Vice President Kamala Harris’ Telemundo Noticias interview, which aired Wednesday night, was what could be the presidential candidate’s final pitch to the country’s 36.2 million eligible Latino voters, many of whom will help determine the winner in swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Her campaign must continue to respect the diversity of the Latino electorate and understand that she has to give such voters something more than the message that Trump is too extreme.
That final pitch started with a clear truth when Harris told Julio Vaqueiro that “I think of the Latino community in terms of the extraordinary ambition, the aspirations, the dreams that exist in the community, understanding it is not a monolith, but that, not unlike any other community, there are dreams and hopes but not necessarily always access to opportunity. And a lot of my agenda is about creating opportunity for people to succeed.”
She’s right that Latinos are not a monolith, and as I’ve long argued, they never have been. For Harris to win the White House, her campaign must continue to respect the ideological and geographical diversity of the Latino electorate and understand that she has to give such voters something more than the message that Donald Trump is too extreme for the community. Many Latinos already know that Trump is extreme, and for many of them, that’s the appeal. The voters who can be persuaded by Harris want to know that she has a vision that includes them and their well-being.
It’s most likely that her realization that she needs to make her vision plain prompted her to call herself a “pragmatist capitalist” in the Telemundo interview. Trump, with his typical fearmongering, has claimed that Harris would bring more socialism to Americans, a message that’s tailor-made to scare Latino voters from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
But in the interview we saw Wednesday, Harris provided a hopeful economic business message that speaks directly to one of the country’s fastest-growing populations. According to data from the Small Business Administration, “Hispanics are the majority business owners of over 5 million firms, which employ nearly 3 million workers. According to the latest official data, Hispanic business owners represented 14.5% of business owners in 2022, a 13% increase from 2021.”
Harris has spent most of her truncated campaign emphasizing an “opportunity economy,” and her appearance Wednesday night on Telemundo was another example of her doing so. She told Vaqueiro, “I believe that we need a new generation of leadership in America that actively works with the private sector to build up the new industries of America, to build up small-business owners, to allow us to increase homeownership, to allow people and their families to build intergenerational wealth.”
Harris has made similar statements at other Latino-focused events, such as the Univision town hall two weeks ago, when she said, “I believe in the strength of the private sector to create jobs and to work with government to strengthen the economy. Part of my plan is to work with developers and builders to build 3 million more housing before the end of my first term.”
How is this message playing out with Latinos in swing states?
Two polls of Latino swing state voters released this week show mixed results but have some encouraging signs for Harris. It’s for this reason that the campaign’s last sprint to the finish line might be promising with Latino voters.
On Monday, the political advocacy group Voto Latino, which officially endorsed Harris in July after Joe Biden dropped out of the race, published the findings of a six-state poll of 2,000 likely Latino voters. The good news for Harris, according to the poll, is that 62% of respondents trust her more with the economy compared with the 37% who trust Trump more. In addition, Harris has a 35-percentage-point lead with Latinos ages 18-30, a 27-point lead with Latinos ages 30-39, a 40-point lead with non-college-educated Latinas and a 50-point lead with college-educated Latinas.
Two polls of Latino swing state voters released this week show mixed results but have some encouraging signs for Harris.
All that sounds positive for her campaign, but there’s other data that raises some concerns. With non-college-educated Latino men, she’s up only 10 points, and she’s up only 37 points with college-educated Latino men. If the idea of the Harris campaign is to expand the tent for victory, these margins are lower than they were for previous Democratic candidates. It might not be enough.
Harris made sure to say Wednesday night that she was aware of how her policies “would affect Latino men” and “what we need to do around building a strong economy that supports working people. Understanding that, for example, small-business people, small-business owners, don’t always have access to the capital.” It’s a position consistent with the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men plan her campaign revealed this month.
A chief concern is Nevada, where, at 59%, she is polling below the 61% of Latinos who voted for Biden in 2020. In a recent New York Times story about Nevada Latinos and their lack of faith in government, one Latino man said that when Trump was president, things were better for him because he “had more money in the bank.”
If that’s a common sentiment, then that’s obviously not good for Harris, but if it is indeed trending up again with more trust on the economy, Nevada is most likely still in play for her.
Equis Research this week released a poll of 1,298 registered Latinos across six swing states that also has mixed results for Harris. Her Nevada numbers showed just a 54%-40% advantage over Trump, which most likely wouldn’t be enough on Election Day. As Equis points out, Harris is a “few points shy of Biden’s 2020 support levels.”
Still, not all is bleak for the Harris campaign. The Equis Research poll noted that “for the first time, Harris has a slight advantage on being ‘better for the economy’ compared to Trump 49-46 (+4). In an August survey, Trump had a +3 edge on this issue. She has also improved her margin on being a ‘strong leader’ (+6) compared to Trump—an area in which Biden, as nominee, had lagged significantly.”
It’s no wonder that Harris did a prime-time Telemundo interview with less than two weeks until Election Day
It’s no wonder that Harris did a prime-time Telemundo interview with less than two weeks until Election Day. Earlier this month, she earned kudos for showing empathy toward the Latinos and Latinas who asked her questions during the Univision town hall in Las Vegas. These latest polls would suggest that she has improved her standing with Latinos.
Nonetheless, it isn’t translating to big enough gains with Latinos.
“The concern for Harris, obviously, is that her Hispanic support is far lower than Biden’s was, both in the 2020 polls and the final election results,” NBC News and MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki wrote Tuesday. “But much of Trump’s new Hispanic support comes from younger voters who have not participated at high levels in past elections. If these voters end up sitting on the sidelines in this election, Harris could end up faring much better with Hispanics than the polling now shows.”
That’s a possible scenario, but we won’t know how that turns out until after the election. For now, Harris is doing everything she can to meet Latinos where they are.
“My agenda around an opportunity economy will benefit all Americans,” she argued, “but I am also aware of the specific impact on the Latino community.” Her goal is to make sure that Latinos are aware, too.
