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For Republicans winning Hispanic voters will be a bigger fight than South Texas

10/21/2022 4:57:00 PM

For Republicans winning Hispanic voters will be a bigger fight than South Texas:

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For Republicans , winning Hispanic voters will be a bigger fight than South Texas : Nearly half of Hispanic Texans live in the state’s five largest counties, a voting bloc Democrats cannot afford to lose as they struggle to compete in the state’s vast rural areas. Fernando Florez, a longtime Democratic activist, discusses the shift of Hispanic voters in Tarrant County and Texas at his home in the South Hemphill Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth.State Rep.Republicans acknowledge that Hispanic voters in South Texas appear to be leaning their way more quickly than elsewhere. But Republicans are already in power across the state, they argue, and even a small shift in the Hispanic vote makes the GOP more secure, while creating cause for alarm for Texas Democrats. Read more:
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In reality, he’d been fighting for his life in a coma for two weeks and would ultimately spend five months in a hospital. Fernando Florez, a longtime Democratic activist, discusses the shift of Hispanic voters in Tarrant County and Texas at his home in the South Hemphill Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth. BIDEN ANNOUNCES $900 MILLION ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGER PROJECT This tranche of funds, allocated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will be awarded to 20 battery manufacturing and processing plants in 12 different states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington. Credit: Jamie R. When the then-49-year-old actor was first admitted to the hospital, “the doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” Perry said. Carrero for The Texas Tribune O’Rourke has been beating Abbott among Hispanic voters in virtually every poll, sometimes by double digits, though a University of Texas poll released Friday found them tied among likely Hispanic voters. “The iPhone is one the most important inventions of the 21st century,” Montero told Robb Report via email. Abbott’s campaign has argued the public polls are not accurately gauging the Hispanic vote but has not provided any alternative numbers. And that’s called a Hail Mary." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The two actions together will"improve America’s energy independence, strengthen national security, support good-paying jobs across battery supply chains, and lower costs for working families," the White House added. State Rep. Rafael Anchía , D-Dallas, dismissed the idea that Abbott could win half of Latino votes.” He added that there were five people in total put on the same type of life support machine on that night, and he was the only one to survive. “In every Latino family, you’ll have two Democrats and a tio loco, a crazy uncle, and it just hasn’t changed,” Anchía said at The Texas Tribune Festival in September.. “Latinos are not dumb. He says his dependency on alcohol was starting to emerge when he was cast on “Friends” at age 24, and his substance abuse became extreme at times during the making of the show. Last August, a 2007 model sold for just under $36,000 at RR Auctions. We’ve seen what’s happened since 2016, how we’ve been singled out. And every time Republicans get in trouble they talk about scary brown people coming over the border. “I didn’t know how to stop,” he told People .” Republicans acknowledge that Hispanic voters in South Texas appear to be leaning their way more quickly than elsewhere. But Republicans are already in power across the state, they argue, and even a small shift in the Hispanic vote makes the GOP more secure, while creating cause for alarm for Texas Democrats.” At other times, he says he was able to stay sober—including throughout the entirety of Season 9 of the sitcom. Tarrant County Tarrant County has experienced rapid growth since 2000. That growth was driven by a huge increase in Latino residents, who went from 20% to 30% of the county population during that period. “It’s like penguins,” Perry told the magazine. This corresponded with a shift in the county electorate toward Democrats, culminating in President Joe Biden’s 1,800-vote victory there in 2020, the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the county since 1964. Tarrant County College professor Peter Martinez cautioned that does not mean that Latinos are entirely responsible for the county’s liberal shift, as nationally, an urban-rural divide has increasingly defined the Democratic and Republican parties. They walk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. “The north and south sides of Fort Worth are historic Latino or Mexican parts of town. … That population does lean to the left, and growth there represents an expansion of the Democratic Party,” Martinez said.” Perry added that he has been to rehab 15 times over the years but that he is now “pretty healthy. “I would also argue that more of the white population is also leaning to the left in recent years because of people coming in from out of state.” In interviews with a dozen Hispanic voters in Tarrant County, many cited deep cultural ties to the Democratic Party, which their families have supported for generations. “I say in the book that if I did die, it would shock people, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody,” Perry says. But there was also a sense of apathy, and at times party resentment, that left some voters moving further to the right. Virginia Murillo, 45, said she used to vote for Democrats in part because she was following the lead of her parents, who emigrated from Mexico. So my hope is that people will relate to it, and know that this disease attacks everybody. