On Thursday, NBC News posted a scathing op-ed ripping into 2020 Democrats who pandered to Latino voters during Wednesday’s Democrat debate in Las Vegas.
The writer, Julio Ricardo Rivera, points out the fact that most of the Dems did not even try to reach Latino voters in the debate. He wrote, “They don’t know enough (or enough about) Latino voters to know what it is we do want to hear, so they’re relying on focus-group stereotypes and broad perceptions of what it means to be Latino in America and, thus, flailing.”
Ricardo Rivera cites many moments during the event, including a moment where Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) was challenged about her inability to name Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who Klobuchar named as, “Lóprez Obrador” and a moment where Biden couldn’t speak more than in simple terms about his work with Latin American countries.
The writer says, “six white Democratic candidates can’t get beyond simplistic takes on immigration, pablum about the entrepreneurial hopes of the country’s largest 2020 share of nonwhite voters and an embarrassing exchange about the Mexican president.”
The inability of Democrats to connect with Latino voters appears to be an epidemic in the 2020 cycle, especially while President Trump’s economy has delivered results for Latino and Hispanic people, reaching record low unemployment rates for the minority group.