As number of eligible Latino voters expected to grow, experts plan to learn more about their values

From Houston Public Media:

Sisters Lesly and Gisell Maldonado are regulars at Cochinita & Co. — they and their friends started going to the Mexican restaurant weekly when they heard about lotería Tuesdays.

The walls of the southwest Houston restaurant are decorated in Mexican art and nicknacks, like calaveras and sombreros. Colorful alebrijes of birds adorn the kitchen. The weekly bingo game often fills every table bringing together people who are either new to the traditional Mexican game or veterans, like the Maldonados.

Even though they grew up playing lotería at home with family, there are some traditions they don’t want to keep alive.

“Machismo is when women basically don’t have rights, men make all the decisions. You are not allowed an opinion,” said Giselle, 25.

Fighting machismo is one reason both sisters plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, especially when it comes to the Democratic nominee’s stance on reproductive rights.

Lesly, who is 20 and will be voting for the first time this year, said choosing a candidate who would work to restore Roe is important to her. That was the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right nearly fifty years ago and then was overturned by the same court in 2022.

“I just think everybody should be able to make their own choices about their body,” Lesly said.

Abortion is an issue that’s expected to motivate Latinos to vote in this presidential election along with the rising cost of living and the state of the economy, which are the group’s top two concerns, according to a poll by Unidos US released in August. Affordable housing is third, followed by accessible health care, and immigration policies.

For 22-year-old Cuttino Rosa, a cashier at El Rey, a Cuban and Mexican Restaurant in central Houston, the increasing costs of ingredients such as fajitas and milk was enough to push him to vote for former President Donald Trump. It’ll be his first time voting.

“I just think Trump might have a better plan,” Rosa said.

He’s part of the 34% of Texan Latinos who, according to the Unidos US poll, say they will either definitely or probably vote for Trump. Harris is leading, however, with 57% of Latino’s support. Around 9% of them are undecided.

That’s not too different from how Latinos nationwide voted in the last presidential election. In 2020, 61% of Latinos voted for President Joe Biden, while 36% cast their ballot for Trump, according to Pew Research.

Harris County is home to more than two million Latinos, making up nearly half of the county’s population, but they don’t make up half of the county’s electorate. Voters with Spanish surnames makeup is just about a fifth of total votes cast in the county, according to Hector De Leon with the Harris County Elections Office.

That’s not surprising to him, though.

Although Latinos make up 44% of Houstonians, less than half of them are eligible to vote. Compare that to the 78% of white and 71% of black county residents eligible to vote.

Most Latinos in the county aren’t able to vote because they’re either too young or are noncitizens in the country legally, such as DACA recipients and green card holders.

“There’s data that shows why we need to temper our expectations,” he said. “We need to know what kind of potential power the Hispanic community actually has.”

Both Lesly and Rosa are part of the several hundreds of Latinos expected to vote for the first time in Harris County, either because they’re now old enough to vote or have been motivated to.

“Hispanics tend to be the youngest population,” De Leon said. Latinos in Texas have a median age of 28, compared to Texans’ overall median age of 34.

Since they’re a young population, Jeronimo Cortina, an associate professor of political science at the University of Houston, said he’s expecting this election to reveal how the new Latino electorate will vote.

“We’re going to see a growth (in Latino voters),” Cortina said. “What I’m really curious to see is how young Gen Zs and young millennials are going to turn out.”

The Latino electorate, especially in Texas, has been called “the sleeping giant” for decades because they’ve been perceived as low-turnout voters. But that’s changing as Latinos reach voting age and more of them attain citizenship.

The percentage of Latinos turning out to vote has only increased in the last three presidential elections, according to the county’s election’s office. In 2012, 47% of the county’s Spanish surname registered voters cast a ballot, and 64% of them are expected to vote in November.

But Marla Lopez, a communications manager for Mi Familia Vota‘s Texas chapter, an organization that encourages Latinos to vote, said the community generally feels neglected by political candidates.

“I think the sleeping giant isn’t asleep. I think it’s an ignored giant, an under-resourced giant,” Lopez said. “A lot of candidates and campaigns, they talk about our community, they talk about us constantly, but they don’t show up in our communities.”

Israel Ortega with The LIBRE Initiative, a national center-right organization with a Houston chapter that pushes Latinos to be politically active, says he believes the community may shift Republican because of high prices in recent years driven by inflation.

He said that “they’re feeling the pain at the pump” and “so I think that’s what makes it hard for people to feel like the economy is improving.”

“We are indicting the Biden administration for a lot of the federal spending that took place in the last couple of years,” Ortega continued. “And we for sure think that has contributed to the inflation that a lot of Latinos are facing.”

But the economy isn’t the only issue Latinos are taking to the polls. Martha Berrones, who was at Cochinita & Co’s lotería night, said protecting reproductive rights is a big issue for her. She said it has sparked tense conversations between her and her parents, aunts and uncles who hold more conservative views.

Voting is her chance to take a stand on her own values.

“That’s the one thing I’m teaching my child, my daughter, you have to believe and stick to what you believe,” Berrones said of her 12-year-old daughter. “Don’t let anybody else guide you or change your mind.”

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