The NPR Politics Podcast - To Build Support Among Voters Of Color, Republicans Open Dozens Of Community Centers

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Voters of color still overwhelmingly support Democrats, but Republican in-roads at the margins can have a big impact in states like Georgia, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania. What is the Republican message? And how does it square with the racist rhetoric from many of the party's most prominent figures, like Donald Trump?This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, politics reporter Ashley Lopez, and Georgia Public Broadcasting reporter Stephen Fowler.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Addie Grace Cook in Columbia, South Carolina, where I just finished packing up the car for my first semester in college. Today's episode was recorded at 1.08 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, August 30th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will still be studying journalism and politics in hopes of one day being on the politics pod myself. Here's the show. That was my degree major. I was a journalism and policy grad. Good choices. Oh, me too. Look at us. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And we are joined by one of our regular friends, the superb political reporter with Georgia Public Broadcasting, Stephen Fowler.

He's on the line with us from Atlanta. Hey there, Stephen. Hey there. And today on the show, we are going to talk about Republican minority outreach. Republicans have invested millions of dollars into these community outreach centers to appeal to minorities in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The goal is to create a sustained political apparatus. And Stephen, you in fact visited one of these centers. So just help us understand, what are they supposed to do?

So over the summer, I was in Gwinnett County. It's just northeast of Atlanta. It's the second largest county in Georgia. It's one of the most diverse counties in the country. And I was in this little packed strip mall in a city called Suwannee, where dozens and dozens of people crowded in to open the Republican National Committee's Hispanic Community Outreach Center. And we heard from lots of different local Latino officials and people like Ray Martinez,

who is a state house candidate. I'm just as honored to be here today to open up the Republican National Committee Hispanic Community Center. This is not us saying we expect your vote. You owe us your vote. This is us saying we want to earn your vote. We want to learn how we can better represent your community, how we can be here long term. That's RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. She was there to say that this is a real investment that the Republican Party is making in communities like Suwannee and other places to grow their vote

and grow their base beyond white working class voters. You know, it feels like we've been hearing this Republican rhetoric about reaching out to minorities for, gosh, like the past decade at this point. I recall after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, there was this so-called autopsy that the Republican National Committee held to better understand why it hasn't been doing as well with minority voters and what it ought to do to improve its standing. Yeah, and these are intended to be year-round community spaces. They're staffed by local conservatives of color and not, you know, D.C. consultants coming down for a month at a time. They have programming and events like a Juneteenth cookout

at a black community center just south of Atlanta and food drives and different things like that. They're meant to be part of the community that they serve. And the reason these places are picked, there's 36 of them around the country in places like Pennsylvania, Texas. There's a Native American community center and a Native American community in North Carolina. They opened a Jewish outreach center in Boca Raton, Florida. And in Philadelphia, where Donald Trump improved on his margins from 2016 to 2020 with black voters, there's a black voter outreach center and a majority black neighborhood in

Northwest Philly. So they're picking these areas where there's growing diversity and growing diversity of thought as a place to really spread their message and be there year round and show that it's not just a last minute 11th hour campaign stunt. So, Ashley, it seems like the Republican Party's evolution is happening on two tracks, right? I mean, you do hear certain candidates, I think back to even the former President Donald Trump himself, speak with this anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican rhetoric. But then you also have this concrete plan that Stephen is describing. How do you reconcile those two things? I mean, it's kind of like confusing to hear, right? Like on the one

hand, some Republicans are using rhetoric that you would think would really hurt them with these communities. And I mean, in some cases there is damage, right? I've heard some Republicans here in Texas tell me that they think they actually could be doing better with these groups if it wasn't for some of the things we've been hearing Trump and the far right and like outright white supremacist factions of the party say. But on the other hand, Republicans have been making investments and showing up in places where Democrats have sort of taken voters for granted. I mean, half of politics is just showing up. Right. In South Texas, Latino voters were very reliable for Democrats for over a decade. But things change and Republicans in that area have been speaking directly to voters on the issues they care about.

