The NPR Politics Podcast - Both Parties Vie For Latino Voters To Boost Midterms Hopes

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

A new congressional district in Colorado that is forty percent could be the site of one of the country's closest House races in November. Democratic organizers in Colorado and across the country are worried their party may not to be able to win enough support with Latino voters after Republicans proved competitive with the crucial demographic in 2020.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and demographics and culture correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is the Lawler family in Xi'an, China, where our citywide 13 million person lockdown was just lifted after 32 days, and for our family, 24 COVID tests. This podcast was recorded at 2.09pm on Thursday the 27th of January. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. I hope they get out. They have fun. No kidding. You do all the things. Exactly. Go to bars, go to restaurants, lick doorknobs. I don't know what you do, but do it. I can't even find 24 tests. I know. How do they do that? Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.

And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. Danielle, you are just back from a reporting trip that you went to to Colorado. You went to this brand new congressional district north of Denver that is expected to bring a close race in November. And that's pretty rare in this polarized era. So tell us about this district. Sure. Yeah. So this was the eighth congressional district in Colorado. It stretches up, like you said, it's north of Denver, so it doesn't include Denver proper. It stretches from a bunch of northern suburbs, Commerce City and Thornton, up north about 45 minutes to an hour to a city called Greeley. So it's a pretty sweeping district. In the suburban area, it is, you know, suburban.

It is an area where there are a lot of developments. You can practically smell the new houses. I mean, everything is brand spanking new in some of these areas. And then you go past a bunch of refineries, a bunch of open, you know, fields, farms, and you go up to Greeley. And as in pretty much any other American district, the closer you get to the urban area, the more liberal and democratic it is. The further away you get, the more conservative it is. And aside from that, a few other notable things about this district. Of the eight districts in Colorado, it is the most Latino

district, which is one of the reasons I went to it. It's nearly 40 percent Latino voters. It's also just a lot of new families, not because it's a new district, but because it's just it's an area of very fast growth. People moving in, like I said, new houses. One other thing that sets this district apart is relatively low rates of active registered voters, which means potentially low altogether voting rates. So we're going to get into this, but there are potentially a lot of people up for grabs in this area. So that's a lot of information, but that's that's the kind of place we're talking about. All right. So what are the big issues there?

Is it like every other suburban rural district everywhere else in America? Are there unique issues? You know, what I gathered from it is local flavors of national issues, right? So, for example, cost of living. Like, you'll hear from a lot of Americans right now that, of course, we know inflation is quite high. And people will talk about gas prices and food prices. Yes, people there, candidates there mentioned those things. But one area that was a big deal was housing.

Like I've said, this area is very fast growing. Housing is trying to keep up with the amount of people who are coming in. So a lot of people told me, man, rent has gone way up. The price of a house has gone way up, which is true in plenty of other areas of America as well. One other thing is, you know, just the economy in general, of course, is a big deal to people. You know, one manifestation of this that I saw around there was there is a very prominent local supermarket chain. It's called King Soopers. And there are a lot of these in the district. And every single one of them had people striking out front. It was workers on strike saying, yeah, we and I stopped and talked to some. They said, yeah, we have jobs,

but we want better benefits. We want better pay. We want to be treated better, better scheduling. So it was about the economy, but about much more than just getting a paycheck. So, Danielle, I want to key in on one thing you said about this district, which is that it is very Latino. There are a lot of Latino voters. It is about 40 percent Latino. So in the traditional demographics or destiny mindset, you would say, oh, that's a Democratic district. But we also said that this is expected to be a very close race. Right. Yes. To sort of zoom out and give some perspective here, Democrats have been thinking about this a lot since 2020, because in 2016, Trump won, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center, he won just about three in 10

Latino voters. In 2020, it was four in 10 or just about four in 10, not quite. That's a big jump. It really is. Yes. And there had been a sense among especially some Democrats of why, because Trump in 2016, of course, said some really racist and xenophobic things, you know, against immigrants coming from Mexico. And so I think there was a sense among some Democrats of, well, how could that possibly be? So this is a thing that research firms, pollsters, etc., have been working on. Yeah, I think your story and your piece were a good reminder of who is the Latino voter

generally in the U.S. They're more democratic, they're younger, also they're less likely to vote, and they're faster growing than the U.S. population as a whole. And they're diverse, as you just mentioned. There may be different interests for the Latino living in South Texas versus the Latino in Florida, for example. There's no guarantee for Democrats that they will be the choice, the shoe-in for any Latino voter. For example, immigration is a very divisive issue. There are some Latinos that feel that the U.S., that President Biden has not done enough in terms of securing the border. At the same time, there was a big pitch this past year that Democrats were going to push through immigration reform. That fell flat on its face. And a lot of Democrats in Congress were worried that would be the case.

