By james art WASHINGTON (AP) — Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump see economic policy as their best chance to win over Latino voters. But their approaches are very different.
In an interview with Telemundo on Tuesday afternoon, Vice President Harris plans to highlight how her agenda will create more opportunities for Latino men, a strategy borne out of roughly a dozen focus groups and surveys.
The Democratic candidate intends to show his plans to double the number of registered apprenticeships. She wants to highlight how she would eliminate college education requirements for certain jobs in the federal government and encourage private employers to do the same. And Harris wants to provide forgivable loans of up to $20,000 each to 1 million small businesses.
Former President Trump, the Republican nominee, reached out to Latinos on Tuesday, hosting a roundtable discussion with them in Doral, a suburb of Miami. Flanked by elected officials and business leaders who are Latino, Trump touted the economy during his administration, which he says has been better for the Hispanic community than it was during Biden’s administration.
The Trump and Harris campaigns see what could be a crucial electoral opportunity with Latinos who could swing the outcome in states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada if their traditional support for Democrats erodes. Trump believes he has made inroads with Latino men. Harris’ team is looking to shore up support within the same group with the election just two weeks away.
That raises the question of whether memories of a Trump presidency or the promise of new policies under Harris will do more to energize Latino voters.
“We’re very confident that these policies resonate because we’ve seen them resonate in speeches and focus groups,” said Matt Barreto, a pollster for the Harris campaign. “It speaks to Latino men in particular about success and achieving the American dream.”
In 2020, AP VoteCast found that 9% of voters nationwide identified as Hispanic, and 63% of those voters supported Biden in the election. That race was largely defined by the pandemic that shut down much of the country, while this year’s race has issues like the economy, immigration, abortion rights and democracy at the fore.
Both campaigns are jockeying for advantage with an increasingly diverse electorate in the final weeks of the campaign. Harris also focused on black men, to whom she also offered forgivable small business loans. She appeared on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast to appeal to younger women, while Trump appeared on podcasts aimed at younger men.
At the Latin American Roundtable on Tuesday, Trump complimented Goya Foods, whose CEO Bob Unanue is an outspoken supporter of the former president and attended the event.
“It’s actually pretty good out of the box,” Trump said of the company known for its beans and other products.
Trump also ignored Harris, whose schedule included meetings in Washington and interviews with Telemundo and NBC, but no public events.
“Who the hell is going when you have 14 days left?” he told the group. ”“She is lazy. She’s lazy as hell.
In a close race, Harris’ campaign is betting that Latino men are becoming more attuned to the specifics of politics as the election nears.
Based on focus groups, Barreto said the Harris campaign has found that Latino men in particular want access to apprenticeships, which can give those without college access to financially stable careers.
The latest Labor Department figures show there are 641,044 registered apprenticeships, an increase since the Trump administration, when apprenticeships peaked in 2020 at 569,311. Doubling that figure, as Harris suggested, would put the total number of apprenticeships at about 1.2 million over four years.
Latin American men also expressed a need for access to capital and credit to start companies, as the Treasury Department reported on Oct. 10 that Latin American business ownership is up 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels and could continue to climb by more good financing options.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz, will appear on Univision’s syndicated radio show El Bueno, La Mala, y El Feo this week, while Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, will be interviewed this week by the nationally syndicated radio show on Univision’s afternoon radio show, El Free-Guey Show. Emhoff will also be interviewed by Alex “El Genio” Lucas on Nueva Network Radio.
Trump hopes to convince Latinos that they can trust a fellow businessman like him, even though he has also called for the mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.
“The Spanish — they say you can’t generalize, but I think you can — they have great enterprise and they have — oh, do you have such energy. Just take it easy, okay? Calm down,” Trump said at an Oct. 12 event. “You have a lot of ambition, you have a lot of energy, you’re very smart and you really like natural entrepreneurs.”
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