LAS VEGAS — It’s a nondescript storefront in a weathered strip mall. But the Republican Party “community center” inside, in a mostly Latino neighborhood on the east side of town, represents the GOP’s full-court press to woo nonwhite voters and turn Nevada red in November.
Republicans have talked for years about converting the mostly Democratic Latino bloc into card-carrying conservatives, launching dedicated field programs in fits and starts and occasionally making headway, only to see these voters return to the Left. But the Republicans’ multipronged push here in the desert, led by the Republican National Committee but joined by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Nevada’s slate of GOP candidates, reveals an effort outpacing anything the party has tried before.
Al Rojas, chairman of Latino outreach for Republican Mark Robertson, challenging Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) in the 1st Congressional District, notices the difference between past, somewhat lackluster GOP efforts to appeal to Latino voters, and believes this year’s robust and comprehensive campaign is light years ahead of past efforts.
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“I was trying to tell the Republican Party that Latinos are conservative, and I couldn’t seem to get them to accept that message,” he recalled to the Washington Examiner as he was entering the RNC’s Latino “community center” on Las Vegas’s east side to begin another day of grassroots outreach. The 2022 election cycle, Rojas said, has been remarkably different, aided, he claimed, by a fresh development: “Latinos are tired of the Democratic Party.”
Democrats will argue that point, pointing to polls that show they are still positioned to win the Latino vote — in Nevada and across the country. But that same polling also shows Republicans are poised to substantially cut into the Democrats’ advantage with Latino voters, improving their chances of winning seats in districts and states where they have struggled for years. That apparent improvement is due partly to the Republican Party showing up in neighborhoods they previously ignored.
For instance, even in Wisconsin where Hispanics are roughly 7.5% of the population compared to Nevada’s nearly 30%, the RNC is operating one of its community centers in a blue-collar, mostly Hispanic, and mostly Democratic neighborhood on Milwaukee’s south side. On a recent Saturday in October, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spent nearly an hour mingling with conservative Hispanic activists to hear their concerns and encourage them to pound the pavement for the state’s GOP ticket.
“We’re door-knocking, we’re letting them know these are our values,” said Veronica Diaz, a native of South Milwaukee who ran for a seat in the Wisconsin Assembly in 2020 and has stayed active in the GOP. “It’s about doing the work and educating these people.”
Back in Nevada, Republican strategists monitoring the Latino vote are cautiously predicting the GOP is on track to garner 40% or more of this crucial demographic in what amount to a significant political milestone. The party believes the key to this hoped-for showing was a decision to begin heavy Latino outreach early in this midterm election cycle, rather than waiting until after the state’s June primary, or until after Labor Day, standard practice for Republicans.
Republican Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general challenging Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), has invested “seven figures” into its “Latinos con Laxalt” campaign, according to his top advisers. What has made Laxalt’s bid to win over Latinos effective, campaign officials say, is that it started the moment he announced for Senate.
The effort, essentially its own micro-campaign within a campaign, has included digital advertising, phone banks, door-knocking, and Spanish-language direct mail. Plus, since February, Laxalt has hosted more than one dozen campaign events focused on the Latino community and run advertising on Spanish-language television and radio. In a Spanish-language television spot set to debut this week, Laxalt hits Cortez Masto on public safety issues while speaking Spanish, albeit with a heavy English accent.
“Where traditionally Republicans came in late in the game, we started from Day 1 to build the Latino coalition,” said Republican operative Jesus Marquez, who runs Latino outreach for Laxalt. “This cycle, we don’t just have the opportunity to win, but win big with Latinos in Nevada.”
Laxalt is backed in this effort not just by the RNC but the NRSC.
Through “Operation Vamos,” the Senate GOP campaign arm says it has contacted more than 250,000 Latino voters in Nevada and more than 1.4 million total across the country in states with competitive races. The NRSC’s special effort to court Latino voters also has focused on gathering data and polling to help individual GOP campaigns appeal to this voting bloc.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their allies also are spearheading their usual all-hands-on-deck voter turnout operation to produce Latino votes for the party’s Nevada ticket, led by the Culinary Workers Union.
Over the weekend, to mark the start of early voting, the influential labor organization announced plans to fan out 400 field canvassers across greater Las Vegas and Reno, with the goal of knocking on more than 600,000 doors and holding conversations with more than 100,000 voters through Nov. 8. This effort, the union said, would reach “more than half” of all Latino voters in Nevada, beginning this past Saturday through Election Day.
All told, the Culinary Workers Union will have knocked on more than 1 million doors in Las Vegas and Reno. Cortez Masto, who hails from Las Vegas’s Latino community, has bolstered organized labor’s outreach with campaign events targeting Latino voters — more than one dozen since the spring — as well as advertising on Spanish-language media outlets that has been continuous since March 15.
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When commenting about the importance of the Latino vote in Nevada elections, it’s not uncommon for the senator to refer to this group as “my community,” as she did repeatedly to reporters late last week after spending time with Latino small business owners and other supporters at a local restaurant on the east side of Las Vegas.
“My father came here — his parents brought him here in the early 40s,” Cortez Masto recalled. “It wasn’t a lot of diversity that you see with a lot of Latinos. It has since blossomed and grown and what you see in this community — and very vibrant. And so, what I know, my community, is, I want it to continue to succeed.”
