Mike Madrid, author of the new book “The Latino Century,” is better positioned than most political consultants to comment on the U.S. Hispanic electorate because of his work experience and upbringing.
Madrid grew up in a Mexican-American family in Southern California and says he became a Republican at heart at age 9, when Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1980. A longtime member of the GOP, he has advised major candidates at the state and national levels.
Madrid has been a critic of former President Donald Trump since he launched his 2016 campaign by attacking Mexicans. He is also a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.
Madrid says both Republicans and Democratic operatives are misjudging Hispanic voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, when in fact the Hispanic population could play a crucial role.
He says jobs and the economy are consistently the top issues for Latinos, and it’s a mistake to assume they’re just a disadvantaged minority focused on immigration, farmworkers and the border. He also notes that many U.S. Latinos are not immigrants, and many don’t speak Spanish at all.
But Madrid says Latinos should play a bigger role in American democracy as a fast-growing, optimistic group that now represents about 19% of the country’s population, larger than any other racial or ethnic minority.
Madrid proposes the idea of a multi-ethnic, pluralistic democracy in which the fight is for something, not against something. He also calls on both sides to consider the views of not only naturalized Latino immigrants, but also their U.S.-born children and grandchildren, who see policy in generational rather than ethnic terms.
The consultant criticizes Democratic Party advisers for sometimes wrongly assuming that their party speaks for all Latinos. He also sees a partisan bias at some Democratic polling firms that have missed the rightward shift of Hispanic voters while oversampling Spanish speakers and naturalized immigrants. While most Latinos are still Democrats, the party has steadily lost support among Latinos because it appeals to white, progressive, college-educated voters who are more interested in cultural issues than working-class concerns.
As for Republicans, Madrid says the GOP needs to understand that the rightward shift of Latino voters in recent elections has little to do with their efforts. Instead, it reflects the assimilation of a group of people whose families have lived in the U.S. for years, if not generations.
He says the GOP’s almost exclusive focus on white, non-college-educated voters doesn’t help the party attract Latino voters, nor does its use of racial wedge issues like demonizing Latino immigrants.
If Republicans looked beyond white grievances and made greater efforts to advocate for immigrants, they could gain more support from Latinos and win more national elections, Madrid argues.
The GOP, he said, is also focusing more on the traditional economic policies that Latino voters value most: cutting taxes and loosening government regulations.
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