On the evening of Nov. 3, the results of this year’s election started trickling in. But after months of work and speculation, the news wasn’t what Democrats had hoped for. Instead of the landslide victory some had predicted, the race for the presidency was close and wouldn’t be called until days later.
Unlike Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan—all of which would eventually go to President-elect Joe Biden—the perennial battleground states Texas and Florida were both called on the night of the election. Both went to Trump. While this was perhaps not wholly unexpected, exit polls showed that Trump won over a good chunk of the states’ Latino populations.
Case in point: Trump over-performed in Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. In Florida, Trump won almost half of the Latino vote, improving on his 2016 vote total in Miami-Dade by almost 200,000 votes. In the Latino-heavy Rio Grande Valley, once considered a Democratic stronghold, Trump won between 41 and 47% of Hispanic voters.
Trump’s improvement with Latino voters overshadowed Biden’s support with what is now the largest ethnic minority voting bloc in the U.S. Although Trump’s Latino support did increase by about four percentage points, according to Politico, Biden won two-thirds of Latinos nationally. That’s about the same share that Clinton won in 2016.
Still, social media was flooded with hand-wringing, shock and outrage over the Latino vote. Latinos were poised to deliver the White House for Democrats. It was supposed to be a historic win. Instead, Democrats would have to wait days to be assured of their victory. What happened?
Latino voter mobilization groups like Mijente can offer some insight.
The post-election blame game
In an op-ed published in the New York Times shortly after the election, Mijente’s co-founder Marisa Franco addressed the idea that Latino voters failed Democrats—and how it was actually the other way around.
While it is true that numerous Latinos in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Florida’s Miami-Dade county voted for Trump, it’s also true that Latinos, along with Navajo nation voters, helped swing Arizona blue.
Franco points out the Democratic party’s effort to court Latino voters was lackluster. When Mijente and other local groups canvassed in Arizona, people told organizers that they’d never been contacted by a political party before.
“They often lacked basic information about the primary election process and how to vote by mail,” Franco explained. “Organizations tried to fill the gaps, stave off voter suppression efforts and influence policy. It was a lot of ground to cover, and we were largely doing it on our own.”
“These outcomes are a window into the future of a growing Latino electorate,” Franco added. “And they offer a warning sign to the Democratic Party: Don’t expect Latinos to be reliably blue if we cannot rely on you.”
The conversation around Latino voters centers on two stories: one is why Democrats didn’t do as well with Latinos as they had hoped; the other is if Democrats were doing enough to appeal to Latinos.
According to Franco and numerous other Latino organizers, the answer to the latter is a resounding “no.”
The Latino population in the U.S. clocks in at about 60 million, with about half of them being eligible to vote. With such large numbers, Latinos have been poised to become one of the most important voting blocs in the country. And yet, many organizers spent months sounding the alarm that Democrats weren’t doing enough to win over Latino voters, essentially taking their votes for granted.
A Somos/UnidosUS poll released in August—a mere three months before the election—showed that 64% of Latino registered voters said they had not received any contact in 2020 from a candidate, political party or nonpartisan group.
In an interview with The Atlantic, Chuck Rocha, former senior advisor to Bernie Sanders and founder of Nuestro PAC, said, “Instead of hearing a motivating message to encourage them to vote, many Latinos aren’t hearing anything at all.”
Democrats expected Latinos to vote against Trump and the GOP’s racist rhetoric and cruel border policies—an assumption that proved to be complacent and wrong, Franco said.
“A pitch to voters that simply posits that Democrats are not as racist as Republicans is not good enough to get people to vote, much less volunteer or donate,” she wrote. “Politicians hoping to connect with Latino voters must make the case for how their policy solutions will reach communities that have been historically marginalized or barred from benefiting from their policies.”
Franco said that such substantive engagement and outreach was part of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign during the primaries—which is why Latinos overwhelmingly supported Sanders in the 2020 primaries.
Unfortunately, other Democratic candidates—from the Biden campaign downward—failed to learn from that success. “Too often in political campaigns, communities of color are prioritized late, if at all,” said Franco. “Many people feel abandoned by the Democratic Party, and this was exploited by Republicans’ outreach in these districts. Their focus on Mr. Trump’s record on the economy resonated in economically depressed areas. Directly questioning what Democrats have done for reliable voters also hit home.”
Franco added, “This vicious cycle of writing off Latinos as infrequent voters—and then blaming us for election outcomes and using that to justify inaction on issues that matter to us—must end.”
No such thing as the Latino vote
Another important insight Mijente offers is that Latinos are an incredibly diverse group of people. “You have people whose origins trace back to 20+ countries, speak a variety of languages and identify with a number of races, ethnicities, religions and class backgrounds,” Mijente explained. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for Latinos, as is evidenced by Trump’s inroads with Cubans and Venezuelan-Americans in Florida.