You know, larger issues related to race and the future of this democracy are not always motivating political issues for some voters, particularly the Latino voters that Republicans do well with here in Texas, which are mostly Tejanos, people whose families have been here for generations. You know, not all Latinos are recent immigrants in Texas, and they tend to be more interested in other issues. And I think that's what Republicans have been talking about. So what is the political message that Republicans have for different minority communities? Because, you know, no doubt part of the strategy is showing up, but the other part of the strategy is what you're telling voters when you do show up. Right. So like the economy is obviously the biggest issue that Republicans are talking to these communities about. Republicans are currently doing way better in polling on issues like tackling inflation and growing the economy, small business issues compared to Democrats.

And those are definitely, of course, some of the big issues on voters' minds heading into elections this fall. Republicans have also found some inroads on issues related to like family values and more socially conservative views. These issues tend to play pretty well in some of these communities. And then there's more like regionally specific stuff. Like Republicans talk a lot about border security

when they're talking to Latinos in South Texas. And this appeals specifically to border communities. And here in Georgia, we're especially seeing that economic message resonate with conservative voters and voters of color because Georgia was one of the first states to reopen in the pandemic. Georgia has record low unemployment. Georgia has record economic growth and a state budget surplus. And so Republican leadership in Georgia is telling these voters, look, the reason you have this money in your bank account and these great jobs is because of Republican policies.

And if you vote for us, you'll continue to have that. And for a lot of people in the state, that's something that tends to resonate more than some of these other more abstract nationalized issues that don't affect people directly in their day-to-day lives. You know, Stephen, the outreach efforts that you've been describing, that Republicans have been trying to make, is there evidence that they are working? You know, this Juneteenth cookout or the Hispanic Community Outreach Center. Are people showing up? Is it actually translating to votes for Republicans? Absolutely. And Asma, it's important to note that this isn't necessarily a new thing that the RNC is doing.

Go back to the 2020 campaign and you'll see that former President Trump had Black Voices for Trump coalitions and Latino Voices for Trump coalitions that had these physical spaces that they launched before the election. Actually, here in Atlanta was where he gave a major speech about Black empowerment and launched the Black Voices coalition. And he did make gains with black voters and Latino voters specifically in the 2020 election. And now that that's done, the RNC has then picked up that mantle and invested the money and the resources in opening these centers across the country. And in the primary this year, we did see evidence that it

was working. A data point that the RNC sent over from Georgia said that there was double the number of Black voters that participated in the Republican primary in this year, as opposed to the 2018 midterms. And you're seeing more and more candidates of color getting elected on the Republican side. The biggest example here in Georgia is Herschel Walker. He's a former University of Georgia football star endorsed by President Donald Trump and really ran away with it in the primary. And now we've got, for the first time in Georgia, a black Democratic Senate candidate running against a black Republican Senate candidate. You know, I do want to be clear and not leave listeners with

the wrong impression, because even if we're talking about Republicans increasing the turnout amongst voters of color in the Republican primary, we're still looking at an electorate in which a majority of voters of color vote for Democratic candidates. That being said, I mean, I do think it's important to point out that margins in most elections can really make a big difference. And there's a sense of frustration amongst some Democrats that they don't feel like the Democratic Party has substantially been courting and persuading them to vote for Democrats. Absolutely. Over the weekend, I was at Georgia's state Democratic Party convention, and I talked to Nabila Islam. She is a Georgia state Senate candidate and a longtime grassroots activist. She's of Bangladeshi descent. And two of these RNC community centers are in her district. And she said that,

you know, Democrats need to step up their game. And we must invest in our communities by doing ethnic media outreach, by reaching out to black voters, Latino voters and AAPI voters and meeting them where they are. And so you have to always compete in order to win, and we can't take anyone for granted. And on the flip side of that, I also talked to John King. He's Georgia's Republican Insurance Commissioner. He's a Republican and the first Latino statewide officer in the state's history. It's incredibly important because not only are we creating a bridge for the Latino voice to be heard at the highest levels of our state, but also for established communities.

