President Trump is nothing if not tone deaf. Somehow, Trump pulled favorable numbers with Hispanic voters in 2016, and now the president’s campaign to steal the White House in 2020 has its eyes set on pulling the Hispanic vote while simultaneously threatening to rid America of undocumented immigrants and locking children of those who cross the Southern border illegally in cages.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “The ‘Latinos for Trump’ rollout will take place in Miami on Tuesday—a day before the city hosts the first Democratic presidential primary debate—with Vice President Mike Pence appearing with party members, including Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez.”
The campaign is banking on low unemployment numbers, Trump’s tough stance on China and demands to curb illegal immigration to play well with Cuban Americans in Florida, many of whom vote Republican. Trump’s campaign will continue to paint the Democratic Party as the socialist party in hopes of swaying Venezuelan voters “with ties to countries that have leftist governments.”
From the Wall Street Journal:
Republican leaders will act as surrogates in TV and other news interviews while making appearances in their home states, the campaign said. Activists will be trained to conduct outreach, including neighborhood canvassing, phone banks and voter registration. Mr. Trump’s 2016 effort started late and faced defections over a particularly incendiary speech on immigration that he gave in Arizona.
The makeup of Latinos for Mr. Trump shows the importance of other states with growing Hispanic populations, including Nevada, a state Mr. Trump narrowly lost in 2016; New Mexico, which the campaign has eyed as a potential pickup; and Texas, where fading Republican dominance among the electorate concerns GOP leaders. Mr. Trump won Arizona but it too is a battleground with a rising Hispanic vote.
“The Trump campaign knows they have reached their peak with white voters,” said Christian Ulvert, a Democratic strategist in Florida. “Where do you make up that deficit? It’s clear they have turned to Hispanic voters and that’s where we have to double down on our efforts and be strong and clear on our message.”
The newspaper notes that Florida is a critical state, pulling Cuban voters as well as growing numbers of people from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Colombia. Trump recently launched his reelection campaign in Florida in Orlando, an area highly populated by Puerto Ricans, which the WSJ notes will be heavily courted by both parties.
Democrats’ only hope of combating Trump’s lies will be to hammer Latino voters with the truth. They must not only contend with the myth that they are the party for socialists, they need to point out that the economic upswing, much like Trump’s tax cuts, has only favored the rich. The obvious, which can’t be avoided, has to be that while Trump is courting Hispanics—which are projected to “become the largest minority group in the electorate in 2020, with 13.3 percent, surpassing African-Americans”—he’s also instituted the most draconian and outright inhumane policies on immigration. Not to mention he killed protections for young immigrants that kept them from being deported. Oh, and if any Puerto Ricans are reading this, don’t forget Trump’s “paper towel jump shot” while visiting the hurricane-ravaged island and how he’s gone out of his way to block funding additional aid to the island, which still has not recovered.
“We’re already working the heck out of the communities in Miami,” Julio Martinez, who chaired Trump’s 2016 campaign in Miami-Dade County and organized two busloads of people to attend the Orlando rally, told the WSJ.
I want better for Julio Martinez in the same way that I want better for America. And, by better for America, I mean that the entire Trump record label, crew—all of ’em—are out of the White House in 2020.