--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you watch, you know, like Fox News, there's this narrative that President Biden let lots of Latinos in through the southern border to win elections.
--:-- Christian Paz: The reality is the plan from the beginning, get these people here as fast as possible and get them voting.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But if you look at how Latinos are polling, it doesn't seem like that plan's working out.
--:-- Christian Paz: Well, it turns out many of those immigrants aren't necessarily automatically going to become Democratic voters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Turns out that as they enter the country, settle, start families, have kids, have grandkids, they are becoming just as diverse and complicated as the country they were trying to come be a part of.
--:-- Christian Paz: There's some truth to some of what Reagan and other Republicans used to say about their line back in the day was, Hispanics are conservatives or Republicans, they just don't know it yet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Turns out there might be some truth to that.
--:-- Christian Paz: Demographics aren't destiny on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most.
--:-- Christian Paz: I've never met an AI agent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at ServiceNow.com.
--:-- Christian Paz: Support for this show comes from Macy's.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Layering is an art form.
--:-- Christian Paz: All it takes is a bit of intention, style, and of course, the perfect cold weather staples.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So find the perfect look for you with the help of Macy's Fall Fashion Guide, your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves curated by their experts.
--:-- Christian Paz: From leather to denim to cozy knits, find everything you need to piece together your new fall look.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Explore the Macy's Fall Guide for yourself and shop in-store or online at Macy's.com.
--:-- Christian Paz: 2020, 2020, 20. Four!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained, Sean Rahm is from Kamala Harris. Isn't putting up the numbers she should with a few groups that have historically voted for Democrats.
--:-- Christian Paz: We're going to talk about those groups on the program today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Christian Paz from Vox is here to kick it off with Latino voters. Correct.
--:-- Christian Paz: How is she doing with the Latino voters?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, not as bad as Joe Biden was doing.
--:-- Christian Paz: Okay. But definitely there are signs there that something is happening with the segment of the electorate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it reminds me a little bit of 2020.
--:-- Christian Paz: And it reminds me a little bit about this general conversation that we started to have after 2020, which was, are Latino voters becoming swing voters?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Take Zapata County, for example.
--:-- Christian Paz: There, the population is 95% Hispanic or Latino.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Trump won 52% of the voters.
--:-- Christian Paz: Demographics do not vote, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: People either do vote or do not.
--:-- Christian Paz: Are they changing? Are they not following the path that we long thought that they would, which was they've supported Democrats at pretty high rates and would stick with Democrats in terms of that level of support, contributing to this general idea that has kind of lifted up progressives, liberals for the last 20 years, that as the nation got more diverse, as the nation got more educated, as urban centers grew, that that demographic change would inevitably lead to a rising tide that would lift liberal Democrats into a position of power and being able to win national elections much more decisively and easier than in the past.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you might have heard of this idea that demographics are destiny.
--:-- Christian Paz: And we were talking about demographics, which I'm pretty sure are destiny.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What we're kind of seeing from the last few cycles is maybe not.
--:-- Christian Paz: Maybe voters can break the patterns, right, that they've followed in the past and behave differently as time goes on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's going on with Latino voters this time around?
--:-- Christian Paz: How do they feel about Biden?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How do they feel now about Harris?
--:-- Christian Paz: How does that compare to how they feel about Trump?
--:-- Christian Paz: Yeah, it's interesting here because two things are true at the same time, that there's new excitement for Kamala Harris.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: People were really fed up with Biden, really did not like him.
--:-- Christian Paz: And Latino support has consolidated to roughly around that 60 percent mark, high 50s in a lot of these polling averages.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Then at the same time, Trump's favorability, including among Latinos, has never been as high as it is now.
--:-- Christian Paz: Everything is perfective.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Meaning that there is either changing perspectives towards Trump and his policies.
--:-- Christian Paz: I think you see that a lot in some of the polling about whose policies were better for you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Hispanic Latino voters tend to align more with white voters in terms of reflecting on the Trump years as being particularly good for them.
--:-- Christian Paz: I love what Donald Trump did for us as an economy while he was in presidency.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I don't know what she has to offer because she's new.
--:-- Christian Paz: Are there important changes in the electorate that we should know about?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think so.
--:-- Christian Paz: I think always important to remember two things when talking about Latinos is that the average age tends to be much younger than the average American.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then also that most Latinos living in the U.S. are U.S. born.