And they worried that with that, they're going to lose a lot of interest from more Latinos the coming midterms. Okay, so I do want to go back to this district that you visited. Yes. And you talked to Democratic organizers, you talked to candidates. How are they feeling about where this stands? I mean, they're feeling in this particular district that, you know, it's winnable, but it's going to take some elbow grease. And quite frankly, that's what Republicans think, too, because it is, like I said, it is a tight district. It is definitely a district where I get so tired of saying this and I'm a walking cliche, where it will be all about turnout, right? Where I know who would have thought this is a new district and it is a newly competitive area, right? A lot of these people currently are in a district that is represented by Republican Ken Buck. It has been a relatively safe

Republican area. I think it's pretty fair to say. Right. So now one idea that one Democrat told me about, his name is Sonny Subia. He volunteers with LULAC, which is a nonpartisan group, but he's quite open that he is rooting for the Democrats. He told me that, you know, a big deal is going to be just telling lots of people who don't necessarily care about voting, hey, your vote really matters this time because this is going to be so close, even if you don't think it's mattered in the past. This congressional district is the largest Latino population of any district in the state. And it's a toss-up.

How is that? It just doesn't make sense. That gets back to that sense that I was talking about among some Democrats, which is that, hey, Latinos have tended to vote Democratic in the past. We should be able to keep them on our side or at least a majority of them on our side. What if we can't? And he definitely had that anxiety. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, a bit more about what this means for national politics. And we're back. And Danielle, let's burrow in on how the parties are going to make their pitch in this district. What is their

message to these voters? So I think there's two things to get at here. One is content and one is strategy. So as far as content, and a lot of what I'm going to say here applies not just to this district, but to any number of other districts in the country. What strategists, what people, candidates, whoever from both the Democratic and Republican side told me was that winning over Latino voters and a lot of other voters is about winning non-college voters. There's a lot of overlap between any given groups. And it is true that there are a lot of Latinos without a four-year college degree. Now, we have talked about on this podcast also Democratic anxiety about losing those voters. And there are a lot of them in this district. So one big thing that candidates are working on in this

district on both sides is making sure that they are speaking to so-called working class voters needs. One more thing I would get at here is strategy. And this is a thing that we can talk about in the context of 2020, is not just do you have the right message, but are you talking to the right voters? One thing that some people gave the Trump campaign a fair amount of credit for is for really working on winning voters in areas like South Texas and in Florida, where he ended up doing relatively well among Latinos, is not just putting out Spanish language ads, but just saying, you know, I'm going to consider these voters gettable. I'm going to give them a lot of attention. Yeah, I think that's one issue

when you talk to Latino voters about, am I getting enough attention? And that was one complaint I've heard in the past is when we've had issues such as immigration fall flat in Congress, other issues trying to reach that vote or fail, that's the concern is they're not focusing on me. But here, I look over here at the Republicans and look at all this attention they're giving me. It's a priority. We hear it from the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, about the focus on Latinos, about the time they spend, for example, going down to the Texas border, emphasizing security, immigration issues, what have you. And so I think that's really spot on in terms of giving them that attention. They

think they can get that vote that way. One thing to be watching for then in 2022 is that there are a lot of states, I mean, there are going to be plenty of places beyond the 8th District in Colorado where you have large Latino populations and that are toss-up areas. So I talked to Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, about what we should watch for in 2022. And he said that this Colorado 8th is emblematic of a lot of other areas. This 8th seems like such a different race, but it actually represents where all the growth has really been in every city around America, where you have this booming Latino population outside of Charlotte, Philly, Atlanta, and you can just go on down the line.

So when we say suburban voters, what we are in part talking about, according to Rocha, is increasingly Latino voters in fast growing areas once again. And aside from that, a lot of states that have what are expected to be pretty close Senate races this year are states with either an already large Latino population or a fast-growing Latino population. We're talking, you know, Pennsylvania is one that comes to mind. I mean, there's a whole bunch of them. Arizona, Georgia, you name them, the big ones. Exactly. Claudia, what are you watching for? Well, I'll let you close out the pod. What are you watching for in 2022 in terms of the Latino vote and areas of the country races that are standing out to you. So one of the places you mentioned, Arizona, that's going to be a place I'm going to be watching closely because of the Latino voters there. Of course, Mark Kelly is the senator that

is up for reelection coming up in this next term. And so that will be a very tricky race for him. Meanwhile, South Texas, again, is a very key area I'm very interested in. Of course, they, like many other states, have gone through a redistricting. So there's going to be a shuffling there. So those are some of the areas I'm going to be watching closely to see, you know, how they shift dynamics for Democrats and if their fears are realized in terms of not delivering on immigration and other issues, giving these Latino voters the attention they're seeking. Right. We are going to leave it there for now. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover demographics and culture. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.