Kamala Harris Trends Up With Latinos

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On Friday evening, our social media feeds were all about Arizona and the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz rally that packed the Desert Diamond Arena. A special mention to Maritza Félix of Conecta Arizona for sharing a video from the event.

The New York Times said that the Arizona rally drew 15,000 people. On Saturday, the Democratic ticket did it again in Nevada, with reports that 12,000 people attended. The Associated Press called the latest series of rallies an example of “joy.”

Arizona and Nevada are key swing states. Both states also have large numbers of Latino voters. As Pew Research noted earlier this year, “Some 8.5 million out of the nation’s 33.7 million Hispanic eligible voters, or 25%, lived in California as of 2022. The next biggest states by number of Latino eligible voters are Texas (6.5 million), Florida (3.5 million), New York (2.2 million) and Arizona (1.3 million).”

Pew also said that after New Mexico, California and Texas, “The states with the next-largest Latino shares of eligible voters are Arizona (25%), Nevada (22%), Florida (22%), Colorado (17%) and New Jersey (16%).”

New Ads

The two rallies happened around the same time that the Harris-Walz campaign released new ads in both English and Spanish focused on Latino voters.

The Harris/Walz campaign is also trying to look tough on immigration with this new ad.

That ad evokes similar emotions to President Bill Clinton's 1996 ads when he was running for re-election against opponent Bob Dole.

At the Friday rally in Arizona, Harris said: “We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it: comprehensive reform. That includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”

That would align with polling by UnidosUS earlier this summer, which said that Latino voters in key states like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania want a strong border and a pathway to citizenship for some groups.

The alternative from the Trump campaign? These are his first two 2024 campaign promises, as per the official RNC platform. (Words are originally in CAPS)

1. SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION

2. CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY

So how is the Harris-Walz campaign doing with Latinos?

Trending Up

When Joe Biden was still in the race and after his poor June debate performance, a Pew Research survey noted that Latinos were evenly split (36%-36%) with Trump. Since then, Harris has seen gains with Latino voters.

New polling from swing states last week shows Harris leading Trump with Latinos, 55%-37%. According to Pew, that is less than the national 59%-38% advantage Biden had over Trump in 2020.

Several outlets are reporting that while Harris is making gains, the work to do even better with Latinos than Biden is just getting started.

Here are just some of the pieces that have been published over the last couple of weeks:

There are even stories about Latinos and Walz:

It’s hard to tell right now where Harris and Walz will land with Latino voters, but no one can deny that they are trending up.