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Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CNN) - US President Donald Trump returned to New Mexico on Monday for a campaign event in which he tried to woo Hispanic voters in a state he lost in 2016.
“Yesterday marked the beginning of the month of Hispanic heritage. Who is Hispanic? ”He said amid loud applause.
As he has done in many campaign events, Trump flaunted the employment and poverty figures of Hispanics in the United States.
(NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP / Getty Images)
“We have many Hispanics, many Hispanics. We love our Hispanics, ”Trump said later.
The crowd present at the Monday night event was diverse, with many supporters with “Latinos by Trump” posters distributed throughout the campaign, which encouraged attendees to send a text message with the word “GO” in Spanish to a designated number.
"Long live Trump," said a pastor after praying a little earlier, which caused a thunderous applause from the crowd.
However, Trump can face an uphill battle by courting the Hispanic vote: a CNN / SSRS survey last week showed that only 29% of Hispanics approve of the work he is doing as president, compared to two-thirds who They disapprove. Since his initial campaign speech in the summer of 2015, in which he criticized undocumented Hispanic immigrants entering the United States and promised to build a wall to keep them away, the president has often done the reduction of illegal crossings in the South border one of its key approaches.
Trump has made many political decisions during his tenure aimed at undocumented people who cross the southern border, who are overwhelmingly from Central and South America. Among them is the separation of undocumented families, which has already been detained, and restrictions for asylum seekers. Human rights groups have also criticized the conditions undocumented immigrants face in detention centers after being arrested for crossing the border illegally.
It was Trump's first trip to the "Land of Enchantment" as president, and evidence of his campaign's promise to try to fight for the state that voted decisively in favor of the Democrats in 2016.
The president began a three-day tour of the western United States with the event in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, a suburb of Albuquerque, Monday night. He would spend the night in the Albuquerque area, then, on Tuesday, he will travel to California for a series of fundraising events in Palo Alto and Beverly Hills. Trump will attend additional fundraisers in Los Angeles and San Diego on Wednesday, before returning to Washington.
Hillary Clinton won solidly the five electoral votes of New Mexico in 2016; she obtained 48.3% of the state votes for 40.0% of Trump. However, independent state voters cast their vote in favor of Trump with 42% by 37% for Clinton. Trump's campaign says he sees signs that the state could be contested in 2020.
"I think New Mexico is a state in which Trump's policies are really working," Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale told reporters at a conference call last week.
(PAUL RATJE / AFP / Getty Images)
Parscale said Trump's policies on China's trade and immigration, in particular, are resonating among Latino voters, who constitute a significant part of the New Mexico voters.
The president suggested Monday that border security was attractive to Hispanic voters.
When he started talking about building a border wall, Trump said, people suggested it would not be popular with Hispanic voters.
"People said, oh, Hispanics," he said.
But, Trump continued, Hispanic voters understand the crisis and the drugs that cross the border.
"You understand that while other people don't understand it," he told the crowd.
"We saw thousands of voters who did not vote for the president in 2016 show up for an event, register, stand in line," Parscale said, adding: "We saw thousands of Latinas and Latinos who had not voted for in 16, who did not They were only eager to vote for him this time, but they actually came to see him and demonstrate with him. when we started doing surveys there, we started to see a dramatic increase over our last 2016 survey. ”
Parscale said he showed these results to Trump “and agreed with me. "Let's go directly to Albuquerque, let's go to New Mexico."
Trump's campaign manager said they had received "one of the best answers" for the campaign registration starting last week.
Trump promised on Monday that he would be victorious in New Mexico in 2020.
"We will campaign for every vote and win the great state of New Mexico," he said.
Then he acknowledged: "It's been quite a while since a Republican won this state ... We really believe that we are going to turn this state into a Republican state."
The campaign and the Republican National Committee have installed a state director, Leslie White, in New Mexico, and announced Monday that the state minority leader of the House of Representatives, Jim Townsend, and former state representative Sharon Clahchischilliage will be honorary presidents of the state.
According to voter registration statistics from the New Mexico Secretary of State, 33% of voters in Sandoval County, where the rally took place, are registered Republicans as of August 2019. Forty-three percent are registered democrats.
Trump's last trip to New Mexico met with resistance: in May 2016, protesters lit fires, smashed a door and threw stones outside their event in Albuquerque. Inside the convention center, sporadic protesters interrupted Trump's demonstration.
On Monday, Trump was interrupted only once by a protester.
Hispanics in the United States
