Latest / Pod Save America / How Democrats Can Win Latinos Back (Ep. 4)

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How Democrats Can Win Latinos Back (Ep. 4) · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Trump campaign has tried in kind of a fake
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: way to stir the pot with brown folks, Latinos, immigrants.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The coalition of conservative brown people that he had in 2016,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: they're still there. That didn't really grow.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: But we have seen a small growth in Latino men
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: going towards this messaging. And realistically, it's a discussion on machismo, misogyny, right?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Like Trump plays into those cultural discussions and like, it's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a problem.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Leo Murrieta came to America when he was just seven
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: days old. Now he's trying to make life better for
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: other immigrants as director of Make the Road Nevada, a
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: nonprofit based in Las Vegas that works towards organizing immigrant communities.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: It's especially important work ahead of this election. Latinos make
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: up one in every five registered voters in Nevada, a
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: state that Joe Biden won by just over 2% in 2020.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: In fact, Nevada is the only swing state where Donald
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Trump did better than he did in 2016. And he
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: also improved his margins with Latinos across the country. If
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: that seems baffling to you, considering that Trump ran the
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: most xenophobic campaign in modern history, you're not alone. But
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Latino voters, just like all voters, have views about politics
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: and immigration that are diverse and complicated. Take, for example,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Biden's recent action to limit the number of migrants who
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: can seek asylum in the U.S. by crossing the southern border.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Polls show the move was popular not only with most voters,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: but with most Latino voters. Still, most isn't everyone.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: We've seen some division within the older immigrant communities, like
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the undocumented folks who have been here for 20, 30
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: years without any type of relief or assistance. those folks
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: may be more supportive.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But if you talk to more millennial and younger folks,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: perhaps like DACA recipients, most folks, they are not in
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: favor of this.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: The president and his team understand that, which is one
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: reason they just announced another new policy that would provide
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: a pathway to citizenship for nearly half a million undocumented
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: immigrants whose spouses are already American citizens. Leo was at
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: the White House for the announcement.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: These couples have been raising families, sending their kids to
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: church and school, paying taxes, contributing to our country for
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: 10 years or more. Matter of fact, the average time
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: they've spent here is 23 years. People were affected today.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: But living in the United States all this time with
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: fear and uncertainty, we can fix that. And that's what
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do today.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: Fix it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Our families, our communities needed this win.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And it's a big win. My own family is directly
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: impacted by this. So this is very welcomed. It's very exciting.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I wish it were bigger, but it's going to impact
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of families in a really big way.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Of course, one of the biggest misconceptions about Latino voters
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: is that they only care about immigration. The truth is,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: most Latinos... like most other Americans, haven't been paying close
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: attention to the immigration debates in Washington. In fact, their
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: biggest concerns are similar to what we've heard from most
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: other voters.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So I think the race today for the White House
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: is a tough one, really for both candidates. You know,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: we just wrapped our.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Primary elections last Tuesday, and the attitude is that people
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: don't really want to talk about it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They were talking about, you know, the economy, their economy.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: They were talking about the high cost of gas, high
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: cost of utilities, groceries. All of these things were top
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: of mind. And of course, rent. Everyone is talking about
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: rent and the mortgages.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Sounds familiar, right? These cost of living issues are the
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: same concerns that are top of mind for the undecided
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Black voters we talked about in the last episode. And
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: once again, the advice from grassroots organizers like LEO is
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: that Joe Biden and Democratic candidates need to do a
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: better job making clear who they're fighting for.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: You know, what do people talk about? Dems haven't done anything.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: The Biden campaign is to do a better job of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: communicating to voters and families and immigrants that they are
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: working on their behalf, that they've done all these things.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Like when we talk to folks.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: About how my mother, my mother, her insulin prices every
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: month went from $ 600 to $ 35.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: That's insane.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Asthma inhalers are going from like hundreds of dollars a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: month to $ 25 a month.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Credit card payments, going after corporate greed with corporate landlords.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Secretary Buttigieg is going after the airlines. Who doesn't love that?
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Like these are the things that people want to see.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: You might be thinking, we got plenty of time to
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: communicate this. But even though Leo said that a lot
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: of the voters he's talked to haven't brought up the
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: 2024 campaign on their own, they're finally starting to focus
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: on the race.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: The truth is they're paying attention now. They are forming
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: opinions now. And the opinions they're forming are misinformed. They're
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: forming them based on misinformation. And the Biden campaign needs
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: to step it up.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: They need to increase their presence in Spanish language media.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: They need to increase their presence on social media with influencers,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with micro-influencers, on popular culture.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: They need to be all over the map.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Two people who very much agree with Leo are Carlos
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Odio and Stephanie Valencia, Obama staffers who went on to
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: start Equis Research, a polling and research firm that might
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: have a better understanding of the Latino electorate than anyone
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: else in America. A few years ago, Stephanie went on
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: to start the Latino Media Network, where she's focused on
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: how and where to reach and communicate with these voters
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: in a media environment that's never been more fractured. I
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: sat down to talk with my old friends about what
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: they've been hearing from Latinos in the latest Equis Focus Groups,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: and what advice they have for volunteers and organizers as
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: we try to convince these voters to turn out for
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Democrats in the fall. You'll hear our conversation next, followed
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: by more from Leo on the type of conversations worth
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: having over the next few months. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: to the wilderness. Carlos Odeo and Stephanie Valencia, thanks for
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: doing this. Good to see you guys.
• 6:41
  Speaker 7: Good to be back.
• 6:42
  Speaker 8: Dynamic Duo's back again.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: So we're talking this season about the most effective ways
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: to persuade voters who we need to be part of
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: the anti-Trump coalition, but aren't yet sold on Joe Biden.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: So far, we've covered Trump voters who are sick of Trump,
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: undecided Black voters. And now I want to get your
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: insight on undecided Latino voters, since the two of you
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: know more about this topic than just about anyone else
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: in politics. I think it's not possible to have a
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: conversation about Latino voters without using the phrase Latinos are
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: not a monolith. So I'll start with this then. What
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: political values and beliefs would you say the 36 million
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: eligible Latino voters in America, about 15% of the electorate,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: have in common? And how important is identifying as Latino
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: to these voters' political preferences here in 2024? Stephanie, we'll
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: start with you.
• 7:32
  Speaker 8: Well, I'm going to start with kind of a broader answer,
• 7:34
  Speaker 8: and then Carlos can talk a little bit about the
• 7:37
  Speaker 8: electorate and the threads that we see about the electorate.
• 7:39
  Speaker 8: But I think that when you think about Latinos as...
• 7:43
  Speaker 8: the largest growing subgroup in the United States of America,
• 7:47
  Speaker 8: driving growth of the population and the electorate. We are
• 7:50
  Speaker 8: the X factor in politics and society. And I'm a
• 7:54
  Speaker 8: 12th generation New Mexican. My family has been in New
• 7:57
  Speaker 8: Mexico since before it was part of the United States.
• 8:00
  Speaker 8: Yet I can come to a place like Miami, Florida,
• 8:03
  Speaker 8: and feel at home among Latinos. And there's somebody who
• 8:07
  Speaker 8: can go from Miami, somebody like Carlos, who grew up
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: in Miami, whose family fled Cuba, And can go to
• 8:13
  Speaker 8: New Mexico and still feel that commonality. So there is
• 8:16
  Speaker 8: this thread of what we call Latinidad that is common
• 8:21
  Speaker 8: throughout our community. And so we say we're a nation
• 8:25
  Speaker 8: divided but united by many beings. Eric Rose is going
• 8:27
  Speaker 8: to fix the way that that terminology goes. But, you know,
• 8:30
  Speaker 8: the truth is, like, we have more in common than
• 8:33
  Speaker 8: we do that makes us different.
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  Speaker 7: John, you stole my line. If I can't say Latinos
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  Speaker 7: aren't a monolith, what are we here.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: To talk about?
• 8:40
  Speaker 7: What am I going to do?
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: We've stuck to our message and it's worked.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Head that off at the path.
• 8:45
  Speaker 7: But I'm glad we started there because actually we have
• 8:47
  Speaker 7: taken to revising the statement because in our early years,
• 8:50
  Speaker 7: we found we were constantly saying Latinos are not a monolith.
