Latino politicians in Texas are directing their support to 2020 Democratic candidates other than Sen. Bernie Sanders, partially because of his expensive socialist policies.
Texas congressional delegates and state legislators have mostly thrown their support behind Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Vice President Joe Biden instead of the Vermont senator, the Dallas Morning News reported Friday.
“If your message is ‘the economy is really good, and we’re going to completely overhaul it’ — that’s not a winner. Certainly not in the suburbs where Democrats have been making gains,” State Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat who leads the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said of Sanders.
He continued: “We picked up 12 seats in the Legislature, we’re close to speakership right now, and I think Bernie Sanders jeopardizes all that. I talk to older Latinos all the time and … you hear from them ‘too radical.’”
Sanders’s support has grown among Latino voters, however, mostly due to younger generations strapped with debt. The self-described democratic socialist has campaigned on a platform of “Medicare for all,” tuition-free college, universal child care, and raising the minimum wage.
“Our Latino youth is quickly becoming a majority not just here in Texas but the U.S. as a whole,” said Christine Bolanos, a Sanders supporter and communications director for a group that works to involve young Latinos in politics. “While they’re growing in population and voter power, they’re increasingly inundated in debt and struggling with access to care. It automatically makes them gravitate towards someone who appears to address their priorities.”
Anchia, however, wants to know: “How do you pay for it? Even Sen. Sanders has had difficulty explaining how we meet that price tag.”
