movement to start investing in some polling out in California to see how they feel about these issues and start doing some in-depth studies, because you have to remember, California has produced two Republican presidents, Nixon and Reagan. Imagine if we can go back and do that. Definitely. You know, there's a wave there. A lot of people are fleeing California. People in California are upset about the homeless situation. They're upset about high gas prices, high grocery prices. And when I tell them, well, why are you complaining? This is the government you voted for.

You voted for taxes. You voted for all these things that Gavin Newsom is doing. Now you get to live with them. You can do something about it. You can vote Republican in the next election and see if there's a change. So, but yeah. So back to your question, it's not a monolithic vote. I think it's regional, but that's my point.

We have to start going community by community by community. because people down in Doral in Miami are going to be completely different than people out in San Diego, California, or in the San Fernando Valley by the Los Angeles area. So it's not a monolithic. We just got to go region by region. Now, something that you've mentioned previously is the impact that the Border Patrol had on this particular election. There was, obviously, Flores' husband works for the Border Patrol. You retweeted something from Christina Pasha, who does comms for Florida Governor Ronda Santis. She said, Myra Flores' husband is serving our country as a border patrol officer. Border Patrol is a major employer in South Texas.

Most U.S. Border Patrol agents are Hispanic. Democrats in the Biden administration have attacked these brave men and women relentlessly times up. Is there a consensus view amongst Latinos, or at least maybe in this particular region, that really doesn't square with how the corporate media and the left have portrayed the view of immigration amongst Latinos? Yeah. Yeah, you know, with Border Patrol agents, that's 100% right. You know, if you're a Border Town kid like I am, you know, you cross the border every day and it's always Hispanics.

It's always, you know, Asian folks kind of doing the visa checking and all of that. So, yeah, I mean, the Democrats have been demonizing border patrol agencies. You saw what happened when, you know, now they're going to be punishing the Border Patrol agents and horses who allegedly whipped people who were coming into the country illegally in the first place, right? So it's not good politics for AOC and the squad and the Democrats and the media, frankly, to start, you know, going after defunding ICE, defunding CBP, defunding Border Patrol. It's why you have Vicente Gonzalez fuming at the Democratic Party leadership for literally abandoning, abandoning the Border Patrol agents, right? And you know what's so funny?

If you look at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Twitter account, they have a hashtag that says, they always use a hashtag called NOSO are not forgotten speaking to the illegal immigrants. You know who they have forgotten about the legal immigrants? They've forgotten about the border patrol agents. They've forgotten about the interest of the Hispanic people, of Hispanic voters, of Americans who got them there in the first place. So Democrats are more concerned with people who are more concerned with Hispanics who are here illegally than with voters and taxpayers.

So we did discuss how there isn't a monolith. that sort of position amongst Latinos on these topics. But in this particular region, South Texas, how much does the border play into their calculus when they go to vote? I mean, the border is everything. And as I mentioned, the most recent polling down in that district shows that 38% believe or mostly believe that the border and immigration issues were at the top of mind, followed by inflation.

Now, inflation is crushing everyone. Now, when immigration and border security is above that, you know it's bad. And why is it bad? Because the caravans of people are literally being parked in the Rio Grande Valley, in their communities, in their districts. They're being released into their community. Any reasonable person is going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? It's not the people. It's just that we didn't sign up for this.

If we're going to leave in a peaceful community, we got to abide by the rule of law. We have rule. We have a government. We have rules. We have laws for a reason. So, yeah, I mean, the border and immigration issue really plays a big part for people down in South Texas. 100%. You mentioned that Vicente Gonzalez is really fuming at Democratic leadership for losing this election. How are they framing this loss? Are they framing it as that they screwed up or are they saying that it was the racist republic? How are they framing it? Well, what the Democratic Party leadership is saying is, well, you know, it's a D plus four. We knew with the national environment that we were going to lose anyway. So, you know, MyroFlorist can be a congresswoman for a couple months. We'll get it back in November. That's the attitude that they took.

That's how much they don't care about that district. And I was looking at some of the ads, the negative ads that the Pelosi Super PAC was running against Myr Flores and it was on J6. It's like, oh my gosh, like you're literally trying to convince people that Myra Flores is an insurrection, is that somehow had something to do with the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6th. And it's like, these people just don't get it. And part of me wants to go and tell my guys, like, it's not that hard. You don't have to be losing this heart.

But you know what? Their loss is our win and we just got to, like I said, continue spreading our message and be positive more than anything. Because, you know, in a more serious note, we have to tell Hispanics what we're for, not what the Democrats are for. Like we have to promote how good our policies are, not how bad their policies are. Again, this has to be a positive message because generally speaking, Hispanics nationally favored Democrat politicians, but they favor conservative policies. Let's focus on the positive. Speaking of messaging and things that seem to pop up a lot when we talk about this particular race, a lot of outlets have noted that Flores is a Mexican-born congresswoman. She's the first, I believe, Mexican-born congresswoman to enter Congress in American history.

How do we celebrate the fact that that is a first and that's a positive without falling into the identity politics trap that the left always does? I mean, it's good to acknowledge it, you know, and again, right, because the important thing to highlight here is Mexican immigrants are Democrat. No, right. That's why we have to make it a point because the only people that can be immigrants and in Congress have to be Democrats. That's not the case and Meyer Flores is breaking through that. So this is the exciting part. This is what we should be celebrating. It's that it doesn't matter whether you're Hispanic, whether you're Asian, whether you're black. You are a conservative first. Your vote matters more than who you are and where you came from. So we don't have to get too bog down on the identity politics. Let's win it. Let's celebrate it. Let's make it a point, as they say, to own the libs. But no, it's, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say we need to get bogged down in that. We celebrate it for a day and just make sure that when Meyer Flores gets into office, that groups like Freedom Works, like Heritage, go out and ensure that she votes the right way and is well educated on the policies because we know there are people in Congress who are going to try to sway her to potentially be a non-conservative

or against Heritage and Freedom Works values. So that this is when the real work begins to ensure that was she campaigned on. is turn into good votes. As one final question, we've seen, obviously, this victory in South Texas. We've seen, as you've discussed, that there are lots of different minority groups who are starting to shift over to the GOP. How does the GOP keep this momentum going? So, like I mentioned, the party's doing a good job at sort of putting this infrastructure

together in different inner cities. And that's what groups like Freedom Works is doing through a Hispanic grassroots alliance. We're going to the inner cities like San Antonio and in Arizona, down in Tucson. So we have to go to the unfriendly neighborhoods, as they say. You know, we've been talking to some, you know, local candidates who are running in, like, down in South Phoenix, overwhelmingly Hispanic Democratic strongholds, but they're conservative, but they're still going out there and they're spreading their message. They're knocking doors. They're probably going to lose. They're probably going to lose again in four years, but you're planning seeds.

And that's what we have to do. Again, you know, big changes don't happen in two years and four years. It's a long, you got to, we got to look at the long game. And that's what happens in politics too often is we get so bugged down in winning the day and winning the week that we forget about where we want to be in 2025, where we want to be in 2020, in 2020, 2030. A long time from now. A long time from now. But you get my point. Right, right.

You get my point. So, so yeah, let's plan the long term. We're doing good work now. Let's just continue doing what we're doing, investing, doing research. If something is going wrong, let's learn from it and pivot. You know, like, let's not, you know, let's just keep campaigning and keep, keep educating. Impossible to lose the battle, but to win the war. That's exactly right.

Okay. That was Cesar Ibarra, vice president of policy at Freedom Works. Cesar, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Doug. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. And please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple

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