• 8:53
  Speaker 7: Latinos are not a monolith. And we found the need,
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: especially after the 2020 election, to add a clause. Latinos
• 8:59
  Speaker 7: are not a monolith, but are still a group. When
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: you think of American society as a high school cafeteria.
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: And when you walk in the cafeteria, you might have
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: lots of differences. But when you're looking around, where do
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  Speaker 7: I belong? The reality is that Latinos do not fit
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  Speaker 7: in the traditional black-white binary of American society and history.
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  Speaker 7: And so looking around, it's like, well, here are groups
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  Speaker 7: who are similar to my own. And more importantly, a
• 9:27
  Speaker 7: perception that this is how others perceive us. My cousin
• 9:31
  Speaker 7: who grew up in Miami only ever referred to herself
• 9:34
  Speaker 7: as Cuban in Miami. The moment she moved to Tennessee,
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: she became Latina because you have a sense of how
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: you are perceived and where you fit in. And so
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: that shared identity is very powerful. There is a sense
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  Speaker 7: when you are evaluating who you are going to vote for,
• 9:50
  Speaker 7: of who cares most about people like me. And the
• 9:53
  Speaker 7: people like me can often be the lens of race
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  Speaker 7: and ethnicity and being Hispanic and a perception of how
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: parties and candidates treat hispanics is a quick way to
• 10:04
  Speaker 7: understand who is on your side and who is not
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: the power of that may fluctuate and i think that's
• 10:10
  Speaker 7: something we'll talk about here today but it does still
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  Speaker 7: have incredible power despite the many differences that you might
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: have among subgroups of latinos in this country.
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  Speaker 8: There are a set of values that do really kind
• 10:22
  Speaker 8: of unite the community. And I think the importance of
• 10:25
  Speaker 8: faith and whether you're Catholic or evangelical or any number
• 10:28
  Speaker 8: of other things, family, the value of the American dream,
• 10:31
  Speaker 8: Latinos still, you know, we were calling Latinos the American
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: dream voters after the 2020 election because there's still such
• 10:38
  Speaker 8: importance placed on achieving the American dream. And so even
• 10:41
  Speaker 8: kind of those three values are three values that you
• 10:45
  Speaker 8: kind of see woven into kind of throughout whatever subgroup
• 10:48
  Speaker 8: we see and whatever subgroup we're talking about.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: You can obviously categorize the Latino vote into many different groups.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: You can do it by gender, generation, geography, country of origin.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: What kind of categories do you guys think are most
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: helpful in terms of discussing the different politics of Latino voters?
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: Great question. So first and foremost, I think people go
• 11:09
  Speaker 7: to country of origin. I think that's appropriate. Most of
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: the majority, overwhelming majority of Hispanic voters in this country
• 11:17
  Speaker 7: are Mexican-American of Mexican descent. You have big chunks of
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: different South American groups, Central American groups. Puerto Ricans are
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: the second largest single ethnicity. Cubans obviously are not huge,
• 11:29
  Speaker 7: but kind of play an outsized influence in certain places
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: and are the most different in terms of political values,
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: much like actually Vietnamese Americans are somewhat different from the
• 11:39
  Speaker 7: larger AAPI group. But, you know, actually looking at country
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: of origin tells you the importance of geography. People's context
• 11:46
  Speaker 7: really matters a lot. And so where you grow up,
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: what media system you are in, how your neighbors vote
• 11:52
  Speaker 7: can be incredibly influential. And so you have to look
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: at urbanicity. Are you in a very urban, dense area
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: with a lot of Latinos? Are you in a more
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: rural area where there's a pocket of Latinos surrounded by others?
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: Generation is a big difference. Whether you are an immigrant,
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: you're the child of an immigrant, or whether you are,
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: as Stephanie is, multiple generations removed from the immigration experience,
• 12:12
  Speaker 7: that's going to impact the way you think about immigration.
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: or at least how personally salient it might be at
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: any given moment. There are other differences. What language you
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: live most of your life. Are you getting your news
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: in Spanish or English? What do you speak at home?
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: There's like a longer list as you go down. There
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: are differences even within states. But like I said, there
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: are some commonality in terms of being Hispanic, even as
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: when you dig in deeper, you can spot some of
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: these attitudinal differences.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Stephanie, I've heard recently people talk a lot about the
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: generational differences and particularly around the further away Latinos are
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: getting from when their parents first immigrated here. So like
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the third, fourth generation. And people are saying they have
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: weaker ties to the Democratic Party or to the left
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: and tend to be more conflicted. Would you agree with that?
• 13:03
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 13:03
  Speaker 8: I mean, I think just two things I would say
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: to answer that. And I think to pick up on
• 13:07
  Speaker 8: Carlos's point is one thing that I think we tend
• 13:10
  Speaker 8: to do as spectators of what's happening in politics is
• 13:15
  Speaker 8: really flatten people's personalities. Carlos talks a lot about this.
• 13:18
  Speaker 8: And I think it's always really important because we try
• 13:20
  Speaker 8: to like put people into a square box as to like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 8: you were Latino and we're only going to speak to
• 13:25
  Speaker 8: you as a Latino or you as a woman. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 8: all you care about are issues that are related to
• 13:29
  Speaker 8: women versus like you could actually have like multiple identities
• 13:33
  Speaker 8: that you're carrying at the same time that in certain
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: ways might otherwise kind of conflict with one another or
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: what we perceive to be as like traditional conventional wisdom
• 13:42
  Speaker 8: about like how people might conflict within their own identities.
• 13:46
  Speaker 8: So I just want to say that, that anytime we're
• 13:48
  Speaker 8: talking about voters, like remembering that people are, the majority
• 13:52
  Speaker 8: of Latinos, as Carlos said, in this country are Mexican American.
• 13:55
  Speaker 8: The majority of people in this country who are Latino
• 13:58
  Speaker 8: maybe do not have a college education They are working
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: and middle-class people. And so I just think it's really
• 14:04
  Speaker 8: important to remember that like the way people are experiencing
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: the world and their livelihoods. The piece on immigration isn't
• 14:09
  Speaker 8: necessarily wrong. I think it's just far more complicated than that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: I think that what we have seen kind of over
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: time and in our research is what people are really
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: looking for is fairness and looking for order and fairness
• 14:24
  Speaker 8: around the way people come. And maybe they and their
• 14:27
  Speaker 8: family waited in line and waited for 10 years. And
• 14:30
  Speaker 8: this is playing out in a lot of the work
• 14:32
  Speaker 8: that we're doing right now around immigration and kind of
• 14:35
  Speaker 8: the sentiment and the complicated sentiment that Latinos have. We
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: sat in a focus group a couple of months ago
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: with somebody in Las Vegas who said, if the border
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: standards had been more complex or more strict, I wouldn't
• 14:49
  Speaker 8: have made it here. He came here undocumented. And he said,
• 14:52
  Speaker 8: and at the same time, it doesn't seem fair what's
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: happening right now. So even in his heart of hearts,
• 14:57
  Speaker 8: and he was first generation, So I think like this
• 15:00
  Speaker 8: notion of just like the more assimilated you are, the
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: more conservative you are in immigration may have been true
• 15:05
  Speaker 8: at some point. But now what you're seeing is kind
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: of more of a sentiment around fairness and order that
• 15:11
  Speaker 8: people want to see in the system.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: And we're going to get to immigration a little bit, too,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: because I think I have a clip from one of
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: your focus groups. So the three of us have talked
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: several times now in the Trump era on various pods
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: and other settings. We haven't really caught up since the midterms,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: and I know you've done a deep dive on what
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: the 2022 results can tell us about the theory from
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: some corners of the pundit world that we're in the
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: midst of a potential realignment where Latino voters as a
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: whole are becoming either more Republican or less Democratic. Can
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: you talk about what you found, Carlos, in the deep dive?
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. So we were coming off the 2020 election where
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: you saw a shift that is about 8% two way
• 15:53
  Speaker 7: of Latino voters who went from Clinton in 2016 to
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: Trump in 2020. So to put it a different way,
• 16:00
  Speaker 7: if it was closer to three in 10 Latinos who
• 16:02
  Speaker 7: voted for Donald Trump in 2016, it was more like
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: four in 10 in 2020. That doesn't feel huge, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: given that most of the other population was zigging and
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: Latinos were zagging, it became notable. Even if a healthy
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: majority of Latinos were still Biden voters and were so
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: critical to democratic victories in that year. So 2022 was
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: the first test of the question whether that was a trend,
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: whether that was the part of a ongoing multi-year realignment
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: that we would see. And the real answer on 2022
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: didn't really help answer the question in the sense that
• 16:35
  Speaker 7: it was a stable in the states in which Democrats,
• 16:38
  Speaker 7: both parties, competed the most. You basically had stability from
• 16:42
  Speaker 7: 2020 to 2022. You did not see Democrats rebound to
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: earlier levels. You didn't also see though Republicans make additional gains.
