Lagging support among Hispanic voters for Hillary Clinton and congressional candidates in crucial races has stoked deep concern that the party and the presidential campaign are doing too little to galvanize a key constituency.
While Clinton holds a significant lead over Trump in every poll of Hispanic voters, less clear is whether these voters will turn out in numbers that Democrats are counting on to win. Clinton trails President Obamas 2012 performance in several Latino-rich states including Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona. In those same states, where Democrats goal of retaking the Senate hinge, some down-ballot Democrats remain unknown to many Hispanic voters.
That reality has prompted a flurry of criticism of Clintons and the partys Hispanic strategies. Despite a uniquely favorable environment with Republican Donald Trumps repeated attacks on undocumented immigrants, Democrats are increasingly worried that the opportunity is slipping away to meet a longstanding party goal of marshaling the nations growing Hispanic population into a permanent electoral force. The concerns are compounded by Trumps recent surge in several battleground states.
Were not seeing the Democratic Party take advantage of this moment in time, really looking to leverage more engagement in a more strategic way with our community, said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza.
One top criticism is that Clinton waited until this month to launch a sustained campaign of traditional, Spanish-language ads in key markets. Previously, the campaigns Hispanic strategy centered on reaching millennial voters through new media such as Facebook and YouTube. Its television outreach was produced primarily in English and aimed at bilingual households. According to critics, Clinton missed a chance to deploy a broader effort to target the Hispanic electorate like the one that Obama pioneered four years ago.
This approach may end up being vindicated on Election Day, said Fernand Amandi, a veteran strategist who led Obamas research, messaging and paid media operation for the Hispanic vote in 2012. I just find it to be more risky than replicating what we know worked, which is the sustained approach that the Obama campaign put in place.
Clinton aides and her allies insist that they are facing a very different opponent than Obamas, along with new challenges posed by a Hispanic electorate that grows younger and less reliant on traditional modes of communication with each passing cycle.
The dispute goes to the heart of a debate among Hispanic operatives about how much emphasis should be placed on newer ways of reaching younger Hispanics, who like millennials overall are more resistant to backing Clinton than older Latinos.
A lot of it has evolved to include outreach that isnt obvious to people who are used to doing it old-school, said veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. The Clinton campaign and the DNC are very strategically focused on Latino millennials.
Much of the upset is also focused on down-ballot House and Senate races. Even Clinton has said that any hope that Democrats can retake majorities rests on Hispanic turnout. Yet neither the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee nor the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee employ Hispanic outreach coordinators, according to Albert Morales, who held that job until March for the Democratic National Committee.
The DSCC has never really had a robust or a Hispanic engagement effort that I ever coordinated with, and thats saying a lot being at the DNC under three different chairman, Morales said. I couldnt name one. If you were to ask me, name a Hispanic staffer whos been at the DSCC, I couldnt name it. Thats pretty sad.
As a result, critics say, the party is failing to capitalize on anger at Trump in a way that would help down ballot candidates.
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In contrast, Obamas first Spanish language ads in 2012 were focused on health care and education, including Head Start and Pell Grants, which provide aid to poor students who attend college.
Being part of the Bernie team for so long and seeing how the message of free college and raising the minimum wage resonated, I just dont see that out there now that Im working on these races where theres a lot of Latinos, Rocha said.
Obama also targeted the intricacies of the Latino community, according to Freddy Balsera, a Miami-based political consultant who crafted much of Obamas Spanish-language advertising campaign in 2008.
When we were talking to a Latino voter in Colorado, we were discussing issues that mattered to them there. We did the same thing in Florida and took it a step further by talking to South Florida Hispanics with an announcer who was more Cuban-sounding. It was a more Puerto Rican-sounding voice in Orlando, Balsera said. We really, really localized the message and understood theres not a Pan-Hispanic community. And as such, theres no universal pan-Hispanic messages.
Veterans of Obamas 2012 race said the campaign determined in early 2011 that they needed an aggressive strategy to turnout minority voters especially Hispanics in anticipation of a drop-off in support among white voters. It involved early, heavy advertising on Spanish language television, including one voiced in Spanish by Obama and others by Cristina Saralegui, who has been described as the Spanish Oprah. Those efforts were paired with targeted grassroots outreach and an aggressive field program.
Clinton aides said they began putting Latino organizers on the ground in May, both in Hispanic-rich battlegrounds and in other states with smaller but potentially pivotal Latino populations including Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and Nebraska.
The effort includes programs targeting various groups within the Hispanic community, including undocumented immigrant children, or DREAMers and their families, small business owners, and a program targeted at Latino faith leaders.
Soon, the campaign plans to bus Puerto Rican supporters from New York into Pennsylvania, where they will canvass in towns and neighborhoods full of Puerto Rican transplants including Bethlehem, Lancaster and North Philadelphia. Also under consideration is flying Puerto Ricans from the island to door-knock in Florida .
But the campaigns investment in the kind of targeted advertising that was pioneered in 2012 has been smaller and has come later. And the question of language has been a key spark in the debate.
Until recently, much of Clintons television advertising to Hispanic voters has been in English, a concerted decision aimed at reaching bilingual households.
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