ATLANTA — For a moment in late September, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker’s attention was on Mojitos — a Cuban restaurant in Gwinnett County packed with dozens of supporters, many Hispanic.
As the sound of Walker’s stump speech gave way to blaring salsa music, Cuban immigrants and longtime Atlanta residents Marilu and Fredy Alvarez were buzzing. The couple’s conservative views had historically made them a minority within Atlanta’s Hispanic community. But now, Marilu Alvarez said more people close to them are “hurting financially ... they are looking at the way things are now, and they are not liking what they are seeing.”
“For us, it’s incredible that a politician at the statewide level has come to a Hispanic, Cuban restaurant to look for our vote,” Fredy Alvarez told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Spanish. “Before, no one would come.”