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: There was an exception in Florida, which is a kind
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: of a cautionary tale, where you do see an ongoing
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: spiral downwards for Democrats in the state, in part because
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: Democrats chose not to compete there. So what we got
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: was a little bit of a pause in the action
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: that is not really predictive of what we're going to
• 17:05
  Speaker 7: see in 2024. Although it does speak to a larger point,
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: which is just if there is going to be a realignment,
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: it's far too early to tell. Look, I believe it
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: is possible Republicans could make greater gains. The conditions exist
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: for a larger realignment, but conditions do not determine outcomes.
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: The conditions exist for the New York Knicks to win
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: an NBA championship, but we know that there's more than conditions.
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: And so that's the place we find ourselves. Of course,
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: there's lots of like potential for Republicans among Latinos, but
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: have they been able to really exploit those, maximize those?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: At the same time, Democrats still enjoy a lot of
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: natural advantages that have not entirely gone away.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: So heading into 2022, you know, polls obviously showed that
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Biden's approval was quite low. Concerns about cost of living
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: were quite high. This is especially true among Latinos. Stephanie,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering, like, why do you think Republicans didn't do
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: even better in 2022?
• 18:13
  Speaker 8: Well, two things. At least the polling that we see
• 18:16
  Speaker 8: now are not election results. They're polling results. So there's
• 18:19
  Speaker 8: still room to shift and change. I think, you know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: as Carlos said, there's a set of conditions, but there's
• 18:24
  Speaker 8: still something that's held Latinos back. And I think that
• 18:27
  Speaker 8: the number one thing that I hope that progressive infrastructure
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: takes away is that this kind of volatility, as Carlos
• 18:35
  Speaker 8: has called it over time, like there's a good chunk
• 18:38
  Speaker 8: of Latino voters who do not feel strongly ideologically one
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: way or another. They're highly, highly persuadable. And so there
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: are a set of things we believe that could really
• 18:49
  Speaker 8: work in either party's favor, right, to really persuade to
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: one side or the other. But there has been something
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: that has really helped people back. And I think that
• 18:57
  Speaker 8: does come back to the identity piece that we started
• 19:01
  Speaker 8: with at the beginning of this conversation, which is who's
• 19:03
  Speaker 8: better for me and my family? Like who is actually
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: looking out for me and my family? And Republicans still
• 19:09
  Speaker 8: have not convinced Latinos that they are actually better for them.
• 19:13
  Speaker 8: Is there a lane to do that? Absolutely. Is Donald
• 19:17
  Speaker 8: Trump the guy to deliver that message for them? You know,
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: I think that is going to be the biggest question
• 19:22
  Speaker 8: that we see in this election is people are going
• 19:26
  Speaker 8: to remember what it was like under Trump, both under
• 19:29
  Speaker 8: the economy, but also the policies around immigration, tearing people's
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: families apart, the horrors that existed under his administration and
• 19:39
  Speaker 8: figuring out whether or not Latinos are going to feel
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: strongly enough to pull the trigger for him or are
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: going to stay home or willing to vote for Joe
• 19:47
  Speaker 8: Biden in that circumstance.
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: But if we're talking about the midterms, we also have
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: to go back to Nevada, I think is a great example,
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: because here was a state where if Republicans were going
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: to be able to make gains, this is where it
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: needed to be at. It lined up. It was a
• 20:00
  Speaker 7: place where it seemed like they were going to make
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: a large effort. And I think there's a lot we
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: could look at there. But one that I think is
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: incredibly relevant to this moment is the extent to which
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: while Republicans had an advantage on who Latinos thought would
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: be better to handle the rising costs and inflation, Catherine
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: Cortez Masto, senator running for reelection, was able to undercut
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: a lot of that advantage. She shifted the ground of
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: the conversation to not be broadly about economy and prices,
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: but let's get specifics and talk about gas prices, prescription prices,
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: the cost of baby formula, and pointing to a preexisting
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: belief that voters have, that Republicans at the end of
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: the day are looking out for the rich and the
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: powerful and not people like you. And here is evidence
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: based on hard prices. So you might be frustrated right
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: now with democratic governance, but Republicans are not actually going
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: to look out for you at the end of the
• 20:51
  Speaker 7: day when it comes to your healthcare costs, when it
• 20:53
  Speaker 7: comes to your pocketbook issues. So it was a great
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: example as we right now debate how to shift the
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: ground on the economy.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: You mentioned that Florida is a Cautionary tale. What happened
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: in Florida besides Democrats not doing enough to compete?
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: Oh, man, John, we don't have enough time for a
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: Florida conversation. So I would say, look, Steph did not
• 21:15
  Speaker 7: want me to talk about the identity force field, but
• 21:17
  Speaker 7: I have to talk about the identity force field.
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: Explain what the identity force field is, Carlos.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I saw it in the deck and I was going
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: to ask about it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Very interesting.
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: It's an incredible concept, but we are.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: It's a pod.
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: Like how much time do you have? I'm going to
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: do this in the shortest way possible. So we ask often,
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: what is it that pulled or moved some Latinos toward Trump?
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: When the proper question is, what held them back in
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: the past from voting for Trump or for other Republicans?
• 21:46
  Speaker 7: There is a social constraint, right? If you think about
• 21:48
  Speaker 7: the kinds of voters who are shifting in a moment,
• 21:50
  Speaker 7: the most persuadable Latinos, by the way, most persuadable in
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: the broader electorate as well, tend to be less likely voters,
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: low propensity, as we would say. They don't have a
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: hard and fast party loyalty or ideological consistency. They don't
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: watch MSNBC all day long and read the New York
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: Times and listen to Pod Save America. God damn them.
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: But they're experts in their own lives. They understand what
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: matters to them and their priorities. And they know that
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: when it comes time to elections, they're going to look
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: for other signals that cut through the noise of what's
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: going to matter most to them. That lens for a
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: while was kind of identity. And it was what's best
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: for people like me, people like me being Latino. A
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: lot of this was in the modern era shaped by
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: the immigration debates of 2006, 2007, where the image of
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: Republican Party became not just anti-immigrant, but anti-Latino. And so
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: a basic snapshot developed over that period of time, shaped
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: by immigration and by economics. Obamacare was actually critical in
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: this as well, that Republicans are the party of the
• 22:55
  Speaker 7: rich and the powerful and the racists, and the Democrats
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: care more about people like me. So all things being equal,
• 23:03
  Speaker 7: I'm going to go for the Democrats. There's this old
• 23:05
  Speaker 7: New Jersey joke where somebody's asked, and I live in
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: New Jersey now, so I have to tell New Jersey jokes.
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: What do you think about candidate X? It's like, oh,
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: that guy? Oh, I can't stand that guy. What do
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: you think about this other candidate? Oh, that guy, that
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: guy is the worst. Which one of them is pro-choice?
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: And like, that's a lot of how people make decisions.
• 23:24
  Speaker 7: For a lot of people, the question is actually, which
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: one of them is a Democrat? That's the one I'm
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: going to vote for. The question that a lot of
• 23:29
  Speaker 7: Latinos ask themselves is, which one's better for Latinos, right?
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: All else being equal, if I have no other thing
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: to pull them. What happened in 2020, to some extent,
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: is that that force field kind of flickered. And that
• 23:40
  Speaker 7: people were asking themselves not just who's better for me
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: as a person who is Latino as part of this group,
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: but who is better for me as an American worker,
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: who is better for me as working class struggling in
• 23:51
  Speaker 7: this moment, who gets my life, not just what I
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: need materially, but where I'm coming from culturally. And this
• 23:57
  Speaker 7: was in the midst of the pandemic. So there was
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: a sliver of Latinos, but a meaningful sliver, who are
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: more conservative, for whom these kind of identity constraints and
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: the ideas that it was socially unacceptable to ever vote
• 24:07
  Speaker 7: for a Republican kind of went away for a moment.
