EXCLUSIVE — A conservative Latino advocacy group isn’t waiting until the fall to ramp up its campaign to help Republicans perform well with Hispanic voters in November’s midterm elections.
Five months before voters go to the polls, LIBRE Action, part of the center-right Koch political network, has started campaigning for Republican Senate candidates in the all-important battleground states of Ohio and North Carolina, in addition to GOP gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Wisconsin.
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“The Latino vote is essential in these races, which will likely be decided by razor-thin margins,” LIBRE Action senior adviser Daniel Garza told the Washington Examiner. “Conservatives made gains with Hispanics in 2024, but the Latino vote is not baked in for one side. Conservatives must continue to court them and make the case for their vote.”
LIBRE Action has endorsed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in his highly competitive campaign against former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The race is a potential pickup opportunity for Democrats as they try to flip the balance of power in the Senate.
Husted and Brown are, on average, in a statistical tie, according to polling aggregator RealClearPolitics. Latinos could be the key voting bloc, as they represented 3% of all registered voters in Ohio in 2024.
“Ohio’s Latino community is growing, and families across the state are looking for leaders who will expand opportunity and create an environment where hard work is rewarded,” Lair Marin-Marcum, a LIBRE Action adviser in Ohio, told the Washington Examiner.
Marin-Marcum said LIBRE Action’s campaign strategy in Ohio and elsewhere included a combination of community events, grassroots outreach, and voter education initiatives to “ensure Latino voters understand what is at stake in the upcoming election,” as well as amplify a message of how Republicans can help Latinos “achieve the American dream.”
LIBRE Action’s other endorsed Senate candidate, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, is polling behind onetime North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper by an average of 7 percentage points, outside most surveys’ margins of error.
Latinos represented 6% of all registered voters in North Carolina in 2024.
LIBRE Action has also endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) for governor in Florida and Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) for the same position in Wisconsin. An offshoot of LIBRE is already running a Spanish-language YouTube ad for Tiffany.
Pollster David Paleologos told the Washington Examiner that Hispanic voters were showing signs of “buyer’s remorse” after trending toward the GOP during the Trump era.
“Young Hispanic men are starting to defect President Trump and the GOP,” said Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center. “The drivers of some of this exodus are the high cost of living and the high social cost of removing immigrants in its current form.”
A poll last month by the left-leaning UnidosUS found more than two-thirds of Latino voters consider the country to be headed in the wrong direction, and roughly the same percentage of respondents told pollsters President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are not concentrating enough on improving the economy.
Moreover, the poll found two-thirds of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance so far and that one-quarter of Latino voters who voted for Trump in 2024 would not cast a ballot for him again, citing the cost of living and inflation (44%), immigration enforcement (33%), job and wage stagnation (26%), and the war in Iran (25%).
Republican strategist Cesar Conda conceded the decrease in Trump and Republicans’ approval ratings among Latino voters is similarly captured by polling of the broader public.
“Much of it comes down to the economy, especially the impact of higher energy prices following the Iran conflict,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “If the administration is able to successfully stabilize the situation with Iran and reduce uncertainty in energy markets, gasoline prices could level off or decline by Election Day, potentially easing one of the biggest economic pressures on voters.”
Conda, the first chief of staff to Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he was in the Senate and a founder of lobbying firm Navigators Global, added that although the economy is important, “for many Cuban, Venezuelan, and other communities with personal or family ties to authoritarian regimes, the defense of freedom and democracy in their countries of origin can be just as — or even more — important than pocketbook issues.”
“A meaningful breakthrough on promoting democratic change in Cuba or Venezuela could reshape the political landscape and create a powerful source of support among voters who view foreign policy and human rights as deeply personal issues,” he said.
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Regardless, Democrats remain confident they can recapture their support among Latinos, despite Trump recording his biggest vote share of 42% in 2024 after getting 28% of the Latino vote in 2016 and 32% in 2020.
“Democrats are focused on delivering for the American people, lowering costs, and defending our fundamental rights,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez told the Washington Examiner.
