WASHINGTON.— Latino voters left important lessons in this election cycle, tipping the balance in key states such as
Arizona, Florida, Texas and Wisconsin
, and breaking a record number at the polls, several experts said Wednesday.
Although the contest
remains unfinished
in some states, particularly due to the counting of votes cast in advance, Hispanics made a difference in a handful of key states, explained analysts consulted by Noticias Telemundo.
[Follow our electoral coverage]
The National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) had estimated that this year, 14.6 million Latinos would go to the polls, out of the 32 million eligible to vote.
Asked about it by Noticias Telemundo, a spokesman for NALEO, Kevin Pérez Allen, said that the organization will wait for the counting of votes to finish to present an official report, but they
believe that the figure will exceed its previous estimate
.
Without an official result, Biden has already made history with the highest support of the popular vote,
with a total of over 71.6 million,
up from the 69.5 million obtained by Barack Obama in 2008. That figure brings Biden 50.5% of the popular vote, in contrast to the 48% led by Trump, according to provisional data from Noticias Telemundo.
If something was clear in these elections, it is that community organizations have played a fundamental role in mobilizing the Latino vote, even when political campaigns are slow in their outreach operations, explained Ben Monterroso, a senior advisor to the Power Latinx group.
"These changes, in California, Arizona or Nevada, did not happen overnight, and
it is high time that the candidates treat us seriously and do not take our vote for granted,
" said Monterroso, who has been organizing for decades. Hispanics in various border states.
The coveted Hispanic vote
The Hispanic vote is not monolithic either: it supported the president, Donald Trump, in Florida, and opted for his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in Arizona.
Latinos tinted the electoral map of Arizona blue,
especially the three largest counties in the state
, including Maricopa, where the former sheriff, Joe Arpaio, spread terror with his anti-immigrant policies.
"For the first time in 24 years, since 1996 when Clinton (Democrat Bill) won re-election, a Democratic president wins again in Arizona ... this was entirely the work of Latino community organizations, and they began to see results in 2018", when Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema won, explained Rodrigo Domínguez Villegas, director of Latino policy initiatives at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Although there is no official result in Arizona,
Biden has a slight advantage over Trump with 86% of the votes already counted, according to projections by Noticias Telemundo.
According to an analysis by Domínguez Villegas, in Maricopa County, Biden won with 75% of the Latino vote, in Pimca, with more than 80%, and in Yuma, with 74%.
Since the passage of state law “SB1070” in 2010, then considered the toughest law against undocumented immigrants, Latino grassroots organizations launched citizenship and voter registration campaigns that began to bear fruit and increased their weight at the polls. said Domínguez Villegas.
"This election demonstrates what we have said for years: the Latino vote is diverse and campaigns have to invest time and money," he emphasized.
The Latino vote is felt in the state of Florida
Nov. 5, 202001: 00
The expert gave as an example what the Trump campaign did in Florida, where it deployed a strong rapprochement operation with Latinos, and the strategy of linking Biden with communism took effect.
"The Trump campaign was fully involved in that rapprochement ... we cannot lose sight of the disinformation campaigns on social networks and WhatsApp" that reinforced the message against Biden, he added.
[Jill Biden condemns Trump's "incendiary" rhetoric in an interview with Noticias Telemundo]
Biden won the support of Latinos in almost every Florida county, except Miami-Dade, the cradle of Cuban exile, but that was not enough to tie a victory.
On the other hand, according to NBC, Trump won in Texas with 52.2% of the vote, while Biden won 46.3%.
That loss,
by almost 6 points
, is because Biden failed to improve his support among Hispanic voters concentrated in the border counties and, according to his critics, the campaign waited until very late to increase its outreach with them.
Latino vote contributes to Trump's triumph in Texas
Nov. 5, 202001: 29
In Nevada, another state that Biden needs to add the 270 Electoral College votes, authorities have completed the counting of 86% of the votes, and the difference between him and Trump is
less than 1%,
with 49.3% and 48.7%, respectively.
[In the key state of Wisconsin, Latinos are few, but they have the power to define the outcome of the elections]
Biden also won the state of Wisconsin, with 49.4% of the vote, against Trump's 48.8%, and Latino organizations attribute part of their success to Latino voters.
What "sleeping giant"?
“We are tired of the misrepresentation of our vote in the media, of the denigrating term about the 'sleeping giant', when we see in one election after another that Latinos go out to vote in historical numbers, as it happened in this election,” said Héctor Sánchez Barba, executive director of Mi Familia Vota and member of the National Civic Engagement Table coalition.
“This election was historic for our organization.
We had the largest investment ever recorded, with $ 14 million "to mobilize the Hispanic vote, although the community continues to suffer from a" serious lack of investment "in civic education efforts, he said.
According to Sánchez Barba, Arizona is the best example of how a strategy with a vision of the future and long-term investments "can make a difference," said Sánchez Barba during a conference with journalists through Zoom.