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: And they started voting on other considerations. This is a
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: very long way to get to the fact that in Florida,
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: there was kind of a perfect storm. No, well, but
• 24:18
  Speaker 7: it's to say like the identity constraints are common across geography.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: You can see it happening everywhere. The thing is, in Florida,
• 24:25
  Speaker 7: you have other conditions that conspire, including the fact that
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: you have a very robust right wing ecosystem in South Florida,
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: that if you are looking around and saying, where do
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: I belong? The signals point toward the Republican Party. Trump
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: basically lived in South Florida for the four years of
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: his presidency and then literally moved and lived in South
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: Florida for the years of his presidency. Him and his
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: surrogates were in there all the time. Democrats were essentially
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: no-shows during the 2020 election, in part because of the pandemic.
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: And so you're looking around, who's talking to me? Who
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: cares about me? All the signals are pointing in one
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: direction at the same time that new people are becoming
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: eligible in the electorate. New Cubans, new Venezuelans, many of
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: whom were more progressive, even as the Democratic Party was
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: engaging and debating around like democratic socialism and the Bernie wing.
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: And so all of these things kind of came together.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: At the same time, the Democrats kind of let go
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: of the rope. And so the trends that we saw
• 25:19
  Speaker 7: in 2020, while they were arrested in other places, in
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: Florida just kept going. And the numbers had just kept
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: tumbling into 2022 because there was no resistance.
• 25:26
  Speaker 9: That's great.
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: And we're really a culmination of 10 years of investment
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: and really a one-sided media ecosystem, a one-sided... set of
• 25:35
  Speaker 8: voices saying Joe Biden is a socialist and Democrats are
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: socialists for 10 years after Barack Obama. I mean, just
• 25:41
  Speaker 8: the level of attrition that we have seen here since
• 25:44
  Speaker 8: Barack Obama last won Florida among Latinos and, you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 8: in the 2012 election has been astounding. And it's not
• 25:51
  Speaker 8: just among Cubans. Like we've started to see that attrition
• 25:53
  Speaker 8: among other subgroups of Latinos. And I think the one
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: glimmer of hope for me in a place like Florida
• 25:59
  Speaker 8: are a the abortion ballot initiative here, you know, the
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: cycle is going to really generate a lot of enthusiasm.
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: Will it be enough? I don't know. But there is
• 26:12
  Speaker 8: certainly something there that is going to generate animus and excitement.
• 26:17
  Speaker 8: The second is, as Carlos mentioned, new arrivals. The thing
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: about the migration crisis that I don't think people fully
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: registered with the American public is it's not just people
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: from Mexico coming. This is Cubans, Venezuelans, people fleeing all
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: parts of the world, really, but you've got a couple
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: hundred thousand new arrivals here in South Florida whose political
• 26:42
  Speaker 8: ideologies have not been hearted. They are just glad to
• 26:45
  Speaker 8: not be where they were before. They're trying to navigate
• 26:48
  Speaker 8: where they belong in this new media ecosystem, in this
• 26:52
  Speaker 8: new political ecosystem. They're trying to identify who am I
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: aligned with, who is fighting for me and my family,
• 26:58
  Speaker 8: who's fighting for me as a first-generation immigrant. So There's
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: a huge opportunity to go organize those people and bring
• 27:05
  Speaker 8: them into a system and introduce them to who the
• 27:08
  Speaker 8: Democratic Party actually is and really reintroduce who Democrats and
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: progressives are. There have been people doing great work on
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: the ground here for a long time with very little
• 27:19
  Speaker 8: resources because people, the larger political infrastructure has kind of
• 27:24
  Speaker 8: unilaterally disarmed from Florida. But there are threads there. that
• 27:28
  Speaker 8: can really potentially weave something together that could bring it back.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: So your research and just about every private and public
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: poll and focus group comes to the same conclusion. Even
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: though unemployment is low and inflation has fallen, cost of living,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: affordability remains number one issue for Latino voters, just like
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: all voters. Certainly comes through in the ECI's focus groups
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: you were kind enough to share. Let's listen to a clip.
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: Every day it gets harder and harder to buy essentials.
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: So it's just, I got a new job and I've
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: been making the most money I've ever had, but I
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: feel worse than I was when I was making $ 16
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: an hour.
• 28:07
  Speaker 10: I used to be able to survive with my family
• 28:12
  Speaker 10: of five with what I'm making, and now I'm not.
• 28:17
  Speaker 10: So I have to work twice as much, look for
• 28:21
  Speaker 10: another part-time job to be able to afford everything that's
• 28:24
  Speaker 10: going on.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: So Two of the most common reactions to these sentiments
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: that I hear from a lot of liberals are, one,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: these people are just misinformed about the economy, which is
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: objectively doing quite well. And two, we just have to
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: do a better job communicating Joe Biden's accomplishments, Democratic Party's
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: accomplishments to these voters. Stephanie, what's your thinking on that?
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: Oh, man, so many thoughts. Um, You know, I think
• 28:51
  Speaker 8: that I'm very challenged by it because obviously the fundamentals
• 28:54
  Speaker 8: of the economy and like the traditional measures of the
• 28:58
  Speaker 8: economy are quite strong. You know, Latino unemployment rate is
• 29:01
  Speaker 8: at the lowest it's ever been. You know, the numbers
• 29:04
  Speaker 8: on paper matter. But do people feel it in their lives?
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: And that is the kind of last mile gap that
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: we as Democrats and as progressives need to figure out
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: how we communicate feelings over facts. Because whatever... policies have
• 29:21
  Speaker 8: passed or are influencing the state and the health of
• 29:25
  Speaker 8: the economy are not impacting everyday people's lives. And it's
• 29:28
  Speaker 8: not unique to Latinos. We know this, right? Like this
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: is a phenomenon that is pervasive across all voter groups
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: that people just aren't feeling the shifts and the changes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 8: They feel like all these policies have been passed and
• 29:41
  Speaker 8: there's been a lot of spending that has been happening,
• 29:43
  Speaker 8: but what does it mean to me and my family
• 29:44
  Speaker 8: and my ability to put food on the table and
• 29:46
  Speaker 8: not have to work two jobs? At the same time,
• 29:49
  Speaker 8: I also believe that there is a tremendous amount of
• 29:53
  Speaker 8: opportunity to be able to communicate that. So even just
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: take healthcare and student loans, two really, really important economic issues.
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: Those are not economic issues. Those are about making college
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: more affordable and taking a burden of college loans and
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: college debt off people's plate and healthcare, which has been
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: one of the most important reductions in costs and prescription
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: drugs for Latino families. You have two of the most
• 30:18
  Speaker 8: important surrogates, Miguel Cardona, who's Secretary of Education, and Javier Becerra,
• 30:23
  Speaker 8: who is Secretary of HHS, who are both Spanish dominant,
• 30:28
  Speaker 8: Spanish proficient, very culturally competent people who can go out
• 30:32
  Speaker 8: and sell this kind of stuff in Spanish. And I
• 30:34
  Speaker 8: think there is this challenge of communicating both in language
• 30:39
  Speaker 8: and in culturally competent places, whether that be radio or
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: Spanish language TV or through places like WhatsApp and other
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: channels that is really actually reaching the people we're trying
• 30:50
  Speaker 8: to reach. Because right now, The policy deliverables and the
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: policy wins and accomplishments live inside the beltway right now.
• 30:58
  Speaker 8: They are not in everyday people's lives and they're not
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: feeling it.
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: We've kind of been stuck in a never-ending 2020 where
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: people voted for normalcy. They wanted to get back to something.
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: And yet, you know, global dynamics led to a point
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: where what we had was crisis upon crisis upon crisis
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: and people felt like they never came out of it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: And so it makes sense that in polling today or
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: in focus groups like the one we just listened to,
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: people are expressing frustration and discontent. The word I would
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: keep coming back to is insecurity. I can say more
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: about what people are saying both in groups and in
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: polling about insecurity. The question is what to do about this.
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: The question is not, we're not, we can't debate people's realities.
• 31:41
  Speaker 7: We have to debate what we're going to do about
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: it and who's going to be better at doing about that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 7: Who's going to care about the fact that you are struggling?
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: Who is going to fight on your behalf?
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And deliver.
