translated from Spanish: U.S. Latinos, suddenly coveted by Trump and Biden

You can donate $35 to make history, or $500, or $2,800, no matter. Donald Trump’s re-election campaign needs every penny, and his Latin American supporters don’t want to be left behind. The Latinos for Trump movement is mobilizing heavily for its president. After all, it would have given them a flourishing economy, safe cities and religious freedom, they say. And that, supposedly, for generations.
Trump also has a solid Latino base
Latinos who support the man who calls Mexicans rapists, who destroyed Latin American immigrant families upon their arrival in the country, and who is celebrating the construction of a border wall with Mexico as their biggest project?
The truth is that, for the 32 million Latinos eligible to vote in the United States in this November election, which in 2020 represent the largest group of voters for the first time, employment and the economy are the most important issues, not immigration. “Latin American small business owners welcome Trump for cutting taxes. Latinos who vote for Republicans don’t love Donald Trump, but they feel like American and Republican citizens, and then as members of their ethnicity,” says Geraldo Cadava.
And Cadava should know, because no one better than him knows how Latino voters in America think and act. The professor of Latin American History and Studies at Northwestern University in Chicago is the author of “The Hispanic Republican,” which is about Latinos who faithfully vote for Republicans in the country.
Donald Trump can count on the votes of “Latinos for Trump.”
“There is no Latino voter”
The expert believes that “there is no Latino voter. Puerto Ricans in New York vote differently to Mexicans at the border and Cubans in Miami. Since 1970, Democrats have received an average of 70 percent of the Latino vote, but Cubans in exile vote for Trump because, for example, he is taking a hard line against Venezuelan President Maduro.”
As early as 2016, the Latino vote was one of the decisive factors in Donald Trump’s victory. Although Hillary Clinton secured the states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico with the help of Latinos, Texas and especially the disputed state of Florida, with a total of 67 delegates, they fell to the Republican nominee. This year, also the two states with the most Latin American immigrants, after California, will possibly tip the scales.
Four years ago, 28 percent of Latinos voted for Donald Trump, and in November 2020, the current president can count on similar support. Democrats, however, took a very successful blow: with Kamala Harris’ nomination as vice presidential nominee, polls skyrocketed in Favor of Democrats, especially among Latinos.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hope to win more votes from America’s largest minority, Latinos.
“They’re not just any minority”
Joe Biden seems to have understood what happened: he sought contact with the Spanish-speaking media and recently began a special campaign for Latinos. But Geraldo Cadava, whose grandparents come from Mexico and Panama, says that’s just a good sign, and criticizes that neither Republicans nor Democrats have really understood how important the votes of that minority in the U.S. are: “They show up just before the election and then leave for three years. They have to invest in money, time and energy. And they have to change the way they think about Latinos, who are American citizens, who are not just any minority that can be left out.”
Every 30 seconds, a Latina or Latino in the U.S. turns 18 and can vote; their participation in the vote is constantly increasing. But Republicans fear, anyway, that new voters will be more likely to support Democrats and therefore don’t spend time on it. Democrats, on the other hand, neglect Latinos because they believe they largely don’t vote.
In fact, Hispanic voter turnout is low compared to the rest of the population. In 2016, only 47.6 percent of Latinos cast their votes in front of 59.6 percent of African Americans and 65.3 percent of whites.
Not wanting to go and vote, great for Trump
What Donald Trump is trying to do is approach the 44 percent Latin record, set by George W. Bush in 2004. And, at the same time, it does its best toto ensure that Latinos who sympathize with Democrats don’t vote.
Geraldo Cadava explains that “it is obvious that the Trump campaign is doing everything possible to suppress the vote of all Americans who do not support it and, of course, also of Latinos.”
When Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency in 1980, as a Republican nominee, he claimed that “Latinos are already Republicans, but they just don’t know.” In the weeks leading up to the November 3 election, Donald Trump will bet that Latinos will also get the message from that former American president.

Original source in Spanish