Democrats hope to close a persistent gender gap with Latino voters in a campaign that leans on the power of Latinas to influence the men in their lives to vote for Democrats.
Mario Tama
Democrats know they have advantage with women this election — particularly when it comes to Latino voters. Now, they hope they can use the power of those Latina women to convince Latino men to support Democrats up and down the ballot.
Florida Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is banking on that turnout in her uphill race against Republican Sen. Rick Scott. For Mucarsel-Powell, unlocking women is key.
“Women will be telling their husbands, their sons, their brothers, listen, we know what we’re doing,” she told NPR. ”Support the women on the ticket, because we’re going to make it happen.”
The strategy was on display at an event at her campaign office ahead of the Taylor Swift concert earlier this month in Miami.
Swifties were there to multi-task: making friendship bracelets while listening Mucarsel-Powell make her pitch.
“Florida is in play!” Mucarsel-Powell, a former U.S. House member from Florida, told the mostly female crowd.
Mucarsel-Powell is the only Latina running for U.S. Senate this year. She is hoping her personal pitch, energized support for Vice President Harris and an abortion access ballot measure in Florida can all combine to deliver major gains in a race where she has been lagging behind Scott, a former governor and the current senator.
“Latina women seem to be resonating with the fact that it’s time for new leadership and that we have strong women on the ballot,” she said.
Like other Democrats, Mucarsel-Powell is doing well with women, and Latinas in particular, but she needs to close the gap. A similar dynamic is at play in races across the country including Nebraska, Arizona and Oregon.
Now, Latino Democrats are trying to tap into the momentum they see with Latina women to reach Latino men.
“They have some sway and an ability to talk to some of their household members,” said California Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, chair of the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, while campaigning for the group in Oregon last week.
A women-led PAC is driving the campaign
Overall, the U.S. electorate sees a growing gap between men and women this election cycle, and the Hispanic community is no exception.
Latino men are more likely to be conservative and Republican, while Latinas lean more liberal and Democratic.
California Rep. Linda Sanchez is the first woman to run the BOLD Pac in its 22-year history. The organization is home to the fundraising effort for Democrats' Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Catie Dull
Sanchez’s group, known as BOLD PAC, is a political action committee aimed at electing more Latino lawmakers. The group aims to close some of the divide by targeting Latino men through the Latinas in their lives through a new campaign known as “Latinas lead.”
Victoria McGroary, executive director of BOLD PAC, says while the majority of Latinos support Democrats, some polls show that support comes with a double-digit divide with Latinas ahead of Latino men. As some polls show a gap as high as 20 points, the group has pivoted in a new way.
“Latina women really do present a really unique opportunity to harness their power for the November elections,” said McGroary. Latino voters as a whole “are a key part of the Democratic coalition. They vote for Democrats in the midterms. They voted for Democrats 2 to 1 over Republicans. But they are, in fact, a community that we really do need to persuade and mobilize. It’s not a community we can take for granted.”
The gap persists across the country
In interviews with Democratic Latino congressional incumbents and challengers across the country, they agree with McGroary’s assessment. They told NPR that Latina voters are playing a huge factor in their districts and the Hispanic voting bloc will be crucial to closing tight margins across the country.
“Latinos are an essential electorate and we have to be able to get together and win,” said New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said from Capitol Hill.
In Omaha, Nebraska, Democrat Tony Vargas, who is challenging Republican Rep. Don Bacon for his swing district, says his campaign is focusing on Latinas as part of their strategy. It’s especially critical in districts that dictate winners along tight margins like Nebraska’s second congressional district.
“We’ve been talking to young Latina voters in their households that are getting the rest of their parents and everybody else in their household… to get out and vote,” Vargas told NPR from his home district.
Oregon Rep. Andrea Salinas, who is seeking a second term in another tight race, says understanding the dynamics between Hispanic men and women is key in campaigning. Her congressional district boasts the state’s largest share of Latinos.
“It is a critical, critical piece to winning this seat,” Salinas said.
Direct outreach and ads
Sanchez says BOLD PAC says Latinas can help reach the men in their lives, some of whom have become supporters of former President Donald Trump’s bid for re-election.
This Fall, BOLD PAC launched a more than $1 million dollar program to do that just that in Arizona, the group’s largest investment in such a program in their 23-year history.
And they’re also doing outreach in Florida and south Texas, where Democrats have lost Latino voters to the GOP.
“There has been a little bit of shift, but we think we can make that back up through targeted messaging,” Sanchez told NPR earlier this month from her BOLD PAC office in Washington.
The group says they’ll be able to share more about their expenditures for their new “Latinas lead” program after Election Day.
So far, some of the program’s money is being spent on Spanish and Spanglish ads calling into a familiar dynamic for a lot of Latino families illustrating women are in charge.
That includes a Spanglish ad for Ruben Gallego’s Senate run in Arizona that argues he knows “who powers Arizona: abuelas, madres, hermanas – las jefas,” which is Spanish for grandmothers, mothers and sisters — the bosses.
Eduardo Gamarra, a politics professor at Florida International University in Miami, says a lot of this newfound momentum has been fueled by Harris’ candidacy for president.
“I think that Kamala has had a very interesting down-ballot effect,” he said.
Gamarra, who surveys Latino voters, says the gender gap has been huge and persistent across states. In a July survey of nearly two dozen states, more Latinas supported Democrats and saw at least a 10-point gap when it came to making abortion access a top priority when compared to Latino men.
He said that gap could be wider now. And it’s playing out in Florida.
Gamarra says in the state’s U.S. Senate race, while Mucarsel-Powell faces “insurmountable odds” to defeating Scott, he’s betting she’ll come closer than any other Democratic candidate in the state’s more recent U.S. Senate races.
He credits her focus on abortion for a lot of those gains.
“That issue alone is probably the one that’s pushed her closer to Scott than the others,” he said.