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: And that's where picking a fight on something like Obamacare,
• 31:56
  Speaker 7: picking a fight on specific cost measures like prescription drugs,
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: once we get more into the debate, once it is
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: not just as it is right now, a question of
• 32:05
  Speaker 7: are you happy, are you not happy? Once we start
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: getting into who do you think is going to protect
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: you and there's an actual choice, then the picture can change.
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: If Democrats don't dismiss their concerns, and instead try to
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: accept them, embrace them, and say, okay, what are we
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: gonna do about it together?
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does sound like you need to make the
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: election a choice. You need to make it a choice
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: about the future and not about which president running had
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: better records in the past. It's not just a laundry
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: list of policies, but it really is, like you said,
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: who is going to fight for you? And the policies
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: then become proof points in that larger argument.
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: It's almost like you say this all the time.
• 32:48
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: You know, it doesn't get through.
• 32:52
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about immigration. People often assume mistakenly that immigration
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: is the top issue for Latino voters. But in this election,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: it's one of the top issues for all voters and
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: also the issue where they happen to give Joe Biden
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: the lowest ratings, despite the fact that the majority of
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Latino voters and all voters weren't fans of Donald Trump's
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: approach to immigration during his first term. But most voters
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: now want the government to do more about unauthorized border crossings.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Biden recently took action to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: to asylum seekers when crossings get too high. So far,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: the polls show that most American voters and most Latino
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: voters support that action, and some voters in your focus
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: groups did as well. Let's take a listen.
• 33:31
  Speaker 12: It's hard to say that I want to see stronger
• 33:36
  Speaker 12: border policies or anything like that because my grandparents all
• 33:40
  Speaker 12: came here illegally, so I feel like my... my mind
• 33:45
  Speaker 12: or my heart is kind of ripped into two when
• 33:49
  Speaker 12: it comes to that, just because it's just like, well,
• 33:51
  Speaker 12: if I was for a harsher border, then, you know,
• 33:56
  Speaker 12: maybe I wouldn't be here. But at the same time,
• 33:59
  Speaker 12: I feel like, you know, I guess at the rates
• 34:03
  Speaker 12: where at least we hear that people are basically just
• 34:06
  Speaker 12: walking through a border with nobody there to stop them.
• 34:10
  Speaker 12: I feel like I don't think that should be happening either.
• 34:13
  Speaker 11: I do like how Biden has really recently started to
• 34:18
  Speaker 11: be stricter on the border just because it shows that
• 34:23
  Speaker 11: he's at least willing to give something up on his
• 34:26
  Speaker 11: end in order to try to meet halfway through. So
• 34:28
  Speaker 11: I want to see more of that. Let's get away
• 34:31
  Speaker 11: from both the extremes. Let's meet somewhere in the middle
• 34:34
  Speaker 11: on all the issues. Let's be unified. Let's act like adults.
• 34:38
  Speaker 11: Let's not act like little kids. And let's just make
• 34:42
  Speaker 11: sure that this country is going to be around healthy
• 34:44
  Speaker 11: for our grandkids and their grandkids.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Carlos, how would you describe what's happened overall to views
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: on immigration over the last few years?
• 34:55
  Speaker 7: So you said this earlier, John, or in your setup here,
• 34:58
  Speaker 7: immigration was never the number one issue for Latino voters,
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: but it always helped differentiate between the parties, or at
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: least it has in the modern era. It was a
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: line in the sand to help you understand who was
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: fighting on your side and who was not. Democrats had
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: a huge advantage as far as that was concerned. That
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: advantage has somewhat disappeared. And it is led by people
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: on all sides of this issue among Latinos, regardless of
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: where you were, on whether you are super pro pathway
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: to citizenship, or whether you were all about border security,
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: which is a smaller number, there was a frustration in
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: the early going of the administration around what felt like
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: a deprioritization of the issue, or a sense that, sure,
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: Republicans are worse on it, but at the end of
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: the day, Democrats promise and don't deliver. And so there's
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: a loss between the parties. Whether that's fair or not,
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: that was the perception as it was seen. And so
• 35:47
  Speaker 7: right now, what has happened in the absence of other
• 35:50
  Speaker 7: debates is we're talking about the border. And the border
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: has permeated. And once the border hit big cities. So
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: the border was not just the border, but the border
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: became a national issue. We're talking about a debate that
• 36:01
  Speaker 7: is fundamentally about law and order. Latino voters are very
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: sophisticated on this issue in a way that I think
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: sometimes the media is not. Immigration is a clumsy term
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: for a lot of different policy areas that we're talking about.
• 36:14
  Speaker 7: When it comes to border, people are talking about it
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: in terms of law and order and public safety and
• 36:19
  Speaker 7: wanting some measure of control. All that they have been
• 36:21
  Speaker 7: hearing from the right wing through the course of the
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: Biden administration and earlier, was that the border is out
• 36:27
  Speaker 7: of control. And if you believe the border is out
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: of control, you support measures to bring it back under control.
• 36:34
  Speaker 7: Clear and simple. There's another side of the debate that's
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: about what do we do about people who are already here?
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: And how do we treat immigrants? You probably wrote in
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: innumerable speeches in the Obama years, we are a nation
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: of laws and a nation of immigrants.
• 36:49
  Speaker 11: Oh, yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: And there's a separate debate about what do we do
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: about people who have been here? embedded in our families
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: and our communities that we're not having right now. That
• 36:58
  Speaker 7: hopefully the administration will take steps that allow us to
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: have that debate because it is a much better debate
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: to have. Most voters, including Latinos, are both and voters.
• 37:09
  Speaker 7: They want order at the border and they want to
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: take care of people who are already here.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: How much of a problem for the campaign, all campaigns
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: at this point, is the tension between immigration activists and
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: progressive organizers who mostly oppose President Biden's border move and
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: maybe a majority of voters, including Democratic voters and Latino voters,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: who happen to support it?
• 37:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I think that the thing that you're seeing,
• 37:36
  Speaker 8: whether it's activists and advocates or voters themselves, is like
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: a desire for solutions. Like, I've been working on this issue,
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: I just reflected on it, for 18 years, since 2004.
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: And I've seen attempts at meaningful action, but there's actually
• 37:51
  Speaker 8: been no actual meaningful action legislatively on this issue in
• 37:55
  Speaker 8: 18 years. We obviously had what President Obama did with DACA,
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: and that's come and gone through the courts. That's where
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: the Biden administration may take some action to address some
• 38:06
  Speaker 8: of the people who are here now as well. I
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: think whether you're talking to voters or advocates, what you're
• 38:12
  Speaker 8: sensing is just this real frustration across all parts of
• 38:17
  Speaker 8: the spectrum about inaction on this issue and the need
• 38:21
  Speaker 8: to get to real solutions and also a need for
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: Democrats to deliver in a way that Latinos see and
• 38:28
  Speaker 8: feel that delivered for them. Because up to this point,
• 38:32
  Speaker 8: it's felt like a lot of broken promises, including the
• 38:35
  Speaker 8: the time that we spent working in the Obama administration,
• 38:37
  Speaker 8: it felt like broken promises then too. And it has
• 38:40
  Speaker 8: continued to feel that way over the last 10 years
• 38:44
  Speaker 8: when there have been fits and starts and candidates say,
• 38:46
  Speaker 8: we're going to push for this or fight for this.
• 38:48
  Speaker 8: So the advocacy world is beyond patient on what could
• 38:53
  Speaker 8: and should happen. And voters are now seeing what's happening
• 38:57
  Speaker 8: at the border. But I think to Carlos's point and
• 38:59
  Speaker 8: what we heard from the focus group comments, like there's
• 39:01
  Speaker 8: this conflict that exists with them too, which is, They
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: want solutions to get a handle on what's happening and
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: what feels like a very, very chaotic situation. And they
• 39:11
  Speaker 8: also want compassionate, real solutions to deal with people who
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: have been here, who are part of mixed status families,
• 39:20
  Speaker 8: who are part of their community, who are part of
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: keeping the economy going, like farm workers, for example. You
• 39:25
  Speaker 8: have people in this country, including, let me say, a
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: United States contractor, who was married to somebody formerly undocumented.