--:-- Christian Paz: They don't necessarily have the same kind of memories of an immigrant experience or are further removed from the immigrant generation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At the same time, I think there are a few interesting trends about where these communities are growing.
--:-- Christian Paz: Some of the places that have seen the most growth in terms of Latino population aren't in the places you'd expect.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's not like California or Texas.
--:-- Christian Paz: It's places in the Midwest.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're seeing the rise of communities that are geographically diverse and spread across the country.
--:-- Christian Paz: Outside of the Philly suburbs, you have an array of Rust Belt towns that have large growing Latino populations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Same in North Dakota, same in South Dakota.
--:-- Christian Paz: Places that maybe folks went out to work in farms, work in other industrial jobs, and then settled and create communities.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you essentially see the path of assimilation in the U.S.
--:-- Christian Paz: So how is, say, Harris taking that into account?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In some ways it involves talking less explicitly about race and ethnicity less about identity politics less in terms of this is an ad for you a Latino person
--:-- Christian Paz: Instead prioritizing issues
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think I can remember a few ads that I've seen from the Harris campaign where there's talk about inflation, talk about housing affordability, talk about jobs and plans to address that with an English speaking person who has a accent specific to either Mexican American or Cuban-American or Puerto Rican.
--:-- Christian Paz: With the Biden-Harris administration's historic action, working people like us can continue to build a good life and strengthen our economy for generations to come.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so there is like a hint, right, an appeal, like a slight wink at, you know, this is an ad about the economy, but with a little, you know, nod to why it's targeted at you.
--:-- Christian Paz: Are you saying like literally just like put an accent on it?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, yeah, actually.
--:-- Christian Paz: And that's like literally what she's doing?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah.
--:-- Christian Paz: This is Mark Anthony.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Even though some have forgotten, I remember what it was like when Trump was president.
--:-- Christian Paz: I remember what he did and he said about Puerto Rico, about our people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Puerto Rico.
--:-- Christian Paz: I remember after—
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You do it in English.
--:-- Christian Paz: You do it in Spanish.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You run it in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas.
--:-- Christian Paz: And that's much more targeted than just saying, hey, Latinos, I am your Democratic candidate and I love you and the other guy is bad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He hates immigrants.
--:-- Christian Paz: And the school of thought for a while over the last decade was prioritize immigration, prioritize appeals to identity and solidarity, like center the fact that one side is fighting for you, the disadvantaged or marginalized person.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's the way that we'll be able to win more of these voters and complete that demographics is destiny vision.
--:-- Christian Paz: And what we've seen is that in many cases, this category of people we call Latinos and Hispanics don't necessarily identify as people of color or don't necessarily identify with that kind of like an overcoming message, like you're marginalized and we will help you achieve more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Instead, one thing that has been very true for the last few cycles is the reason that there's so much interest and care about the economy is because of this kind of aspirational mindset within these communities.
--:-- Christian Paz: That part of the reason that they even immigrated to the U.S., if they did, was in search of a better life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So if you want to appeal to them, you should talk about small business opportunities, about how to facilitate access to college, how to facilitate access to other trades, and present what now Harris is calling, which I find really interesting because it's almost like following that counter playbook to a T when she talks about the opportunity economy, her opportunity agenda.
--:-- Christian Paz: Together we will build in that future what I call an opportunity economy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which is where every American has an opportunity to own a home, to start a business, to build wealth.
--:-- Christian Paz: How's her opponent doing it?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is he also just putting an accent on it?
--:-- Christian Paz: There, it's a little bit different.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I'll tell you what, any African American or Hispanic, and you know how well I'm doing there, that votes for Kamala, you gotta have your head examined.
--:-- Christian Paz: Because they are really screwing you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They are really screwing you.
--:-- Christian Paz: You have little less sophistication and you're just running essentially like ads about immigration, about mismanagement of the southern border, about essentially almost like creating a bit of a dichotomy between those Hispanic and Latino Americans.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because this is a key thing that the Trump campaign has laid out is back in 2020, you had Latinos for Trump.
--:-- Christian Paz: In 2024, it's Latino Americans for Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, when you have millions of millions of undocumented people coming across the border, taking the jobs of all the Latinos, that's another thing.
--:-- Christian Paz: You know, these people are competing with Hispanics, not with other groups.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So definitely not good for the Latino community.
