BALTIMORE — Nicholas Simões Machado thinks it’s time for the Maryland Democratic Party to step up its game when it comes to Latino voters.
Machado, 26, is the campaign manager for Ivan Bates, who is poised to become the next Baltimore City State’s Attorney, following his defeat of Marilyn J. Mosby in the primary earlier this year.
Machado said Democrats need to lay the groundwork now for a more powerful voting bloc in the next few years.
“In Maryland, I understand that the Latino vote has not been statistically significant in the past. But that is the past. And the trends we’re seeing right now show that it is absolutely statistically significant for the future and right now,” Machado said. “Democrats in general are squandering opportunities to build those bridges. And I tend to say they’re relying more on Republican incompetence to not effectively reach out to that group and I do think it’s going to bite us in the behind if we don’t change that.”
According to the Pew Research Center, Latinos make up 6% of Marylanders who identify as Democrats and 5% who identify as Republicans. Overall in Maryland, Latinos made up 5.8% of eligible voters in 2020.
Nationally, Democrats still lead with voters that identify as Hispanic and Latino. But that lead is shrinking, according to polls.
In one of the largest nonpartisan surveys of Latino voters since the 2020 election — during which President Donald Trump performed better with Latinos than he had in 2016 — Latino support for Democrats stood at 56% compared to 32% for Republicans. Latino voters are also more likely to agree with Democrats on major issues including immigration, gun policy and the climate. But those numbers aren’t as strong as they were pre-2020, especially among young, male Hispanic voters.
Chuck Rocha is a political analyst who has worked in politics for over 30 years, including on two Bernie Sanders campaigns. He said Trump’s message that focused on uplifting blue collar workers resonates with young, hardworking Latino men. He knows because it’s the same message that drew Rocha to the Democratic Party as a factory worker in Texas.
“He (Trump) uses this populist message about working class values and that’s what I’ve seen that really particularly gets Latino men to move over to Republicans,” Rocha said.
Rocha is the president of Solidarity Strategies, a minority-owned, D.C. based political consulting firm that “provides bilingual direct mail, phone, and digital services” and helps elect people of color. Machado was recruited by Rocha to work for the firm, which focuses on Democrats.
Rocha said the Democratic Party is “leaving votes on the table” and allowing Republicans to pick up the slack without much effort.
“Half of the battle with new Latino voters, because they’re younger, is just showing up and competing,” Rocha said.
Plus, candidates need to engage Latino voters year-round to maintain authenticity and get out the vote, Machado said.
“The Latino vote is a sleeping giant. It is not one that has materialized yet in Maryland,” Machado said. “And it never will until that year-round engagement happens.”
Machado said of the two governor campaigns, he’s seen more grassroots efforts from Republican Dan Cox.
“I’m not saying that it’s effective outreach. I’m not saying that it’s successful conversions,” Machado said. “But I’m seeing the effort being made more clearly.”
Marc Schifanelli is the husband of lawyer Gordana Schifanelli, who is running for lieutenant governor alongside Cox. Schifanelli is a member of the Queen Anne’s County’s Board of Education, a spot he won on a write-in vote. His wife created a social media page, Kent Island Patriots, in response to a letter sent to parents by former Superintendent Andrea Kane in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
At the time of his campaign, Schifanelli, an immigration lawyer, said politics shouldn’t be promoted in school. According to The New York Times, Schifanelli got enough votes on the school board to remove “Harbor Me” by Jacqueline Woodson from the middle school curriculum because it was “sympathetic to a boy whose father faced deportation.”
The Cox campaign has hosted events with the Hispanic community, such as a September event at the Mi Gran Mariachi restaurant in Glenn Dale. Schifanelli said by email that it was a meeting with Hispanic and Latino business owners, but did not provide further details. The flier for the event, promoted by Cox on Facebook, was in Spanish.
Schifanelli has spoken in Spanish at some of these events, mainly to introduce his wife and Cox. He added that he has attended several fundraisers and meet and greets “as a guest” and enjoys speaking Spanish with voters.
