Full Q&A with Professor Matthew Mendez Garcia

Photo provided by Dr. Matthew Mendez Garcia

Q: You mentioned that it is really important for Latino voters to start voting. Can you please elaborate?

A: Oh yes, absolutely. Every vote matters, every group matters, but I think that given the swing states in play, Latino voters are crucial, especially for Harris.  

But, you know, any inroads also helps Donald Trump with this group. 

I think your instincts were correct about why this was important. 

Q: Swing states are extra important in this upcoming election, has one specific candidate been playing their cards well enough, in your opinion, to possibly win over the majority of the Latino vote in those states because of the things they have been saying or campaigning toward?  

A: Well what's interesting is that in this election, Latino voters are more of a wild card than usual, right? A majority are going to vote for Harris because a majority are Democrats, but the majority meaning 50 plus one, right? 

The question is, how big of a majority will she have?  

The situation we’re in today is a Latino electorate that has more swing voters than usual. What the conventional wisdom would say is that there are more swing voters than usual who are open to voting for Donald Trump. 

So, in past elections, the democrats with a few exceptions could count on 60 plus percent of the Latino vote, nationwide and that what we've seen, depending on... The exit polls, aren't great, right? The surveys of Latinos aren't perfect, I should say, for various reasons. But among one of the more consistent, Pew Research found that Joe Biden got 59%, which is rather low, which on par with John Kerry in 2004, who lost.  

So right now, both candidates are probably paying more attention to Latino voters than we've ever really seen, at least not we haven't seen Democrats and Republicans truly compete for Latino voters, I would say, since 2004 since George W Bush made an honest and consistent effort to do outreach to this group. 

So this comes with, again, the Democrats, the majority will vote for them, but they're going to need to max out for them, right? They're going to need to max out Latino support to win states like Nevada and Arizona, especially.  

Partly this is because the Democratic coalition is a multi-racial coalition. Usually, this means they need to grab enough white voters, they're going to lose white voters [because] the majority will vote for the Republican nominee. But, they need to grab enough of them and max out among black voters and among Latino voters so any erosion, potentially in the Latino base in places like Arizona and Nevada, even if just by a few percentage points, can benefit Donald Trump. 

Q: Do you see voters leaning toward or further away from Trump with his immigration stance? As a professional in political science with an emphasis on immigration as well as race and ethnicity, what are your views on Trump’s immigration stances? 

A: So I mean, like, personally, I don't agree with his immigration stance, that's my personal view. But, among Latino voters, I think that there has been a misconception that's finally being corrected in the mainstream media, that immigration is a top issue among Latino voters, when it's actually not. 

 With political science research, it's usually not even in the top five for Latino voters going back decades.  

I think that we sometimes mistake the activism on the ground, which is very passionate and does have a lot of people behind it, we think that's indicative of the agenda of the larger group. When we talk about Latinos, we're talking about a very large group of people. 

Almost one in five people in the United States are Latino, that comes out, I think, to 60 plus million individuals who come from over 20 countries and territories, whose families are recent arrivals, to people who've been here for generations, who come in a bunch of different skin color. So, Latino voters come with a myriad number of opinions.  

What we find is, or at least what's happening is that, obviously, for the most part, first-generation Latinos are the ones who are most democratic and the most likely to be put off [by Trump’s immigration policies], even though there is a contingent of them who might actually agree with Donald Trump due to the fact that they came as they see as they went through the legal process, which is rather arduous, to become a citizen in this country, to emigrate. 

We know among this small subset, part of it is this idea of those people is, “The people coming now,” in the sense, trying to cross the border and claim asylum, or people who've come unauthorized that, you know, “we're not like them.” So, that's what we're finding among a small subset of the first generation, is this distancing between undocumented immigrants. 

Over time, from one generation to the next, the cultural bonds, tend to weaken, and so Latino voters of the second and especially the third generation see themselves as more American, and they're separated.  

The third generation, especially, has no experience with the immigrant experience. So, I think we sometimes assume that they must have a sympathy for the for recent arrivals when we kind of forget that for a growing number of Latino voters, this is an issue that has never affected them. They are the children of American citizens, whose grandparents, or maybe even only one grandparent, was an immigrant. We call it acculturation; this process of acculturation is something we're seeing more in a Latino electorate today than we ever have. 

(Exchange made mentioning personal connection of the interviewer to second and third-generation Latinos who, agreeably, do not seem as interested in topics of immigration or as in touch with their culture as a first-generation Latino American.) 

[People] might see Spanish signs or Spanish messaging as meaning Latinos are welcome, but can't understand [Spanish]. It's not really directed at them, it's not crucial for them to participate in the system for there to be Spanish language messaging. This is also because one of the things that changed was, for a long time the average Latino voter was an older, naturalized citizen who was bilingual. Now, the average voter is younger, and US-born. This is the group among the Latino subgroups that is the most open to voting for Donald Trump, the second and third-generation Latino voters.  

Q: If not immigration, what would you say, going into this election, is a crucial topic on the minds of varying generations of Latinos? 

A: The economy is crucial. 

When we usually talk about politics, the prime voter that's usually in the minds of politicians, first and foremost, are white partisans. That's true for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans, and that's why, for so long, both sort of speak to their base, to the issues they care about.  

This group, white partisans, tends to be middle class, upper class, highly engaged, and more concerned about cultural issues: abortion, gun rights, gun safety. Looking back at most of this year, they've talked about kind of cultural issues, right?  