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Murillo, who has owned the Straight Edge hair salon in Fort Worth for 14 years, began questioning that allegiance. She said Republicans appeared to better understand the needs of small businesses struggling with operating restrictions.” READ THIS LIST. “That’s when I finally became aware that views aligned with them,” Murillo said. “I never really thought that until one of my friends pointed it out.” Murillo said she has also realized her religious views may more closely align with the Republican Party. Despite steadily becoming a larger share of Tarrant County’s population, Hispanic people have had little political representation here. There has never been a Hispanic member of Congress representing the county and there is just one Fort Worth city council member. Ricardo Avitia at his brother Rudy’s barbershop, The Barber, in the South Hemphill Heights neighborhood in Fort Worth. Credit: Jamie R. Carrero for The Texas Tribune Ricardo Avitia, 43, said he worries the Democratic Party takes Latinos for granted and does not do enough to ensure they can grow their own political power. “When we see Democrats not taking our communities into consideration — communities that they’re historically supposed to be representing, then there’s an issue with that,” Avitia said at the barber shop owned by his younger brother, Rudy. Avitia said he considers himself an independent and seeks out candidates to support who can represent his interests on issues like zoning, infrastructure and economic development. Despite his interest in politics, he does not plan to cast a ballot in this election. “Parties don’t represent us,” he said. “It’s pick your poison.” Florez, the devoted Democrat, said Hispanics would be much more motivated to vote if there were Hispanic candidates on the ballot. The county will likely elect its first Hispanic county commissioner this year: Republican Manny Ramirez. The Fort Worth police officer and local police union president is running in heavily conservative Precinct 4, where the incumbent Republican commissioner is retiring after 30 years. Ramirez said he does not focus much on his Hispanic identity in the majority-Anglo precinct and said his campaign pledge to ensure infrastructure keeps up with the county’s rapid growth is broadly appealing to voters there. He acknowledged that Democrats have historically captured the majority of Hispanic voters but he said the Republican Party’s social and economic principles may be a better fit for their values. “It’s not about politics, it’s about conservative policies that actually produce results,” Ramirez said. “What types of policies make economic conditions much better for work and investing and everything else Hispanics have to concern themselves with? It’s the same issues that other Americans have to deal with.” Republican optimism Republicans are making a massive push down-ballot in South Texas. They are targeting three U.S. House seats there, a state Senate seat, at least one state House seat and a host of local offices that are currently held by Democrats. While Biden’s South Texas numbers set off the regional offensive, Republicans further helped themselves through redistricting last year. Republicans in the Legislature redrew one of the congressional districts to be favorable to the GOP — and most controversially, they created the state House seat in a narrow, late-night vote that drew fierce pushback from neighboring Democratic lawmakers. Still, redistricting does not tell the full story. In one of the congressional districts that Republicans ostensibly shored up for Democrats — the 34th District — U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, has found himself in a race that has been labeled a toss-up. If the new 34th District had been in place in 2020, Biden would have carried it by 16 percentage points. Republicans have long seen Hispanic voters in South Texas as more gettable. They view them as more culturally conservative and focused on economic issues — and perhaps more akin to the average rural voter than the average urban or suburban voter. But there is a more timely theory, too: Republicans are engaging South Texas more than ever before, and their investment this election cycle — well into the eight figures — is paying off. The biggest public poll of likely Hispanic voters in Texas so far, with 625 respondents, found that “Brownsville/McAllen” was easily the most competitive region in the governor’s race, with O’Rourke leading Abbott by 11 points there. O’Rourke routed Abbott in the poll by at least double that margin in every other region that was broken out beyond the Rio Grande Valley. “There is a little something going on down there,” said Brad Coker, the pollster whose firm, Mason-Dixon, did the survey for Telemundo. “But are we looking at this massive tidal wave [of Latinos shifting statewide]? … Eh, I think that’s a real stretch. ” Pollsters warn that such regional breakdowns should be treated with extra caution given that the sample sizes are usually so small and thus subject to wide variation. But more recently, a Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation poll also revealed regional differences in the statewide Hispanic vote. The survey of 468 likely Hispanic voters found O’Rourke leading by over 20 points in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas, but losing to Abbott in the San Antonio area and running a narrower 10 points ahead of him in South Texas. State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr. , D-Fort Worth, at Los Zarapes Restaurant in Fort Worth’s North Side. Romero stated the key to winning over Hispanic voters in the upcoming midterm election is being an activist in the community, not simply proposing legislation. Credit: Jaime R. Carrero for The Texas Tribune In state Rep. Ramon Romero ’s view, Democrats can still count on robust support from Latinos in the largest urban areas in Texas. The Fort Worth Democrat said despite a concerted push by Republicans to court Latinos in this year’s midterm elections, the fast-growing voting bloc still mostly sees the Democratic Party as representing the interests of working people. And Romero said the party is continuing to turn out voters who haven’t traditionally participated. He recounted how his campaign recently helped a man with a criminal history register to vote who thought he was ineligible. “So he votes and he comes out crying,” Romero said. “Those are the kind of people I see now at the polling booth all the time. And they’re not voting Republican; they’re voting Democrat.” Chris Wilson is a GOP pollster who has worked for Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz . He is also currently working in a number of South Texas races. “It’s certainly the case that the Latino vote in the cities isn’t moving toward Republicans as fast as the vote in South Texas and among other rural Hispanics is. But it also doesn’t have to,” Wilson said. “Texas is already a red state.” “Democrats can’t afford to trade ‘recently arrived in a few suburbs’ for Hispanic votes in a state like Texas,” Wilson said. “Combining South Texas and other working-class Hispanics with rural voters and voters in more conservative suburbs makes Republicans even more secure statewide while putting a whole new region in play at the legislative and congressional level.” Quality journalism doesn't come free Perhaps it goes without saying — but producing quality journalism isn't cheap. At a time when newsroom resources and revenue across the country are declining, The Texas Tribune remains committed to sustaining our mission : creating a more engaged and informed Texas with every story we cover, every event we convene and every newsletter we send. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on members to help keep our stories free and our events open to the public. Do you value our journalism? Show us with your support. 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