Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
With Election Day just five weeks away, many communities with predominant Latino populations have shown a surge of interest in voter registration.
The spike was reflected in the Google search data from states like Florida, Nevada and Arizona after the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump last week.
To help understand what this might mean, Take Two spoke to Louis Desipio, a professor of political science and Chicano studies at U.C. Irvine.
Desipio says the Latino populations in those states are big enough to swing the presidential election, and there are several things fueling this surge in interest.
1. More people are starting to pay attention to the election
"Particularly for new voters or people that haven't been part of the process in the past, the election really begins in the fall. You and I have been paying attention to it for well over a year now. But for most people, this is when you pay attention.
"That's when voter registration rules are a barrier for a lot of new participants or potential new participants because they get interested just as the deadlines are hitting."
2. Anger at Donald Trump
"He started his campaign with an anti-Mexican diatribe and he's doubled down since then. So I think Latinos have gotten that message and it's certainly been enforced by leaders of the Latino community and by the Spanish language media."
3. More Latinos are coming of age and will be able to vote for the first time
"The Latino population is younger than the non-Hispanic white population. You have a lot more people in that age group, early 20s, early 30s that are first becoming involved in electoral politics. So you have a natural surge in the Latino voters."
4. The Naturalization of Latino citizens
"Every four years you have potentially a million new Latino adults who have naturalized as citizens and become involved in the electoral process and then in years when they're angry at one of the candidates or very supportive of one of the candidates they become involved even more."
5. Each candidates respective messages coming out of the first presidential debate
"I think you've had leaders in the community reinforcing those messages, reminding people what Mr. Trump said. I think Secretary Clinton was very skilled [at] bringing up the Miss Universe competitor, who is Latina, and you have some of the derisive comments Mr. Trump made about her.
"You've also seen that Trump has never really tried to rebuild connections with the Latino community. He had a couple of meetings, but then some of his surrogates undermine those meetings by threatening a taco truck on every corner. So the message has been repeated in the last year. It wasn't just that speech at Trump Tower."
Answers have been edited for clarity.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.