Kamala Harris needs Latinos to win these swing states. They say she has more to do

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Latino voters in 2020 were part of the Democrats’ mainstay coalition that catapulted Joe Biden to the White House. But many say they have not heard this year from either major party’s presidential candidates.

Vice President Kamala Harris has a little more than seven weeks to turn the tide in her favor in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona following her abbreviated campaign for president, and to do so she'll need more Latino votes than she’s currently getting.

Pennsylvania has seen a fast-growing Latino population in the state, where white and blue collar workers are shrinking in key Democratic strongholds like the Lehigh Valley region, which is home to Allentown, the state's third largest city.

The same is true of Milwaukee in Wisconsin and Detroit in Michigan. Taken together, these small pockets of voters could be decisive in pushing Harris across the victory line.

“Latino voters, we crave engagement,” said Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, a strong Harris supporter who is Cuban American and was elected the city’s first Latino mayor in 2022.

“There's some amount of attention given to Latino voters but we always appreciate more,” Tuerk added. “When I talk to the campaign, I'm always pushing hard to say, ‘Hey, better Latino engagement. Better Latino engagement.’”

Yet, more than half of Latino voters nationwide (55%) said they haven’t been contacted by either Harris or former President Donald Trump, according to a recent UnidosUS poll. Harris' campaign has held fewer events focused on Latino voter outreach, even as it has blasted a $3 million investment into Spanish-language radio ads and started a WhatsApp channel.

“Especially within the Latino community, those voters on the margins can get often left out of traditional campaigns,” said Melissa Morales, president and founder of Somos PAC, a liberal Latino advocacy organization working to turn out first-time and disaffected Latino voters.

That happens, Morales said, either because “it’s too expensive or it's too hard to reach them.”

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In Pennsylvania, where there are roughly 600,000 Latino voters, 49% said they have not been contacted, according to UnidosUS.

What’s more, Latino voters say they want to see better outreach year-round, not just during the run-up to the election.

“My whole thing here is, how do you pick the people up that's been kicked so long? And how do you get the Latino voters? And how do you make us feel it?” said Jose Rivera, 53, a self-described independent of Puerto Rican heritage, who attended a Harris campaign watch party Tuesday in Allentown at the invitation of a friend.

“Instead of just coming around during the election. It’s like, don't knock on my door just because it's election season,” he said. “You should be knocking on my door to find out what they need.”

Harris lags with Hispanic voters

With roughly 50 days until the election, Harris’ campaign says it’s ramping up its outreach to Latino voters. To do so, it is beefing up its staff – adding four Hispanic consultants to the campaign on Friday – and fanning out top surrogates to key battleground states to drum up Latino support.

The campaign laid out its strategy Saturday morning, timed to the start of Hispanic Heritage Month.

It includes top surrogates stopping by Saturday night's fight between world champion boxer Canelo Alvarez and Edgar Berlanga and organizing around Mexican Independence Day – which is Sept. 16 – to host events at churches, celebration events and parades in cities like Phoenix and Raleigh, N.C. The campaign also is bolstering its presence at community and sporting events in the Blue Wall state of Michigan, including a canvass launch and a Hispanic Heritage tailgate at a Detroit Tigers game.

Harris is also slated to deliver remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual conference on Wednesday, where she will speak about her agenda to boost middle-class Latino families.

Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said Hispanic Heritage Month is an important moment for the campaign to leverage efforts to reach out to Latino voters “about the stakes of this election, how crucial their vote will be in deciding this race, and defeating Trump and his anti-Latino agenda.”

“Building on our historic efforts to break through and earn the support of Latino voters everywhere, this Hispanic Heritage Month will be a key part of our aggressive campaign efforts to make our case to voters about Vice President Harris, who has spent her entire career fighting for Latino families, and as president, will always focus on the issues that our community cares most deeply about,” Chávez Rodriguez said.

Ahead of the push, second gentleman Doug Emhoff addressed a Latino voter event hosted by his wife’s campaign last Saturday in Allentown. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spoke at an event on Monday in Woodbridge, Virginia – an area with a large Central American population in a state that Trump's team still insists will be competitive but is seen among the Democrats as no longer in play.

Chávez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of American labor leader César Chávez, led a virtual call with United Farm Workers over Labor Day weekend. Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta endorsed Harris in Phoenix, Arizona, in July.