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: Like people are interspersed with the immigration system in every
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: walk of life. And it's not just Latinos, it's African immigrants,
• 39:43
  Speaker 8: it's now Asian immigrants, it's every walk of life. And
• 39:46
  Speaker 8: so you're just have this level of like, Frustration of like,
• 39:49
  Speaker 8: and they're not even doing anything with the people who
• 39:51
  Speaker 8: are here. So I would just say like across the
• 39:55
  Speaker 8: spectrum from progressive to more conservative, it's just people are
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: fed up.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys were both mentioning that President Biden might
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: take another action. You know, it was reported this week
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: he might move to provide legal status to undocumented immigrants
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: who've been here a long time and are married to
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: American citizens. Do you think that is a move that
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: is significant enough that that will have an impact on voters?
• 40:18
  Speaker 8: Yes. Yeah. They have to go and talk about it.
• 40:21
  Speaker 8: So like it can't happen and then just kind of
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: slip to the, to the, like they got to go
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: talk about it. And they got him again, that last
• 40:29
  Speaker 8: mile problem of connecting the dots of, of something we
• 40:33
  Speaker 8: did to deliver and solving a problem because this truly
• 40:36
  Speaker 8: is about problem solving and solutions. But yes.
• 40:39
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker 7: We spent a lot of time looking for things that
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: move Latino voters. And this is one of those things
• 40:46
  Speaker 7: that helps bring back some of the margins that you
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: used to see. This is the kind of debate that
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: helped create the high levels of Democratic support that at
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: a certain point we got used to, almost too used to,
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: that we started taking for granted.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: You mentioned how there's been a conflation of the border
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: with what happens with how do we treat people who
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: are already here. It feels like that benefits Trump, particularly
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: in Republicans, because I keep thinking that even though voters
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: tend to support tougher border measures right now, Trump's second
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: term immigration proposals seem like they could really hurt him
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: with the chunk of voters he needs to win. Army
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: conducting massive raids in every city, giant camps, mass deportations.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Am I wrong here?
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: You're 100% right. I mean, this is, I think they're overreaching.
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: I think Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and these nutjobs
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: are getting a little too excited about what they have
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: seen happening because of the border and are misinterpreting the possibility.
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: Remember that in the Trump administration, We didn't really talk
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: a lot about deportation. There was a lot of talk
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: over the border. In the Bush years, all we talked
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: about were deportations. Even in the Obama years, we were
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: just talking about deportations. Trump kind of shifted this in
• 41:58
  Speaker 7: a savvy way to just be this law and order concern,
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: which would naturally advantage Republicans. Now, all of a sudden,
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: his people want to talk about mass deportation of people
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: who have been here decades. When you talk about deportation
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: in the context of the crisis in the cities, maybe
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: you get numbers higher than you've expected in the past.
• 42:17
  Speaker 7: But when you start bringing it to that level of
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: someone who has been married to an American citizen, who
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: actually most people assume already should become a citizen because
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: of that and are shocked to learn they're not, Trump
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: is majorly overreaching. And there's an opportunity for Biden. What
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: any action on the White House's behalf would help is
• 42:33
  Speaker 7: allow that contrast to be more credible, to be able
• 42:37
  Speaker 7: to reinforce Democrats are doing this right. We're doing the border.
• 42:42
  Speaker 7: We are taking care of people who are here. And
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: look at what Trump wants to do. He wants more
• 42:46
  Speaker 7: chaos at the border. He shot down bipartisan efforts to
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: address the border situation. And now he wants to deport
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: millions of people who have been here for years. Our
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: polling very much suggests that that's an incredible opportunity for
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: Biden to regain some support among Latinos.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Has it broken through?
• 43:02
  Speaker 8: It has not. The politicization of the border has absolutely
• 43:06
  Speaker 8: not broken through.
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: Nor the deportations, the Trump plans. People haven't heard them yet.
• 43:10
  Speaker 8: So- But that in and of itself is not going
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: to be enough. Like that in and of itself is
• 43:18
  Speaker 8: a scare tactic that can motivate, but there also has
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: to be something that people feel like they can be
• 43:24
  Speaker 8: for and that somebody delivered for them. And it's a solution, right?
• 43:28
  Speaker 8: It's not just about politicization or shutting down the border.
• 43:32
  Speaker 8: It is also about a solution to a problem that
• 43:36
  Speaker 8: has existed in society for 20, 25 years, right? That
• 43:40
  Speaker 8: like we've known has been a challenge that nobody's really
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: been able to actually address. And so whatever, again, I'll
• 43:46
  Speaker 8: come back to what I said before, which is that
• 43:49
  Speaker 8: you can't just do the action and then expect that
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: it's going to be enough. Like you have to do
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: the action and lean into it. And my guess would
• 43:58
  Speaker 8: be that like, this is the kind of thing that
• 44:01
  Speaker 8: is not just going to resonate with Latino voters, But
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: it's not going to have the kind of negative backlash with,
• 44:08
  Speaker 8: you know, white suburban swing voters or, you know, black
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: voters or other voters that conventional wisdom might tell us
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: it would. Like, I think this is the kind of
• 44:17
  Speaker 8: thing that, again, it's about a solution. You know, Biden's
• 44:21
  Speaker 8: been rightfully focused at bringing order to the border. And
• 44:24
  Speaker 8: this is the next step in a solutions based process
• 44:26
  Speaker 8: around immigration.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about general impressions of the candidates, but also
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: the race and the entire political system right now. In
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: focus groups you sent us, I characterize the voters as
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: less than thrilled by the choices available to them. Let's listen.
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: I mean, four years ago, I was very confident I
• 44:57
  Speaker 9: didn't want to see Donald Trump in office again. So
• 45:00
  Speaker 9: it was a pretty clear cut decision to vote for Biden.
• 45:04
  Speaker 9: And I can just say the past four years have
• 45:07
  Speaker 9: been pretty underwhelming. I didn't see the changes that I
• 45:12
  Speaker 9: was kind of expecting or hoping from Biden. So now
• 45:17
  Speaker 9: going into it, it's like we're going to have to
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: choose between a guy that's, you know, being sued from
• 45:23
  Speaker 9: every other, you know, state in this country or a.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Guy that, you know, under delivered.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: I feel like if I don't see an improvement in
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: the last four years, what's what's going to happen the
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: next four? It's going to be the same stuff going on.
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: It's just going to get worse. Or it's just going
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: to be just as bad. I want somebody who changes everything.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: I don't want another four years of this mess that
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: I have to live in every day.
• 45:46
  Speaker 13: I used to kind of lean more towards Democratic, I guess,
• 45:48
  Speaker 13: because of my family. But lately, it seems like there's
• 45:51
  Speaker 13: a lot of fake promises that are being made or
• 45:53
  Speaker 13: just fake ideas that aren't really leading to anything. There's
• 45:56
  Speaker 13: not really much progress or anything that's big changes that
• 45:59
  Speaker 13: are happening to kind of get back what we should
• 46:01
  Speaker 13: be getting back and stuff like that. I don't really
• 46:03
  Speaker 13: think that there's trust where it used to be.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Some of that sentiment was about Joe Biden, but a
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: lot of it was just deep distrust and frustration with
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: a political system that they don't feel is working for them.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: And that seems to be a common theme among especially
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: younger voters. And since the younger generation is the most
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: diverse generation ever, that means a lot of younger Latinos
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: feel that way too. How do you guys think about
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: addressing that distrust and frustration in a conversation with these voters? Carlos?
• 46:34
  Speaker 7: You know, these focus groups who we're talking to there
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: were the most undecided, swingiest portion of Latinos. I'd say
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: right now, if I had to characterize what the Latino
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: vote looks like, I'd say there's just a great deal
• 46:46
  Speaker 7: of uncertainty. You know, roughly around 18% by one measure,
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: combining a lot of different ways, is probably like the
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: percent of Latinos, registered Latinos, who are the swingiest. It's
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: about 18% of Latinos, which is a fairly high number.
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: A lot of those people aren't going to vote. I
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: think that's part of the question here. People aren't just
• 47:03
  Speaker 7: choosing between the candidates, but are choosing whether to vote
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: or not. And what they're telling us, when you ask them,
• 47:11
  Speaker 7: as you heard in these groups, and also in polling,
• 47:12
  Speaker 7: we did one poll to try to get to what
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: are people's top priorities that they want to see the
• 47:16
  Speaker 7: government addressing. And you try to do it in a
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: forced choice way where people understand there's trade-offs. Would you
• 47:22
  Speaker 7: rather they do this or that? And what we got
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: at the end of this exercise, when you look at
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: the top five, is all about insecurities. It's either physical insecurity,
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: gun violence is number one because it shot up after
• 47:34
  Speaker 7: Uvalde and has not come back down. And then it's
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: a lot of economic insecurity, rising costs, housing costs, healthcare costs.
