In a normal election year, Texas Democrats wonder how to get Latino voters to the ballot box. This year, Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, thinks Donald Trump‘s inflammatory rhetoric may do the job for them.
Rodriguez is part of the Latinos and the Presidential Race panel at this weekend’s Texas Tribune Festival, aka Trib Fest, the annual Lone Star gathering of state and national politerati, organized by the Texas Tribune on the UT-Austin campus. Rodriguez described the panel as focusing on Latino engagement and said, “In terms of voter apathy and turnout, this feels like it’s going to be a very different election.”
Rodriguez said he knows what the major issue will be, because out on the stump he hears one name coming up over and over. The single dominating factor on how people view the 2016 election is Donald Trump. “People are just aghast at this person who offends every rational and progressive principle that they have.”
Yet cut down beneath that one flash point and, Rodriguez said, “I’ve always believed that the issues that are important to Latino or Hispanic voters aren’t any different to those that are important to the rest of the community.” They’re the same drivers as any community with a disproportionate percentage of economically disadvantaged households: public education, transit, and health care. Yet, for some reason, those issues are not motivating turnout.
The Hispanic and Latino electorate is known as the sleeping giant of U.S. politics. A 2014 study by Latino Decisions found some disturbing trends in the 2012 presidential election. Nationwide, only 48% of eligible Hispanic voters participated in the November election, compared to 64% of eligible white voters. The figures were even worse in Texas, 39% and 61%.
No one knows exactly why registered Hispanic voters don’t make it to the ballot box. Rodriguez suggested that income plays a factor, as does a general mistrust of the current system. He said, “For some members of the community, there’s a feeling that voting will not make a difference in their lives.”
So how to rouse the giant? Rodriguez’s theory is that the Trump candidacy may finally be the alarm clock.
Historically, Democrats are waiting for what is dubbed the demographic time bomb – that a majority Latino Texas will automatically be a majority Democratic Texas. Similarly, Republicans bank on a conservative Catholic surge. But Rodriguez warned against any kind of presumption, saying, “Latinos don’t vote in a bloc. It’s not a monolithic population.”
However, by using rhetoric unheard in political discourse since the days of the Dixiecrats, Trump could actually be creating that monolithic voting bloc. By using racist language against Latino and Hispanic voters, and conflating American citizens, documented, and undocumented residents as one indistinguishable mass, Trump is more likely to unify them against him. Moreover, Trump’s appeal to racist groups makes it more likely that those minority voters who stayed at home in prior elections will turn out. Rodriguez said, “Even if you’re a seventh- generation Texan like I am, when you have someone that’s attacking an immigrant that looks like you, or speaks the same language that your grandmother spoke, that hits a little closer to home.”
The sixth annual Texas Tribune Festival takes place Sept. 23-25. Tickets and info at www.texastribune.org/festival.
This article appears in September 23 • 2016.