So yes, the margins aren't necessarily going to be earth-shattering. But in a place like Georgia and other states where every vote counts, this type of outreach could have massive implications for the next several years of elections. All right, let's take a quick break, and we'll be back in a moment. Ian, we're back. And actually, I want to talk about the future, specifically there in the state where you live, Texas, because Latinos do not yet decide elections in Texas, but they are certainly close to becoming the biggest population group in the state. So help us understand how this Republican outreach specifically affects Texas. So, I mean, already there are more people of color here than white people. And in the last decade,

about 95 percent of the population growth in Texas was among communities of color. And it was mostly among these Latino communities that Republicans are doing better in. And a lot of the reasons why Latino political power is kind of undersized right now, considering the raw power of like the raw numbers, I would say is because of how young these communities are. There's just like not a lot of folks of voting age, but that won't always be the case, right? I've seen it estimated an average of about 200,000 Latinos already living in Texas will turn 18 every year, and about 95% of them are U.S. citizens. So making inroads right now is investing in a population that could be very instrumental to winning elections in the future. And I mean, we don't even have to look that far

back. Like in 2020, Republicans were able to keep a lot of the power in Texas because even though they were seeing losses in suburban and voters in different states based on, you know, their different backgrounds. It's not a really one size fits all people of color conversation. And it feels like that conversation is different and distinct because there's a recognition that not all people of color have the same interests and concerns. And for some of them, race and culture are not necessarily their top voting priorities. Obviously, in the South in particular, there is a long history with black voters and the feelings towards their right to vote and how Republicans and people in power have kept that right away from them. But there are also some black voters in Georgia and other places where issues like the economy is top of mind to

them, and they don't necessarily view the politics of state and local office holders through a racialized lens in the same way as some of the other voters. And so it's never going to be the case that you're going to have a certain identity group vote 100% with a Democrat or 100% with a Republican 100% of the times. And what we're seeing with these community centers and with other outreach and with special elections and things

is that the Republican Party has gotten better at really crafting candidates and crafting messages that fit the communities that they're in instead of this nationalized one-size-fits-all politics that we often are seeing in other races. I mean, a lot of times, like, how race plays out in politics is very individual. Not everyone relates to conversations about race the same way. Like, you know, I grew up in Florida where, you know, a lot of Latino voters don't even see themselves as communities of color. They see themselves as white voters. And that gets really complicated when you're talking about reaching out to communities of color because like they don't see themselves as that. So, I mean, a lot of this depends on like how important race is to a person

when there are issues like, you know, we were talking about pocketbook issues like the economy and also just where they see themselves, you know, when we talk about race in the different buckets that, you know, we've kind of created for like where people lie because it's not always concrete. Like people don't discreetly see themselves in one category or the other. And when you're thinking about political strategy, like offering people options is just going to be more helpful because, I mean, that's the It is important to note that in the last presidential election in 2020, Joe Biden won a majority of Black voters, won a majority of Asian American voters, won a majority of Latino voters. So, you know, it isn't as if Republicans have been winning large numbers of different demographic groups. It's more that they're trying to potentially keep those Democratic victories slightly smaller, I guess.

And so, you know, it doesn't seem like Republicans have these grand ambitions that they're going to suddenly start winning different demographics. But it's about making sure that Democrats don't have this all-out blowout. It's about keeping the margins low in key states, say like Florida or Georgia or Pennsylvania, that are obviously important in presidential elections, but also could possibly tip the balance of the Senate this November. I mean, look no further than here in Georgia, Asma. Whether or not Senator Raphael Warnock wins re-election this November in Georgia, there's almost a 100% chance that there will be a black

senator representing the state. The question is, will it be potentially a 50th seat for Democrats or a 50th seat for Republicans? And to achieve that victory in Georgia, you don't need to win, you know, 30% of black voters in the state to be a competitive Republican, maybe just 10 or 11 instead of eight. And we're talking about the long-term goals as well. These RNC community centers are not going to close up shop on November 9th, the day after the election, this midterms. These are year-round investments in communities, and they're playing the long game. I mean, when I talked to an RNC spokesperson, he said that this is only the beginning of their outreach, and they're looking ahead to 2024 and beyond.

Because you're right, maybe they won't necessarily flip seats this year, but in year two, three, four of having these centers open, it could be a different conversation with some of these communities in some of these key states. I've heard a lot of people make the case that Democrats have left themselves open to losing some ground in these communities. By and large, the Democratic Party in the past two election cycles has been fixated on shoring up its losses with white working class voters and suburban voters. You know, and this strategy to winning has worked, right? I think their calculus has been good in some cases because, look,

they have all the powers, levers of power in Washington right now. There is no question that Democrats have left themselves open to losing some ground in these communities.

And, you know, these are communities that they have been banking on for a long time now. And the question is whether they should continue to. All right, let's leave it there for today.

Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting. Thank you, as always. Always a pleasure. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And thank you all for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.