The Latino vote: A key midterm factor

Latino voters expected to play a pivotal role this midterm. A new report from Voto Latino finds financial pressures, including the rising cost of everyday expenses, are weighing heavily on Latino families. It also suggests concerns over immigration enforcement could motivate some voters who stayed home in 2024 to head to the polls this year. Now this morning, the Justice Department announced plans to deploy around 1000 election monitors and observers across all 50 states in California. The additional Federal monitors will be deployed to Alameda, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties, according to a DOJ release. Can today's move by the DOJ impact Latino voters? I'm joined now by Hector Sanchez Barba, president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota. Thanks for joining us, Hector. Thank you for the invitation. We're here in South Texas mobilizing the Latino vote. Yeah, so you're doing rallies right now in Texas, getting people out to vote. Can you tell us a little bit about how that's going? A lot of excitement over here is we're seeing the highest turnout since the last two elections. There is a lot of energy in the community. The community is raising its voice, is saying enough of all the attacks against us, enough of all the anti-immigrant sentiment, enough of all the hate crimes, enough of the economic situation and enough of ICE. And we're seeing record numbers of Latinos coming out to vote. With that said though, what do you make of the DOJ election monitors that are gonna be deployed across all 50 states? Is that a concern to you at all? It's a continuation of Trump's attacks to intimidate the Latino vote. They tried to put eyes at the polls. Now with this situation, we're gonna continue monitoring. We have teams all over the nation in 10 states. And we just need to give Latinos fair access to democracy. There is no place for intimidation in democracy. And we have a couple of lawsuits in this In this situation, we have a Supreme Court case, RNC versus Mi Familia Vota. They just continue trying to focus on an issue that doesn't exist. Non-citizen voting is almost non-existent, but they're trying to create intimidation all over the nation with this situation, and we are not going to allow that. So, but do you suspect though, because you're out rallying today that the recent immigration raids and ICE actions are depressing voter turnout in the Latino communities because they fear what might happen? ICE has been devastating and terrorizing our community. Children are not going to school. People are asking neighbors to buy groceries. It's getting really, really hard for our community with what ICE has been doing. But we have been communicating. We have been providing information to our community to make sure that people come out to vote. Of course, there is concerns about seeing ICE terrorizing our communities. But Latinos are raising their voices. We have seen people coming out to vote in record numbers. Young people, five new, a million Latino, young Latinos coming out to vote this election. So there is a lot of energy and I think people are saying enough is enough of all these attacks against our community and we're gonna change the present and the future of this nation by coming out to vote in historical numbers. Hector, polling shows a significant swing in Hispanic voters trusting Democrats over Republicans on immigration compared to 2024. Well, how much of that shift reflects, you know, enthusiasm for Democratic proposals versus direct backlash against enforcement tactics, though? It's a combination. I think our community is extremely tired of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement coming after our community. In the last two years, hate crimes against Latinos increased 250%. Our community is really tired. We just wanna live. We just wanna be able to work. And it's also the economic element. Latinos have been mostly affected by all the attacks on the economy and immigration is directly correlated to that. So I think it's a It's a call to arms, but it's also a strategic approach for Democrats to invest in our community, to organize, to mobilize. And we have seen more alignment with Democrats when it comes to immigration and all the policy issues that we care about. As you're out there right now rallying people to vote, what is your strategy, your messaging to those Hispanic voters to get them out there to the polls today? What are you telling them, the reason that they should get out and vote? We know we have the largest field infrastructure in the Latino community, and we know that when we go to the doors and we talk to Latinos, Latinos turn out to vote in higher numbers. And also, we are providing a lot of information about the policy issues that we care about and what candidates are more aligned with our policy issues. But there is a lot of need for information at this moment for everything that is coming up. So we also created the most innovative technology tool called Nuvi. AskNuby.com, that is providing guidance and information, nonpartisan, for everybody to get access to democracy. What about, though, at the polls? Is there anything that Mi Familia Vota is doing right now on the ground to ensure voters feel safe when they're casting their ballot? Yeah, we're collaborating with a number of organizations with the Vamos a Votar Coalition, some of the most important Latino organizations on border protection. There are border lines that are also working 24-7. And we're watching, we're watching really closely. We are reporting what we see. And we're just going to make sure that we protect the access to both for our Latino community and for everybody. A good democracy is a democracy that provides better and easier access for everybody. And that's what Donald Trump and Republicans are trying to do with to exclude us from the democratic process. And we are not going to allow that. All right. As we are viewers here looking live there just a moment ago down in L.A., we're voting inside one of the voting centers down in L.A. Hector Sanchez, Barbara president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota. Thank you for joining us this morning and providing your insight into what you're doing on the ground there in Texas. We appreciate it.