While Vice President Harris is slowly leading in national polls, her campaign has struggled to gain support from young Hispanics, a concern for some Democratic strategists.
At the same time, strategists say former President Trump continues to draw support from this demographic, helping to bolster support for his candidacy in key battleground states.
“There’s definitely a problem with young Latino men who didn’t go to college,” said Chuck Rocha, a prominent Democratic strategist who helped Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) win the Hispanic vote for president. “Is Trump doing better than he should be? Absolutely.”
Rocha says it’s not that they’re drawn to Trump, “but they’ve never been drawn to the Democrats. They hear one candidate talk about keeping American jobs and cleaning up the swamp, and they hear the other party talk about abortion and the social issues of the day.”
But Harris campaign activists on the ground told a different story.
“I don’t think that’s fair. From my experience volunteering with the Harris campaign, they’re really going out and reaching out to low-income communities — communities with a lot of heavy labor, blue-collar jobs, people who didn’t go to college,” said Jesus Rendon, a Phoenix native and senior at Arizona State University who volunteered with the Harris campaign.
Rendon added that the Harris-Waltz campaign has opened offices in two areas of Phoenix that are home to many low-income residents: South Phoenix and Maryvale.
“They’re targeting these communities by hosting events at these specific offices. And I think the Harris campaign is very keen to recognise and engage these individuals, and they’re doing that every day.”
Still, a New York Times/Siena poll released Monday showed Trump leading Harris in several battleground states, while lower-ranking Democratic candidates are seen as outperforming Republicans, supporting the view among some Democrats that those states are still winnable. For example, in Arizona, a key state with a large young Hispanic population, Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego holds a 6-point lead over his opponent, Kali Lake. The same poll also showed Trump holding a 5-point lead over Harris.
Harris’ campaign has three disadvantages compared to Gallego’s: The vice president’s biggest issue, reproductive rights, resonates with Latino women; Gallego’s campaign can run a marginal campaign that would be unrealistic for a presidential candidate; and Trump’s campaign is generally more popular than Republican candidate Lake.
But Democrats worry that Gallego, a former Marine with Latino roots, may have an intangible advantage over Harris, who has spent her time courting voters more likely to vote for Trump — primarily Hispanics and young people.
“In many ways, they see themselves in him, which is exactly what he aspires to be,” said one Democratic strategist.
Fernand Amandi, another Democratic strategist, said he was skeptical that Trump would actually win the state, but even if he did, he predicted that Gallego would help Harris win.
“The Gallego campaign is not distancing itself from the Harris campaign – quite the opposite,” he said, adding that they would continue to make their case in the remaining weeks of the campaign.
“If Gallego wins by more than eight points, Camara will win the state, no matter what happens,” he added.
But Democratic activist Rodel Molyneaux said the New York Times poll also reflected Lake’s influence: “It’s probably less about Harris’ influence and more about how tarnished Kali Lake’s record is.”
In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) is also leading Harris in polls, suggesting that Latino youth’s personal empathy for Gallego is only one piece of the puzzle.
Like Gallego, Rosen has had more time to spend on the field and is facing Republicans who are lagging behind Trump in popularity, and like Harris, Rosen has made reproductive rights a pillar of his campaign.
This focus seems to be resonating with young Latino women: Voter registration group Voter Latino claims to have registered some 70,000 new voters in battleground states between late July and mid-September, 86 percent of whom were under 39 and about 70 percent were women.
But Harris’ campaign says it is shaping its message on reproductive rights to better reach Latinos.
“It’s not something that affects me in any way that I have to make a decision about my body. I have two sisters. The Harris campaign has tried to acknowledge that, whether that’s someone’s sister, whether that’s a cousin, whether that’s a prima facie, whether that’s a best friend, whether that’s someone closer to your family,” Rendon said.
“What I’ve seen is there’s a lot of enthusiasm to recognize these issues and to see yourself in other people’s shoes. And I certainly see that, and I speak for a lot of other young Latino men who say they see themselves in the shoes of their loved ones.”
But reproductive rights enjoy greater support among Hispanic women than among Hispanic men: 22% of Hispanic women said abortion was a top three issue, compared with 16% of Hispanic men, in an August UnidosUS poll.
On immigration, the tables are turned: In the same survey, 27% of Latinos listed immigration as one of their top three priorities, compared with 22% of Latino women.
Inflation was by far the biggest issue for both men and women, with 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively, naming the cost of living as a priority.
While Harris has maintained her lead on reproductive rights and made some progress in weakening Trump’s grip on the economy, Democrats still face unique challenges in making their case on immigration.
“There are voters in Arizona who are very passionate about finding a path to citizenship and helping undocumented immigrants, but there are also voters who may not be thinking about this issue as much in terms of the economy or border security,” said Christian Ramos, a Democratic strategist.
“It’s smart to talk about border security, it’s smart to talk about the economy, but it would also be smart to talk about helping to fix our broken immigration system. And she’s done that. So I think the question is, what audience is she speaking to and when?”
In border states like Arizona, young Latinos hold seemingly opposing views on border security and immigration reform, though the two issues tend to get conflated on the national stage.
That could make it even harder for the presidential campaign, which lacks face-to-face conversations, to reach those voters.
“We need to develop a campaign that is specifically aimed at these men, that talks about the working class, about the economy, about populism, about being rooted in the family, about taking care of your wife and children, about your responsibilities as a father, brother and son,” Rocha said.
Another Democratic strategist agreed that the Harris campaign needed to make more of an effort to speak directly to young Latino men, calling their lack of identity politics a “big mistake.”
“You do it like the opposite of dog whistle campaigning,” the strategist said. “Just as[Tim]Walz is a permission structure for white voters, Hispanics need the equivalent of Waltz. “If you’re a nobody in the community, you need a credible verifier to back up your claims and close the sale,” the strategist said.