Now that we're getting closer, [politicians] need to reach out to people who are not partisan: the swing voters or the people who kind of have very weak attachments to the party. Latinos are more likely to be part of this group of people with weak party attachments, and they care about pocketbook issues. They're not as in tune with the cultural issues, they might care about them, but it doesn't sway them. 

It's so funny talking about this large group, right, as if they're, you know, it's not a monolith, but when we think about where they are situated, they're definitely leaning more towards the working class.  

The working-class voters, they're the ones being pinched by inflation, the ones who are seeing prices go up, but wages not keeping up. This is the group of people, who are sort of like a split; you have more wage earners, but then you also have this growing subset of business owners, of small business owners in the community.  

Their day-to-day lives are impacted more by the economy, they can't weather it the way that upper-income households can.  

So, inflation is a big issue.  

Whether or not the economy improves is a big issue.  

Cost of living is a big issue for this group across all generations. 

This is partially where Trump had an advantage over Biden in the summer with Latino voters in places like Nevada. Polling was showing was that Latinos, among respondents, there were some who remembered the Trump years as boom years for the economy, versus the inflation of the Biden years, even though, it's hard to fault or credit presidents for the state of the economy. In voters' minds, voters will do this.  

For some remember, other voters as well, kind of remember the boom times, right? The good years of the Trump economy, versus the kind of, you know, the inflation we're dealing with today. 

Q: Speaking on the topic of the economy, do you believe that there is anything specific that Harris needs to do to win over people who have the economy and inflation in mind? 

A: I think she's doing what she should be doing, which is talking about the cost of living. 

Generally, voters, for the most part, are busy and distracted, so most are not paying attention to what the federal government is doing day to day. What they want from candidates is kind of an acknowledgment of what they are going through, an acknowledgment of their lived reality as it is. 

One thing that frustrated voters with Biden was that his administration kept talking about how great the economy was when that's not what voters were feeling. When they're being pinched by inflation, their household budgets were being affected, and then made the Biden administration look out of touch. So, Kamala Harris talking about the cost of living and things that she will do to try and ease the burden on families is the correct strategy.  

She's not the only one who recognizes this, Donald Trump, has also, for a Republican, taken on some surprising positions. Talking about, for example, in Nevada, that he would remove the taxes on tips, right, which is crucial in a state that's built on tourism, gaming, and recreation. I believe he's even talking about overtime. 

So, I would say that this is a logical step for both candidates, but especially for Kamala Harris, who is now the quasi-incumbent. She needs to sort of show empathy to voters for their financial situation, as well as talk about what her administration would do to ease this burden. 

Q: What about other issues that are raising questions?  For example, gun control.

A: I would say that the people who really care about that issue have already sorted into the camps. If you're a big gun rights person who doesn't want any regulation, you're already a Republican. If you're someone who cares a lot about guns, you're already a Democrat.  

If we’re talking about more cultural issues, the more salient one that we're seeing is abortion.  

Going back to Latino voters, there is a subset, that does really care about this issue, and it's young Latina voters.  

Harris has a unique appeal as a woman of color, and this is energizing young Latina voters to register, to become enthusiastic because in the Democratic Party, this sort of representation, especially along identity lines, matters a lot to Democratic voters. So, you're seeing young women of color, especially, are very excited about a woman candidate having a real shot at winning the White House. It's energizing and for women of color, it's sort of doubly so, because it is a woman of color who is running, and we're finding with especially younger Latina voters, gender matters.  

Women's issues really matter to this particular group. 

Q: Is it only the young female voters that you find being energetic and enthusiastic about the possibility of a female president? Or, do you see it amongst other groups, genders, and ages as well? 

A: I think the one thing that she has done is rally the Democratic base, which is what she needed to do. That's what who Biden was losing in the polls.  

There are many aspects of her that excite the base. There's the fact that the Democratic Party is a female majority party by membership, so women of all ages and all backgrounds, again, because Democrats prize this sort of representation, are thrilled, excited, enthusiastic, and more willing to work on her behalf. Women, again, of all ages and all racial backgrounds within the party, are very excited.  

Then it just matters for different reasons, for some, it's her gender. And again, it's the history-making potential of her winning is really energizing the base among African Americans and Latinos, partially because she's younger, partially because she talks more about the issues they care about, and this has made them very excited.  

Within the party, diversity matters a lot within the Democratic Party, so having a diverse candidate is energizing to everyone and to most people within the party, regardless of race or ethnicity. I think for some in the party, it's almost like 2008 all over again, right? We have the ability to make history with a candidate. 

Q: Any closing statements or opinions on what Harris could do more that will get her a larger following or voter base? 

A: I think for Democratic partisans, don’t underestimate Donald Trump and remember how close the polls are in the swing states. People have a habit of underestimating his support for various reasons.  

For Democrats, they have to remember to be a big tent party. This is crucial, because part of the reason for Hilary Clinton’s loss in 2016 was the sense that she only represented certain constituencies and not others. I think what that means for the Democratic party is emphasizing the issues that everyone cares about, while not abandoning anyone in the party. 

The message needs to be inclusive, and it needs to be aspirational, because if you’re talking about Latino voters, Latino voters are aspirational and optimistic compared to the rest of the country. As of now, they are the ones who believe the most in the American dream. 

I would really think about, that’s a good message for everyone during a campaign.  

What is the vision of a better America for all?