--:-- Christian Paz: And it's kind of trying to create some distance between folks who are immigrating to the U.S. more recently and those who have been here for some time and might be distraught at signs or images of disorder or overwhelmed borders, essentially.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so there's a degree there of essentially telling these voters in TV ads and digital ads that you are one of us.
--:-- Christian Paz: You're an American.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We are the party that will protect that sense of American identity.
--:-- Christian Paz: If this is all going to come down to immigration and the economy, then it feels like maybe Latino voters are even less so of like this distinct bloc and more just like the whole American electorate at this point, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I think of it as like another piece of evidence that some people call this the mainstreaming of Latinos and other folks call it the Latinization of America, where as Latinos become more and more of an integral part of the fabric of the country and of the political body, that they also lose some of the distinctiveness that made them so different back in the day.
--:-- Christian Paz: In that way, you know, I like to think of it as mirroring some of the changes that we saw with immigrant groups in the past, Italian, Irish Americans, going from being voting blocs that could reliably be counted on to essentially being 50-50 voters today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is some of what we've been seeing over the last decades with the way that Latinos have been participating in our elections.
--:-- Christian Paz: And at the same time, there's those political concerns that are front and center that mirror what the rest of the electorate is saying.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We may be headed for a future where these voters do become even more of a swing group, more of a group that maybe one side can have an advantage in winning a majority, but maybe not necessarily can be counted on to provide significant margins of support for one side or the other in the way that young voters, for example, do for Democrats now or that Black voters do for Democrats or that, you know, evangelical voters do for Republicans.
--:-- Christian Paz: ChristianPazVox.com. That's where you can find a whole dang series of stories on the American left.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're going to talk about the other groups that Harris is trying to hold on to when we're back on Today Explained.
--:-- Christian Paz: Support for Today Explained comes from Chime.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime.
--:-- Christian Paz: and Chime gets that, says Chime.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts
--:-- Christian Paz: So when you set up direct deposit through time they say you get access to fee free features such as free overdraft coverage getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So much more.
--:-- Christian Paz: Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Christian Paz: You can work on your financial goals through Chime today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Christian Paz: That's chime.com slash explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's be honest.
--:-- Christian Paz: Are you happy with your job?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, really happy?
--:-- Christian Paz: The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place.
--:-- Christian Paz: But still, we stick it out, and we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work?
--:-- Christian Paz: But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's time to get unstuck.
--:-- Christian Paz: It's time for Strawberry.me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be.
--:-- Christian Paz: Your coach helps you get clear on your goals, create a plan, build your confidence, and keeps you accountable along the way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So don't leave your career to chance.
--:-- Christian Paz: Take action and own your future with a professional coach in your corner.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer.
--:-- Christian Paz: That's strawberry.me slash unstuck.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I sometimes wonder how many of you are running businesses out there.
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--:-- Christian Paz: That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so how do you pronounce it?
--:-- Christian Paz: First you say comma like a common sentence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Then you say la like la la la la la.
--:-- Christian Paz: Put it together and it's one, two, three.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is back.
--:-- Christian Paz: Christian Paz is gone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Amy Walter is here.
--:-- Christian Paz: She's the editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the Democratic base we think of as voters of color, younger voters. and with black voters, for example, these are voters that in 2020 gave Biden really strong support.
--:-- Amy Walter: So Biden won black voters by 81 points.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Harris is still winning them overwhelmingly, but it's by 64 points.
--:-- Amy Walter: And, you know, if you're talking about a race, which this one is, that is fought on the margins, you know, you'd say, well, she's still winning them overwhelmingly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure, but 10, 15-point swing, or in some of these states, even a three- or four-point swing away from Democrats is the difference between a Democrat winning and a Democrat losing.
--:-- Amy Walter: Now, the one bright spot for Harris where she is doing better than Biden did in 2020, she's doing about four points better with white voters who have a college degree or better.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is really the sort of the core question for this election, which is when we see these demographic shifts, voters of color, again, not moving to be a majority for Republicans, but many of them moving their allegiance away from Democrats, voting for a Republican.
--:-- Amy Walter: Are we going to see some other group of voters flipping from Republican to Democrat?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what we know is that people who show up and vote election after election, as a whole, they tend to be older and they are whiter just as a percent than the overall electorate.
--:-- Amy Walter: And so there's this trope about who's going to, you know, it's all about turnout now in these last two weeks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Part of the question about turnout is not just which voters are turning out, but how many of those voters are turning out who aren't traditionally active voters because that's where Trump does best.
