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Trump 2020 campaign trying to woo Hispanic voters, even in states where they don't have big presence

Despite the president's harsh stand on immigration, his party is going all out to woo the Hispanic/Latino votes hoping to throw a challenge at the Democrats to retain the community's votes
UPDATED FEB 28, 2020
Donald Trump (Getty Images)
Donald Trump (Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election next year has targeted, among other groups, Hispanics and it has gone out wooing them in the most non-traditional places. The aim is clear: winning the community’s vote even in states where its presence is small so that the narrowest of margins can be titled in favor of the Republican Party.

The Hispanics are the Democrats’ bet as Trump’s controversial immigration policies has annoyed them to the hilt. In the 2016 election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won 66 percent of the Hispanic votes against Trump’s 28, but then again, Hillary’s share was less than the 71 percent of the vote share that Barack Obama had got in 2012. In 2004, Republican George W Bush got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote but his message was much more inclusive than that of Trump.

In 2016, Trump won the state of Pennsylvania by around 44,000 votes or less than one percent of those cast. The Hispanics constitute only eight percent of the state (but is booming) but yet the Trump campaign is keen to tap whatever ‘political resources’ are available, during the next presidential elections.

Hispanic voters at a polling center in Miami, Florida. (Photo by G. De Cardenas/Getty Images)

According to one report in Reuters, Trump won in 2016 with less support from the Black and Hispanic voters than any president did in at least four decades. In 2018, too, the Republicans did not have a change of firtunes. Associated Press’ VoteCast data showed that 38 percent of Pennsylvania’s Hispanics voted for the Republicans in the midterm elections last year, yet the Democrats won the battle for the governor and senator.

"I think that you win campaigns with what we call 'tajaditos.' Little bits. You have to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You don't need everyone from every group, but you have to have a little bit of everything,” Bertica Cabrera Morris, a Cuba native and advisory board member of ‘Latinos For Trump’, was quoted as saying by AP in its report. 

It's a difficult task yet the Republicans are hopeful

But it will be easier said than done for Trump and his Republican aides as they are basing their strategy on the fact that it is a tight race this time between the two main parties.
 
While many in the Republican camp believes that Trump’s anti-Hispanic stand is not helping, they are also convinced that the Hispanics will respond to a strong economy and conservative social values, the AP report added. On the other hand, the Democrats believe only criticizing Trump will not attract Hispanic votes. 

"Latinos are moving out of the urban centers, moving away from the stronghold of the Democrats," Jose Fuentes, a former attorney general of Puerto Rico who is advising the president's reelection effort said calling Pennsylvania "a perfect example."

''We're microtargeting those areas that can be successful for us." Fuentes also said the Republican Party officials have identified about a dozen areas across the country to woo Hispanic, black and Asian voters and facilitated the training of 500-plus staffers who sped up their recruiting missions at local events.

Fuentes said a key to winning Hispanic votes is tailoring messages to people who have ancestral links with different parts of Latin America. He said although Trump’s rhetoric does not meet the situation at times, yet messages targeting those voters in specific areas could resonate.

A recent poll on the eligibility of the Hispanic voters across the country by Democratic polling firm Latino Decisions found only 13 percent saying they would “definitely” vote for Trump in 2020 but at the same time, less than 60 percent of respondents said they were looking to take part in Democratic primaries. 

Trump campaign became active after El Paso attacks

In August, less than two days after 22 people were killed in what was seen as an anti-Latino terror attack in El Paso, Trump’s re-election campaign launched fresh Facebook ads to sympathize with the border city in Texas. 

A woman bows her head in St Pius X Church at a vigil for victims after a mass shooting which left at least 20 people dead on August 3, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. A 21-year-old white male suspect was taken into custody in the city which sits along the U.S.-Mexico border. At least 26 people were wounded. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The Trump campaign started as many as 66 similar Facebook ads seeking support from Latinos in the wake of the attack, and half of them were targeted at voters in Texas, according to a Guardian analysis of Facebook’s political ad archive.

The international ploy to garner Latino votes

The Trump campaign even used the international rhetoric to garner the Latinos’ votes. In June, a cache of 78 ads were released and they featured a video of the president promising “freedom” for Venezuela. The ads included a Spanish language caption that claimed that Trump’s approval among the Latinos went up by 14 percent. They were linked to a report of the Wall Street Journal that said that Trump’s ploy in appealing for the Latino voters included casting the Democrats as socialists hoping to strike a cord with voters --like those in Venezuela -- with ties to nations that have leftist regimes. 

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