WASHINGTON (TND) — During a recent campaign stop at the Southern border, Vice President Kamala Harris appealed to family members of those who were brought to the United States as young children known as DACA recipients.
“They are American in every way. But still, they do not have an earned pathway to citizenship,” Harris said Friday.
Donald Trump meanwhile has made his appeals to Latino voters differently.
“The Hispanic population is like a rocket ship for us but we have to protect it because the people coming through, Kamala, they’re coming through the border and they’re taking your jobs,” Trump said at a rally Sunday.
Trump supporter and X CEO Elon Musk wrote in a post:
“Let me explain: if even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the “Democratic” Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!!”
However, the trend lines, at least for Latino voters, have been moving in the other direction for years.
A new NBC News – Telemundo – CNBC pollfound that while Kamala Harris is still ahead of Donald Trump by 54% to 40%, that’s stillfar lower than previous Democrats.
Joe Biden in 2020, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008 all won the Hispanic vote by more than 60%.
In an interview with The National Desk, Isabel Soto, policy director of the Conservative Libre Initiative, said “There are two things going on. One is Democrats taking this demographic for granted.”
She said they also have different values than many Democrats believe they do.
First, they tend to care most about the economy and jobs.
She also said that despite Trump’s goal to launch a mass deportation program, his tough talk and focus on fairness does resonate with Latino voters.
“It does seem fundamentally unfair. If you are someone who has entered this country legally, gone through the correct process. You’ve been waiting for about a decade because that’s around what the average waiting time is through some of these visas and all of a sudden you’re seeing people entering illegally, claiming asylum and being able to get a bunch of different care will say from the federal government where you’ve been trying to do everything to be right with the law.”
