Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., drew a sharp contrast between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Thursday evening as he made a hard push for Latino voters with an address delivered entirely in Spanish.
“A few years ago, I gave the first speech ever delivered in Spanish on the Senate floor. Since we were debating a bill about immigration, explaining it in Spanish just made sense – especially since it’s the language of more than 40 million people in this country who are most affected by this issue,” the Democratic vice presidential candidate said, according to a translation provided to the Washington Examiner by the Clinton campaign.
“I feel the same way about this election. With so much at stake for the Hispanic community, it just makes sense to make the case for our campaign in a language that’s spoken by so many families across the country,” Kaine said. “Latinos have always shaped this country, from your service in the military to your spirit of entrepreneurship to your presence on the Supreme Court.”
Kaine’s address Thursday, which the Clinton team claimed is “a first for an organized campaign rally during a U.S. presidential campaign,” comes as his team, including the Democratic nominee herself, continues to push deeper into traditionally red states, including Indiana, Missouri and Arizona.
On Thursday, Kaine made the case that Clinton is better suited to address the needs of minority voters, and that Trump is both tone deaf and personally bigoted.
“One of Trump’s biggest supporters, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who’s facing criminal charges for profiling Latinos and has persecuted undocumented immigrants. He says he thinks Trump will get ‘a lot of Hispanic votes,'” Kaine said.
“Just the other day, [former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer] … said that she wasn’t worried about her candidate, Donald Trump, winning this state, because, as she said, Latinos ‘don’t get out and vote,'” he said, asking the audience, “Do you think she’s right?”
Trump leads Clinton by four points in Arizona, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.
Still, even with Trump retaking the lead in Arizona in recent polling, some analysts predict Democratic-leaning Hispanics will turn out in numbers great enough to hand the Grand Canyon State to Clinton on Nov. 8. Clinton leads Trump nationwide with Hispanic likely voters by more than 50 points, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released on Oct. 17.
And Latinos in Arizona vote.
The state’s Hispanic population numbers at around 2.1 million, making it the sixth largest concentration of Latinos in the nation, according to the Pew Research Center. Of those millions in Arizona, 992,000 are eligible voters, meaning the state has the “fifth largest Hispanic statewide eligible voter population nationally,” Pew noted. Put another way, 22 percent of Arizona eligible voters are Hispanic.
Arizona Hispanics also vote, according to turnout estimates in past elections.
“In the 2010 and 2014 midterm election, Latinos represented 12% of all votes cast statewide. In the 2012 Presidential Election, Latinos were a record 17% of all voters in Arizona,” according to the non-profit Latino voter registration group One Arizona.
The Clinton campaign has deployed millions of dollars and campaign assets recently to the traditionally deep-red state. On Thursday, Kaine stepped in as the campaign’s latest effort to boost Democratic-leaning voters in the state.
“I hate to break it to the Trump campaign, but Latinos are going to have a really big voice in this election,” the senator said in his all-Spanish address.
“Whether your family just arrived or has been here since before the United States even existed,” he said, adding. “Hillary Clinton and I believe we are brothers and my sisters, and we will be your champions. You’re our neighbors, colleagues, friends and families. You make our nation stronger, smarter, and more creative. And I want all of you to know that we see you, and we are with you.”
“America is a better country because of you,” Kaine added.
Arizona has gone red in nine out of the last 10 presidential elections. The last time that the Grand Canyon State voted to put a Democrat in the White House was in 1996 when it went blue for Bill Clinton.
