New York Democrats make last-ditch push for Latino voters
Competition among New York City's Democratic mayoral candidates has intensified as ahead of the primary election on June 22, with some candidates turning towards Spanish-language media in a last ditch push for support.
Experts believe that Latino voters will make up more than 20% of the electorate in the primary, compared to 18% in the city's last mayoral primary in 2018.
On Wednesday evening, the leading candidates held their last debate before voters head to the polls next week.
Among the topics covered during the debate was the issue of policing in Latino and African-American communities in the city, as well as the defund-the-police movement that has grown in prominence following the nation-wide protests after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
Ahead of future elections, Democrats fear support slipping among Latinos
Raymond McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, said any move to defund the police "will end up in disaster for New Yorkers." "Black and brown communities do not want either defund or stop and frisk," he said.
The only Latina candidate on the stage, the left-wing Dianne Morales, responded by saying that McGuire was "not speaking for all Black and brown communities."
"I am a member of that community, and you are certainly not speaking for me," she said.
In an interview with LPO, Eli Valentin, a New York City-based professor, political analyst and consultant, said that while the issue of policing is important to many Latinos, there is a significant generational divide between younger and older members of the community.
"Public safety is one of those issues that is important to Latinos," he said. "For many Latinos, public safety means that we need police out there patrolling our streets. That tends to be older Latinos. There's clearly a generational divide, which has meant a certain ideological divide as well."
While younger Latinos - many of whom tend to lean towards the Progressive left-wing of the Democratic Party - disagree, Valentin said their power at the polls may be limited.
"The one difference between them and their parents and grandparents generation is that they don't vote, or at least they don't vote in large numbers," he said. "They're very loud in terms of being expressive on social media platforms. But when it comes to voter participation, we're seeing a lack among younger Latinos."
With the election, many of the candidates have turned to Spanish language TV and web ads to try boost their support among Latino communities.
Former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, for example, enlisted Colombian-born actor John Leguizamo to narrate a Spanish-language commercial, while former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development put out a commercial in which he spoke Spanish. Other candidates were shown dancing or marching during the Puerto Rican Day parade.
In total, contracts filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that New York City's Democratic candidates have spent approximately $1.4 million on 30-second ads on Univision and Telemundo - the two most prominent Spanish-language TV stations - alone.
Ahead of mayoral election, New York City's latino vote grows in power
The top spending candidate was Dianne Morales, who spent more than $617,000 on more than 500 spots on local Telemundo and Univision TV stations, according to local newspaper ‘The City'.
In the commercial - in which Morales is wearing a shirt that reads ‘phenomenally Latinx' - Morales says that "this city was built by us - workers. But for a long time, the opportunities we created have benefited the powerful. It's time to change that."
According to Valentin, efforts to reach out to the Latino community will have to be redoubled for New York City's general election in November.
Candidates that don't, he warned, do so at their own peril.
"The voting population is going to continue to increase....there has to be a change," he said. "Candidates will have to be more intentional in their efforts. I don't see that right now, but I think we'll have to change."