“The Hispanic voters in Maryland have for a long time been taken for granted by the Democrat Party. They seem to neglect the Latino community during every election cycle,” Schifanelli said in an email response to written questions from The Sun. “They very much appreciate having someone non-Hispanic who can speak Spanish and we always have a great reception.”
Democratic state Del. Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk agreed her party could do more to engage the Hispanic community, especially when it comes to ensuring a more diverse candidate pool. But the vice-chair of the Maryland Legislative Latino Caucus said she’s never seen a candidate as dedicated to engaging Latino voters as Wes Moore, whose campaign she is part of.
She pointed to Unidos Con Wes, the portion of the Moore campaign that focuses on Latino voters that Peña-Melnyk is one of the leaders of. She added that Moore hired a firm to explore engaging the Latino community and that he plans to have Latinos on his transition team and cabinet should he secure the governorship next week.
“Since the beginning of his campaign, he’s made it abundantly clear that the Latino community will not only have a seat at the table, but we will be intimately involved in his campaign,” Peña-Melnyk said.
Maria Robalino, a senior adviser to the Moore campaign, said by email that Moore has invested in Spanish media by running radio spots on Spanish radio stations, placing an op-ed in El Tiempo Latino about health care access and doing interviews with Telemundo and Univision about issues related to the Latino community and Maryland as a whole. A spokesperson said Moore speaks in Spanish for some of the interviews.
Moore spokesperson Brian Adam Jones said the campaign always uses an interpreter at events, “usually a community leader.” Additionally, Jones said Moore “has delivered at least part of his remarks in Spanish at every Spanish speaking event we’ve engaged with.”
The last census showed major growth in Baltimore’s Hispanic community. The census reported about 46,000 Hispanic residents in the city, an increase of nearly 77% since 2010. That means Hispanic and Latino residents make up about 8% of Baltimore’s population. By comparison, Black residents make up 58%, white residents make up 28% and Asian residents make up 4%.
Baltimore County grew its Hispanic population by 82.3%. In the state, the Latino population grew from 8% to 12%.
Baltimore elected its first Latino council member in 2020, Odette Ramos, a Democrat who is Puerto Rican and grew up in New Mexico.
“I think people cannot ignore us anymore,” Ramos said. “You can’t just sort of generalize here and put us all in one bucket. We are a diverse population within our population, right? Not only are we from different countries, we have different backgrounds, we have different religions … and that’s OK. That’s a good thing, actually.”
Ramos is working with the Latinos Con Wes outreach group.
Ramos said she’s not surprised Cox would try to reach the Hispanic population, as some religious Latinos are anti-abortion, like Cox. Notably, according to The New York Times/Siena College Poll of Latino voters, a majority of Latino voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Kimia Turcios, a Republican voter from Bethesda, disagrees. Turcios, an immigrant from Honduras who declined to share her age, said abortion is the most important issue to her because she regrets her own abortion.
Turcios thinks it’s “not strange at all” that she’s a Latina, immigrant woman who votes red.
“It’s common sense,” she said.
Lena Carmone, 63, tends to vote Democrat and will cast her vote for Moore in the upcoming election. She identifies as Brazilian, Colombian, Kenyan and Nigerian.
But in the future, Carmone’s vote could be up for grabs. If Republican Gov. Larry Hogan was on the ballot Tuesday, he would be her choice and she would support him for president.
“I identify as a Democrat, but I swing vote,” Carmone said. “This is the first time in my life that I have encountered some Republicans that do really well, they perform really well.”
Latino voters tend to care about the same issues as everyone else, analysts said. For the upcoming election, concerns about the economy top the list. Health care is also often a priority.
But another priority, Peña-Melnyk said, is simple: being seen.
“(They want) to make sure that they feel included and that they count and that they’re not an afterthought,” Peña-Melnyk said.
Baltimore Sun reporter Hannah Gaskill contributed to this article.
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