Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., met with top Latino political operatives across the country just two weeks after President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election to discuss and break down where Democrats went wrong with Hispanic voters and how to fix it, reports Newsweek.
As a result, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) dedicated resources earlier than in previous campaign cycles to the upcoming elections, by "enhancing our data and analytics programs to ensure Democrats are engaging with Latino voters early, more effectively, and in a culturally competent way," according to a DSCC aide who spoke with the news outlet.
One of its initiatives, the "Defend the Majority Program," focused on on-the-ground campaigning in nine Senate battleground states, including an April roundtable with Latina small business owners in Arizona.
"They just don't hear from us has been part of the problem in the past," a DCCC aide told Newsweek. "The biggest thing is we really can't just count on the Latino vote, we have to court it, that's how we're approaching it."
Nationwide, Latinos cast 16.6 million votes in 2020, an increase of 30.9% over the 2016 presidential election, according to UCLA's Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, and supported Biden over Trump by a margin of at least 2 to 1. Only in Florida did Latino voters pick Trump, 2 to 1.
In Miami-Dade County, typically a deep-blue haven, Trump got support from most Latino voters. A May 2021 report by the Democrat data firm Catalist, though, found an 8-point swing nationally among Latinos toward Trump, so the party got to work on figuring out why and what to do about it.
Schumer's meeting included his chief of staff, Mike Lynch; former Bernie Sanders senior adviser Chuck Rocha; Jose Parra, former senior advisor to the late Nevada Sen. Harry Reid; Barack Obama's former Hispanic vote pollster Fernand Amandi; Alicia Sisneros, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) consultant who runs a direct mail and field strategy firm; James Aldrete, an Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign veteran specializing in Hispanic media strategy; and Cristina Antelo, a lobbyist with close ties to Latino groups and Hispanic elected officials, according to Newsweek.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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