Of the four total interviews the Democratic presidential candidate has given, one was with a Latino-focused radio station in Arizona.

By any metric, though, Harris is playing catch up.

President Joe Biden’s support among Latino voters had seen a steep drop off before he handed Harris the keys to the campaign.

Harris is running 10 points behind 2020 exit polls with Latino voters in a national New York Times/Siena poll. She was winning 55% of the Hispanic vote to Trump’s 41%. Four years ago, Biden won 65% of Hispanic voters to Trump’s 32%, according to CNN’s exit polling.

Trump has made steady gains with Hispanic voters, primarily among those without a college degree, a Pew Research study said.

Analysts have said Harris will need two-thirds of Latino voters to win.

Her biggest opportunity is with voters who have sat out previous election cycles.

Harris has room to grow on Biden’s margins with new Hispanic voters and those who did not cast a ballot in the last election: Hispanic adults made up 10% of the voting electorate, but accounted for 20% of nonvoting citizens in the last election, Pew said.

A separate Pew study found an estimated 36.2 million Hispanics are eligible to vote in 2024 compared with 32.3 million in 2020, an increase of nearly 4 million potential Hispanic voters nationwide.

The push to secure Latino votes

The Harris campaign is going on offense as Election Day gets closer.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán said she’s been to Allentown, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Minneapolis to campaign for Harris in the last several weeks. Harris’ campaign also wants her to visit Reno and Detroit.

Harris’ team has “very much increased the requests” for members of the Hispanic caucus “more so than than the Biden folks had,” Barragán, D-Calif., said.

“They keep asking the members, are you available this weekend? Can you go now? Can you go tomorrow?” she said.

The same day Harris hit the trail in Pennsylvania on Friday, her campaign launched a new ad to hit the airwaves: an endorsement from Puerto Rican Lehigh Valley host of La Mega Radio, Victor Martinez. The ad will air on TV and radio in Spanish in the Philadelphia, Allentown, and Reading media markets. That ad will also run digitally in Spanish and English.

Last month, the campaign launched their first Spanish ad — a $775,000 ad buy — that played in Spanish stations in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Overall, the campaign has released four ads targeting Latino voters since Harris became the Democratic candidate.

Harris also held a rally in Phoenix after announcing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate where the two dropped into a Mexican restaurant and met with the owners and some supporters.

Earlier this month, the campaign put on a press conference with local elected officials and small business owners in Reno that was intended to bring attention to Harris’ proposed $50,000 tax break for startups.

But the pressure on the Harris campaign is coming down to the wire.

In key battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign believes it can compete for Latino supporters by focusing on their economic anxieties. Trump also secured the endorsement of Puerto Rican reggaeton star Anuel AA – a move to appeal to young Latino men, who lean more conservative.

“I see the problem that we've been facing right now with the economy and everything, and I think he might do better work,” said Mario Peralta, an artist in Allentown who supports Trump. “The most important issue for me is the cost of life.”

The new ad by the Harris campaign is an effort to alleviate some of those concerns – saying that Harris will take on the companies that are causing high prices.

Trump has a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and hardline immigration policies as president. On the campaign trail, Trump has warned his base that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the nation and has promised a “mass deportation” of undocumented immigrants.

But Peralta, a 54-year-old Dominican immigrant who has lived in Allentown for 20 years, said Trump’s rhetoric does not concern him.

“There are borders, and there is law you have to respect,” Peralta said. “If you’re not respecting that, then you should be punished. If you want to come to this country, you should come through the right way.”

Lujan Grisham, one the highest ranking Latino officials in the country, said Harris is introducing herself to voters – highlighting her immigrant background – while also contrasting herself with Trump’s extreme rhetoric.

“You have to do both,” Lujan Grisham said, adding that Harris needs to make sure that Trump isn’t “defining” her, before adding: “People want to know people's personal stories. I want to know who you are. I'm interested in that.”

Still, Harris' last-minute campaign for the presidency is trying to find ways to make up ground with Latino voters.

“I hope they do,” Lujan Grisham said of zeroing in on Latinos in battleground states. “Campaigns wait too long to talk to Hispanic voters. I don’t know what it is, every candidate. I don't believe that they are ignoring this strategy.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Kamala Harris needs Latino voters to win the 2024 election