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: You hear it here. People are frustrated. They feel like
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: it's crisis after crisis. By the way, this is happening globally.
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: It's happening across the West. All incumbents are struggling with this.
• 47:51
  Speaker 7: And so, as I mentioned earlier, the way to handle
• 47:53
  Speaker 7: this in the beginning is, first of all, to adopt
• 47:56
  Speaker 7: a persuasion mindset. This is not just any more about,
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: can we get people excited to vote? It's, can we
• 48:02
  Speaker 7: convince them that we understand where they're coming from and
• 48:06
  Speaker 7: we are fighting on their side? Part of that is
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: about getting more specific, not allowing this to stay in
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: the abstract, right? What you hear in these groups is
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: people rightly talking about their feelings and kind of like amorphously,
• 48:19
  Speaker 7: like things just feel bad, vibes are off. So the
• 48:22
  Speaker 7: more we can get to specifics, right? Joe Biden is
• 48:24
  Speaker 7: going to protect Obamacare and Social Security and Medicare. And
• 48:28
  Speaker 7: Trump wants to take all those things away. That's where
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: you see people start to line up in a more
• 48:32
  Speaker 7: traditional manner. That said, I don't want to minimize the
• 48:36
  Speaker 7: amount of risk there is right now. We find ourselves
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: averting the two poles of doomerism on one side and
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: denialism on the other. People who think that there is
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: just a total collapse of Latino vote for Democrats coming.
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: I don't think we see that quite yet. I think
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: we see some discontent that is expressing in various ways.
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: But there's also the denialism of nothing's wrong, nothing to
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: see here. Latino vote's going to be what it always was.
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: What I'd say is a lot of different scenarios are plausible.
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: And so for Democrats, for Biden, for folks down ballot,
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: a lot of this is just about putting in the
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: work and getting back to basics.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: And a lot of it is also about, Stephanie, shaping
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: the information environment that these voters are in. And obviously,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: this is your specialty. You're running the Latino Media Network now.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: You've been working on making sure people have access to
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: some good information and some true information, good news. The
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: voters that we were just listening to, I'm guessing, are
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: probably some of the least connected to the daily news cycle.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: They are not following news very closely. That tends to
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: be the case with most low propensity voters, particularly low
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: trust voters who are just distrustful of the system. How
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: do you think about the best way to reach voters
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: these voters in the next five months? Where are they
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: getting their news from? Where are they getting their information from?
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: And who are trusted messengers that can actually help persuade them,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: as Carlos was just talking about?
• 50:00
  Speaker 8: Carlos can see me jumping out of my seat because
• 50:02
  Speaker 8: this is my favorite question.
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: Well, we got this far into the conversation without mentioning
• 50:07
  Speaker 7: that Stephanie owns 18 radio stations.
• 50:09
  Speaker 14: And we also got through this entire conversation without stating
• 50:12
  Speaker 14: my favorite data point in this election cycle, which Carlos
• 50:16
  Speaker 14: is laughing because I've used every opportunity to say it,
• 50:19
  Speaker 14: which is Nielsen, not Eckes, but Nielsen, the media consumption
• 50:22
  Speaker 14: research firm, did a whole study heading into the election
• 50:27
  Speaker 14: about where do you reach swing voters?
• 50:29
  Speaker 8: And not Latino swing voters, but all swing voters. And
• 50:32
  Speaker 8: the number one music format in which to reach swing
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: voters this election cycle is, drumroll please, Mexican regional music.
• 50:42
  Speaker 8: That is Peso Puma. That is Grupo Frontera. That is
• 50:46
  Speaker 8: a set of artists that even some I have never
• 50:50
  Speaker 8: heard of. These are like 15-year-old, amazing, crazy popular people
• 50:56
  Speaker 8: who are dominating the airwaves of Mexican regional stations. And
• 51:01
  Speaker 8: in our portfolio at Latino Media Network, we own several
• 51:04
  Speaker 8: of these stations. And so our case to candidates on
• 51:08
  Speaker 8: both sides of the aisle is advertise on our stations
• 51:11
  Speaker 8: because this is where you actually reach swing voters. This
• 51:14
  Speaker 8: is where you are actually going to be able to
• 51:16
  Speaker 8: persuade and reach swing voters. We know from our research
• 51:20
  Speaker 8: that the people who are most undecided right now tend
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: to be watching Univision and Telemundo and listening to Spanish
• 51:27
  Speaker 8: language radio. These are people who are speaking Spanish at home.
• 51:31
  Speaker 8: They probably speak English too in the world, but they
• 51:34
  Speaker 8: are living part of their life in Spanish, consuming news
• 51:37
  Speaker 8: and information in Spanish. We've known this for a very
• 51:39
  Speaker 8: long time that Latinos are over-consuming on places like YouTube
• 51:43
  Speaker 8: and WhatsApp and other online digital platforms. So things like
• 51:49
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump had a WhatsApp distribution channel in the last
• 51:53
  Speaker 8: election cycle and during the White House years. So he's
• 51:56
  Speaker 8: got a way to reach and engage Latinos on WhatsApp.
• 51:58
  Speaker 8: And if you're a Latino that's not on WhatsApp, that's,
• 52:01
  Speaker 8: you know, the minority of people in this country. So
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: you've got like just these really unique ways that Latinos
• 52:07
  Speaker 8: are consuming news and information. And I agree with you, John,
• 52:10
  Speaker 8: like the people who are in those focus groups are
• 52:12
  Speaker 8: listening to FM radio. They are not listening to Pots
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: of America. They are not listening to podcasts about politics.
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: They are kind of trying to survive every single day
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: are listening to music and are plugging into their local
• 52:27
  Speaker 8: radio station to try to navigate the breadth of information
• 52:31
  Speaker 8: and trying to figure out what's happening in the Middle East,
• 52:33
  Speaker 8: what's happening with inflation, what's bringing costs down. So there
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: is an opportunity to have a conversation through these mediums
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: where people actually are. But we have to do it
• 52:44
  Speaker 8: in a way that is going to make sure that
• 52:46
  Speaker 8: people aren't tuning out. Because if we're going to come
• 52:50
  Speaker 8: and just deliver political podcasts, that's not the kind of
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: thing that you know, just hand raisers, people who are
• 52:56
  Speaker 8: already involved in politics, people who are already engaged in
• 52:59
  Speaker 8: the system. Those aren't necessarily the people that we need
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: to bring in to kind of the conversation now. So
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: it's not rocket science. It truly is not. And we
• 53:08
  Speaker 8: know that radio advertising as a tactic is one of
• 53:13
  Speaker 8: the most efficient tactics to motivate voters of color as well.
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: So it just, it makes sense from a lot of
• 53:20
  Speaker 8: different angles.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: One thing that I'm keeping an eye on is, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: beyond the political news world, as you get into more entertainment,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: cultural media, what are the vibes? And is it becoming
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: more socially acceptable to vote for Donald Trump? Is it
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: just uncool to vote for Joe Biden or support Joe Biden?
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: And I think about that broadly with all media. But
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering, what is the vibe in Latino media?
• 53:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's such a great question because we talk so
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: much about ads in politics, but ads work at the
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: very end. You want someone to see your ads as
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: close to the act of voting as possible because the
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: effects decay so quickly. So much of the attitudes that
• 54:02
  Speaker 7: are being shaped now are being shaped in social media,
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: organic media, in your networks, word of mouth, or what
• 54:07
  Speaker 7: have you. And so we do monitor what people are
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: saying on YouTube. TikTok is obviously one place where recent
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: studies have shown Trump is highly overrepresented in the broader electorate.
• 54:20
  Speaker 7: And that doesn't have an effect. We talked about it
• 54:21
  Speaker 7: being a social phenomenon, how people vote sometimes. And when
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: you see more Latinos vocally expressing support for Donald Trump,
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: it creates more of a permission structure, right? And so
• 54:32
  Speaker 7: there is an invested effort in trying to make that
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: seem even bigger than it is. It's a very vocal,
• 54:38
  Speaker 7: loud segment of social media you see on YouTube. For
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: a while, progressives didn't think it was cool to be
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: on YouTube. And so the right wing was kind of
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: controlling YouTube. And people go to YouTube or end up
• 54:49
  Speaker 7: there via Google because they want to understand current events.
