Can Hillary hold top place among Latino voters?
Already the favorite candidate among Latinos by far, Hillary Clinton will launch a campaign on Friday to stay in that spot.
"Latinos for Hillary" will , lawmakers, and elected officials in earnest in time for the Nevada caucuses and early primaries in Florida, Colorado, and Texas early next year.
This new push for the Latino demographic comes on the first day of , and will kick off Friday in a Telemundo interview in Miami; in San Antonio and Las Vegas; and house parties to generate support organized around the Democratic presidential debate on Oct. 13 in Las Vegas, and the GOP debate on Oct. 28 in Boulder, Colo., the Associated Press reports.
"She's shown a deep commitment to the issues that Hispanics care about over a long period of time. This isn't somebody who showed up, decided to run for president and then a lightbulb came on and she decided to reach out to the Hispanic community," Rep. Joaquin Castro, (D) of Texas, who will campaign for Clinton in Nevada, told the AP.
In May, Clinton unveiled an聽 that promises everything Latino voters want to hear: a pathway to full citizenship, expanded executive actions, and reform to inhumane detention practices.
According to a summer report from Noticias Univision, if the elections were to happen today, Ms. Clinton would garner . 聽
Perhaps that should be no surprise, given that she has little competition for votes among the candidates, particularly Republican ones.
Her biggest Democratic competitor, the progressive Bernie Sanders, is for now largely unknown among Latinos, though he's ramped up efforts to relay to Latinos that聽: immigration reform, a federal minimum wage, expanded social security and free healthcare and college tuition, reports the Guardian.
鈥淟atinos are more likely to be supportive of a bigger government providing more services,鈥� 聽Mark Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center told the Guardian.
On the Republican side, Mrs. Clinton鈥檚 competition for Latino votes is paltry, given that the party has become known in recent years for its hostility to immigrants, a perception buoyed by Donald Trump鈥檚 summer clash with popular Latino journalist Jorge Ramos of Univision, and his claim that the Mexican government is flooding the US with rapists, criminals, and drug traffickers.
鈥淭here's no question there's a clear line, night and day, between Hillary Clinton and all of the other candidates," Clinton supporter Rep. Xavier Becerra, (D) of California told the AP.
For his part, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose wife was born in Mexico, is among the Latinos as Mr. Sanders, according to data compiled by the Huffington Post, and slightly less favorably than Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Cuba. Among the Republicans, Bush and Rubio are the most open to immigration reform.