According to Mijente, Central Americans, who have their own unique voting trends, are particularly ignored. There are approximately 2.3 million Salvadorans in the U.S., making them the third-largest population of Hispanic origin, according to the Pew Research Center. Salvadorans—and Central Americans in general—have been especially hurt by Trump’s immigration policies. When politicians conflate Latino with Mexican or Mexican American, they’re alienating a significant portion of Latino voters.
Additionally, as numerous Latino-centric groups have pointed out, Latinos are not single-issue voters who prioritize immigration policy. Assuming that they are, Mijente argues, leads to greater disengagement of Latinos in politics and reduces voter mobilization.
“If we don’t see ourselves in a political agenda, or if we don’t believe in the content or viability of said agenda, we aren’t going to move, much less mobilize,” writes Franco.
Even when it comes to immigration, Democrats aren’t doing enough. “We have seen a regression of immigration policy,” argued Franco. “Instead of progress, our futures are peddled and passed around as if they are pieces in a political game.”
Lastly, it’s important to note that the Latino population in the Midwest and in southern states has exploded in recent years. So Mijente organizers Arianna Genis and Cris Batista moved to North Carolina to reach Latino voters there, wrote Christian Paz in The Atlantic.
These pockets offer an untapped well of voters who could significantly alter the political landscape of the U.S., making it possible for once-safe Republican states to turn blue—assuming that Democrats can learn how to exploit this opportunity.
“No one is coming to save us”
Given the lackluster outreach by Democrats, Latino groups like Mijente have taken matters into their own hands.
Mijente is a digital and grassroots organization that purports to be a “political home” for Latino organizing. Its name is a portmanteau of the Spanish words “mi” and “gente,” which translates to “my people.” Its main goals are mobilizing Latino voters, building Latino political power and empowering Latinos to advocate both for themselves and others.
Although the Latino population in the U.S. is predicted to increase dramatically in the upcoming years, Mijente does not believe this will necessarily translate to an increase in power or influence.
“Real change requires more from us, not simply more of us,” explained co-founder Marisa Franco on Mijente’s website.
Mijente cites numerous reasons behind this belief, including the increasing criminalization of Latinos, a struggling economy, and the erosion of both government and democracy.
“We took a closer look at advocacy and organizing infrastructure in the Latinx and Chicanx community, and we realized that there were significant gaps and shifts that should be addressed,” Franco added.
Thus, Mijente was born.
Mijente is a 501(c)(4) organization funded primarily through membership fees and donations. Its total revenue for 2018 was $3.3 million.
Mijente’s 501(c)(3) arm is called the Mijente Support Committee. It received $2.5 million in foundation grants between 2017 and 2020. Additionally, Mijente also has a political action committee called Mijente PAC, which funds the group’s election work.
In order to build power, Mijente organizes Latinos around campaigns that amplify the collective voice of Latinos. Some of these campaigns include #NoTechForIce, which seeks to stop tech companies from aiding in immigration enforcement, and #FueraTrump, which mobilizes Latino voters in the 2020 election.
“We believe our best bet at winning is through organizing at the grassroots level, in electoral fights, through direct action and digitally,” writes Mijente on its website. “We’ve witnessed magical connections when we come together, so we’ll always keep a foot on the ground through our events, local circles and crews, and valued partner organizations.”
Alongside national campaigns, Mijente also connects members to local campaigns and petitions. Perhaps most importantly, Mijente operates through a variety of means, including online advocacy and encouraging members to talk to friends, family and their community.
“We need to hold our heads high and speak out,” Mijente writes. “Mijente helps people do this through campaigns, connects people across a wide network and serves as a hub for culture, learning and advocacy.”
Mijente exists because there simply aren’t enough political leaders, elected nor aspiring, who are working to educate, inspire and help Latinos.
“Organizing has taught us that no one is coming to save us,” said Franco. “We transform ourselves in order to save ourselves, and each other.”
In spite of the pandemic, Mijente was able to impact the election significantly, contacting more than 1 million voters in person and even more online. Now, Mijente is turning its attention to the Georgia runoffs.
Mijente’s PAC has partnered with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) to launch a new campaign called Georgia con Ganas.
“We are knocking on every door of Latinxs in Georgia,” Mijente wrote. “We’re making sure voters have what they need to vote on or before January 5th and encouraging them to vote for the Democrat candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.”
Thus far, the Georgia con Ganas campaign has knocked on more than 51,000 doors in Georgia. The campaign added on social media, “Unidos we can make history.”