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: Something is happening recently. January 6th happens. For the kind
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: of voter we're talking about, they're not tuning on CNN.
• 54:57
  Speaker 7: They're Googling, what is January 6th? And if you end
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: up on YouTube, a lot of the content that was
• 55:01
  Speaker 7: there to provide context and shape people's sense of what's
• 55:05
  Speaker 7: going on in the world was either straight news, which
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: was very limited in what it could convey, especially in
• 55:12
  Speaker 7: this modern era, or straight up right-wing hot takes. And
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: people get sucked into the spiral of right-wing media ecosystems
• 55:20
  Speaker 7: on YouTube. It is yet another reason why we believe
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: that if Democrats, progressives want to succeed, they have to
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: show up and have these debates wherever Latinos are getting
• 55:30
  Speaker 7: their news and information. And that is moving beyond and
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: stretching in spaces like YouTube.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: So last question for both of you. We're trying to
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: give folks who are volunteering and having these conversations with
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: voters some advice on how to persuade the undecided voters
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: in your life. Final question for both of you. If
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: there's a undecided voter in your life who's not sure
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: they want to vote for Joe Biden again, voted for
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: him in 2020, they're on the fence now, they're feeling conflicted.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: You have a few minutes to persuade this person to
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: get out and vote for Biden. What do you say?
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: First of all, the way you persuade people is by
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: providing new information that is relevant to them. And so
• 56:07
  Speaker 7: we don't talk about the past. People already know what
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: Trump did in the past. It's already baked into their
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: current understanding of things. We have to talk about the future.
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: about what he has planned in the future. We do
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: have to show up and show that we care and
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: are coming from the same place. And we need to,
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: especially if what you're having is a conversation with Latino voters,
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: not flatten people's identity down, but rather understand Latinos don't
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: want to be othered. Latinos very much are American like
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: anyone else. And while identity plays an important role, it
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: is one among many identities. Latinos don't assume though that
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: they are invited to the party. So you need to
• 56:44
  Speaker 7: be explicit about the fact that something is targeting to
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: Latinos while walking the fine line to not pander. So
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: the most effective messaging is about talking about things that
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: all hardworking Americans want, including Latinos across the board. Now
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: you're not going to use a poll tested messaging at
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: the dinner table, or when you're hanging out with your
• 57:04
  Speaker 7: other parent friends at a kid's birthday party. So, so
• 57:08
  Speaker 7: I think at the end of the day, it is
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: coming back to saying, acknowledging some of the limitations, but
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: saying for the things we care about, whether that's cost
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: of living and healthcare costs, whether that's about abortion, pointing
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: out the many ways in which Donald Trump continues to
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: fight for himself and for the rich and the powerful
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: and not for people like us. Whereas Joe Biden, while
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: not perfect, cares, and we know he cares. And at
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: the end of the day, when a decision is being
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: made in the White House, what I want to know is,
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: Is this person making this decision, taking somebody like you
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: and me into consideration? With Joe Biden, I know that.
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: With Donald Trump, I know he's only looking out for himself.
• 57:48
  Speaker 8: Yeah. And I would say what Carlos has outlined their
• 57:52
  Speaker 8: attempts at is making somebody feel over giving them a
• 57:57
  Speaker 8: list of facts. So I'm going to come back to
• 57:58
  Speaker 8: kind of my feelings over facts, like feelings need to
• 58:02
  Speaker 8: drive a litany of facts. And at the end of
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: the day, this question of who's on my side, who's
• 58:08
  Speaker 8: fighting for me and my family. And this sense that
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: not only is Donald Trump looking out for him and himself,
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: but he's poisoning the blood of this country. And that
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: there is an element of him targeting this community that
• 58:24
  Speaker 8: is making it harder for us to be who we
• 58:27
  Speaker 8: want to be as a country and creating that sense.
• 58:30
  Speaker 8: And I think you know, what Carlos just kind of
• 58:32
  Speaker 8: laid out, and you can intersperse the policy there, the
• 58:35
  Speaker 8: student loans, the healthcare piece, prescription drugs, and immigration. And
• 58:39
  Speaker 8: I think that getting back to what you outlined, John, is,
• 58:43
  Speaker 8: you know, the future of Trump's immigration policy is horrific.
• 58:47
  Speaker 8: And that sentiment of like, this is the world we
• 58:50
  Speaker 8: could possibly live in, like, this is actually the world
• 58:53
  Speaker 8: we can, and making people feel that in a way
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: that is compelling enough to to understand that like staying
• 59:01
  Speaker 8: home isn't the answer either. Like staying home and defecting
• 59:06
  Speaker 8: to the couch is as much a vote for Donald
• 59:08
  Speaker 8: Trump in some ways. as pulling down the lever for
• 59:12
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump itself. And that really like to be able
• 59:15
  Speaker 8: to change the course of this country is voting for
• 59:18
  Speaker 8: Joe Biden.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Fantastic. Thank you both so much. It's always just such
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to talk to both of you. And I
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: always feel so much better after I do. So I
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: appreciate you guys taking the time.
• 59:29
  Speaker 8: Thank you.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: I thought Carlos and Stephanie ended on such important points
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: that are useful no matter who you're trying to persuade.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: There's a limit to how many minds can be changed
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: by simply refreshing people's memories about how bad Trump was
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: or how much good Joe Biden has done. Elections have
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: rarely been won by relitigating the past. Facts are important,
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: but we aren't moved by facts alone. We want to
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: feel seen and heard and understood. None of us like
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: being pandered to, and we certainly don't expect our politicians
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: to be perfect. We just want to know that they
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: actually give a shit about us and that their vision
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: for the country includes us.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a queer immigrant.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I'm married to the love of my life, and I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: just bought a home. I have elderly parents who are
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: both sick.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: I have in-laws who are, you know, looking to maybe retire.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: 70s and 80s. I am a person who comes from
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: a mixed status family. So I have a lot to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: freaking lose.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: That's Leo's story. And I'm willing to bet you have
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: a lot at stake too.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 8: We all do.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: And the key to changing minds is to go into
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: each conversation with the assumption that the person you're talking
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: to doesn't just define themselves by their identity or their politics.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: They probably care about a lot of the same things
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: you do.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Don't write people off. That's probably the biggest message. Don't
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: write anyone off. Every ordinary person can be spoken to,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: can be convinced if they trust you. Have tough conversations
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: because people.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Are worth it.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Our futures are worth it. If you're concerned that your
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: uncle or your tia are absorbed into Fox News, tough shit.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: You can talk to them about the issues and how
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: they matter, right?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: And talk to them about the truth. Point to real things.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: The world outside is not on fire, right? Look out
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: your window. These are the perspectives that ordinary people bring.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I am not an ordinary person. I'm not normal. I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: live and breathe politics. People don't want to hear from me.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: They want to hear from their nieces, their nephews, their tias,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: their tios, their moms, their grandmas. Those are the people
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: that they want to hear from. Their co-workers, their hairstylists, wherever.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: They want to hear from ordinary people about how the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Biden administration has actually had their backs.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: How insulin being $ 35 a month is a game-changer.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: How protecting the access to seniors, Medicare, Social Security, that's a.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Real benefit for real people, right?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: And like canceling student debt, holy cow, that needs to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: be at the top of every family conversation, right? If
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you had the privilege of going to college and you
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: have the privilege of benefiting from this stuff and you're
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: not shouting that from the mountaintops, you need to look
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: in the mirror and actually talk to yourself about how
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: you can do more.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: And it's not hard.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Leo's right. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but it's
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: not hard. And it's the only way we're going to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: win this thing. We'll see you next time on The Wilderness.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: The Wilderness is a production of Crooked Media. It's written
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. Our senior producer and
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: editor is Andrea B.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: Scott.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Austin Fisher is our producer. And Farah Safari is our
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: associate producer. Sound design by Vassilis Fotopoulos. Music by Marty Fowler.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Charlotte Landis and Jordan Cantor sound engineered the show. Thanks
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: to Katie Long, Reed Cherlin, Matt DeGrotte, and Madeline Herringer
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: for production support. To our video team, Rachel Gajewski, Joseph Dutra,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: Chris Russell, Molly Lobel, and David Tolles, who filmed and
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: edited the show. If the wilderness has inspired you to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: get involved, head on over to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: sign up and find a volunteer shift near you.