Latino voters in California are moving toward Republicans. Why it’s a good thing | Opinion

David Shepard’s great grandmother was born in México and his grandmother supported the Democratic Party until 2008. The 31-year-old Porterville farmer, a lifelong Republican, ran for a 2022 state Senate race and lost by 13 votes to the Democratic incumbent in one of the closest statewide elections in California history.

Jessica Millan Patterson was among five children born to devout Democrat parents, including her Mexican American father. In 2019, she was elected to lead the California Republican Party as its chair in a state where Democrats enjoy a statewide monopoly.

Henry R. Perea, whose father was a Mexican farmworker, recalls the “Viva Kennedy” enthusiasm of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign when Mexican Americans revered the Democrat so much that they placed his portrait alongside that of their beloved Virgen de Guadalupe. Perea – who served on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, Fresno City Council and the Fresno County Board of Education – remains a staunch Democrat, but has seen family members transition to the Republican brand.

Opinion

A glimpse of these three Latino leaders provides a snapshot of the slow but noticeable move Latino voters are making toward the Republican Party.

Some Democrats disregard the Latino move to the right, but it’s real and it’s a good thing for the largest ethnic group in California. It means that both parties can’t take Latinos for granted any longer.

The numbers are undeniable.

Jimmy Carter picked up 82% of the Latino vote in his successful 1976 campaign. By 1996,

Bill Clinton was reelected with 79% Donald Trump, despite his anti-Mexican rhetoric and vow of mass deportation, is approaching 40% support from Latinos, which could tilt the presidential race his way.

“I don’t think here in California that people in my community were thriving because of any policies that Democrats have put forward,” said Millan Patterson, whose mother switched to the GOP at the turn of the century, followed by her father in 2012. But, “the Democrats showed up while Republicans didn’t. I think showing up is a big part” of getting the Latino vote.

“Democrats are not persuading Latinos”

So, why are Latino voters more receptive to today’s Republican Party? And, have Democrats responded well enough to protect a growing Latino base that will account for 4.8 million voters in California on Election Day?

Political consultant Mike Madrid, in his book “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy,” lays out the case that Democrats have ignored the Latino voter.

“Democrats are simply not persuading Latinos to go with them,” he writes. “This should be an issue of house-on-fire urgency, but Democrats in the main don’t seem moved to respond to the defection of Latino voters.”

Perea said he has yet to receive a call from the Democratic Party to get him to spread the party’s message to Latinos.

“It’s an outreach issue for the Democrats,” said Perea, who has a family member in the Republican Party. “They’ve taken the Latino vote for granted. They just haven’t done the outreach they should be doing.”

A UnidosUS poll released on Oct. 24 appears to back Perea’s thinking. Asked if someone from the Democratic Party had reached out to them, 22% of Latino registered voters in California said yes. Fourteen percent said they had been contacted by the Republican Party.

Clarissa Martínez de Castro, of UnidosUS, said both parties have increased their outreach recently, “but very late in the game.” The “obscene amount” of funds raised by both parties for the presidential and U.S. Senate races, said Martínez, have not trickled down to engage with Latino voters.

“Sick and tired” of Democratic policies

Money alone doesn’t explain this shift.

Shepard believe Democrats’ embrace of cultural issues like gay rights has made Latinos more comfortable with the Republican brand. Millan Patterson thinks low education achievement, affordability and crime are issues that drive the Latino shift.

“I don’t think that my parents felt like they left the Democrat Party,” said Millan Patterson. “They felt the Democrat Party left them.”

When he met with Latino field laborers during his 2022 campaign, Shepard heard the workers express frustration with “the sexual liberation” of their children in school.

“The Latinos that are coming to the Republican Party right now is simply because they’re sick and tired of what’s coming out of the Democratic Party,” said Shepard, who speaks Spanish.

When Millan Patterson took over the state GOP, one of the first things she did was visit a Stanislaus County farm and chat with field laborers who were primarily Latino. That was a stark departure from May 1992 when then-President George H.W. Bush stopped at a Fresno County ranch for a campaign talk with a group of farmworkers sitting on bales of hay in the background. They never got a chance to ask a question or express their concerns.

“It’s one thing to show up to a farm and even register some voters, talk to people about the issues that have adversely affected my community,” said Millan Patterson in an interview with The Fresno Bee. “It’s very different to have a long, sustaining presence within those communities.”

Two years ago, Republicans opened Latino community engagement centers to help congressional candidates in Palmdale and Bakersfield and have since opened another in Merced. Millan Patterson said the centers are designed to engage the Latino community year-round, not just during election season.

She has also pushed the state GOP to support Grow Elect, a program to recruit, groom and fund Latino Republicans for public office. It successfully got the first Latino elected to the Tulare County Board of Supervisors in 2016.

That’s progress.

Latino shift is great news

Latino voters are concerned, according to the Unidos US poll, about inflation, jobs and the economy, housing, health care, and crime. Immigration and crime are tied as a No. 5 priority. In other words, the Latino voter has become a regular voter.

The evidence is out there in the open in the San Joaquín Valley, home to six of the state’s 11 Latino-majority counties and three Latino-majority congressional districts. Since 2002, there have been plenty of Latino candidates (at least a dozen, including a couple of Republicans) who have run unsuccessfully for Congress.

I’m not sure if Latino candidates have failed because of messaging, lack of Democratic support or both. But two decades of failing Latino candidates in Latino-majority districts don’t make for a slick campaign flyer.

This Latino shift to Republicans is great news. Both major parties need to address Latino concerns year-round, not just when an election rolls around.

Much like Republicans conducted an autopsy following Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential loss and outlined ways to attract the Latino vote, Democrats should do the same. Trump shredded the 97-page “Growth and Opportunity Project,” but it would be foolish for Dems to think their messaging is working.

Ignore at your own risk.