--:-- Amy Walter: And it's unclear if they're going to win him back with unions because Harris has struggled to get the endorsement of some key unions, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, but I also think it's important to make the distinction between, and we had to learn this lesson in 2016 as well, between being a so-called blue-collar voter and being a labor union member and what drives those voters.
--:-- Amy Walter: Also, the big difference between being a member of a trade that is overwhelmingly male versus being part of a labor union that's overwhelmingly female.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you think about service workers, nurses, teachers, right, those are also members of labor.
--:-- Amy Walter: And they're bigger in number than the number of firefighters, let's say.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But firefighters and teamsters are a stand-in, I think, for white non-college men and their alienation from a party that used to call them the core of their coalition.
--:-- Amy Walter: This is really the interesting question whether what we going to see is a real realignment among voters along we call it class So it's not really income, but it's really more along education being much more of a factor than just simply what your gender or race is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we get a Democratic Party now being much more affiliated with that managerial class and a Republican Party more affiliated with the working class across ethnicities and across race.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've been talking mostly so far about voters who we may have historically thought sort of belonged in the Democratic tent.
--:-- Amy Walter: But Harris, more so than I'm thinking any candidate in recent memory from the Democratic Party, has been making a real play for Republicans.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican.
--:-- Amy Walter: Campaigning with Liz Cheney.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Dick Cheney will be voting for Kamala Harris.
--:-- Amy Walter: Talking about Dick Cheney, of all people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is that working?
--:-- Amy Walter: Right. Like, you know, the 2004 you comes back and says, by the way, 20 years from now, Dick Cheney is going to endorse a Democrat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You'd be like, that will never happen. Ever.
--:-- Amy Walter: How big can the tent get?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah.
--:-- Amy Walter: This is really the absolute question of the hour, which is if you are losing or not doing as well with your traditional core voters, voters of color, can you make that up with white voters who have traditionally been Republican?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there are some signs when I look at this white college number, I say, OK, so those are clearly people who since 2020 maybe are feeling a little less keyed in to Donald Trump or maybe more willing to show up for a Democrat this time around.
--:-- Amy Walter: But it is a small percent of the electorate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And part of the reason Harris is doing better in those whiter states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than she is in states that have a higher percentage of voters of color like Georgia or Arizona or Nevada is that in the polling, she's not doing any worse with white non-college voters.
--:-- Amy Walter: She's holding her own there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, if that is the case, that's like a best case scenario for Harris, right?
--:-- Amy Walter: Voters of color are catching up with where those white non-college voters have been for a long time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so it makes some sense that the shift is really happening in places where people are more open to movement, that white voters are pretty set and they're pretty stable as voters.
--:-- Amy Walter: It's voters of color, especially Latino voters who just are not as aligned with party, who maybe new voters, who just don't have the same history with voting behavior that many of these white voters do.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So maybe it's realistic that she doesn't lose any more ground with white non-college voters, even as she's losing ground with Latinos and black voters who fit into that same category.
--:-- Amy Walter: But it's also possible that she does do worse with this group of voters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in that case, all three of those things together, black, Latino, white, non-college, moving away from her, you can't make that up just by doing a little bit better with women or doing a little bit better with those Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, Nikki Haley voters.
--:-- Amy Walter: Besides like one of the candidates being a felon another of the candidates dropping out two assassination attempts and that one time like one of the candidates just stood up on a stage and danced for 30 minutes so play ymca go ahead let's go nice and loud here we go everybody what has surprised you most about this this campaign season but this is the sean that's the answer is after all of that, the polls have moved like two points.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Either way.
--:-- Amy Walter: You just said a whole bunch of crazy stuff that in any other era we would say, oh gosh, you know, that's going to have a big impact.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Everybody keeps asking me about the October surprise.
--:-- Amy Walter: We've had an October surprise. We've had an October surprise every week.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah.
--:-- Amy Walter: Since July.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, and also, don't think about what's happened since 2020.
--:-- Amy Walter: We've had January 6th.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've had indictments.
--:-- Amy Walter: We've had the Dobbs decision.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And yet, if you look at people who said they voted in 2020 and who you're voting for now, 95% of people who voted for Trump in 2020 are voting for him now.
--:-- Amy Walter: 95% of those people who voted for Biden are voting for Harris now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In other words, even after all this craziness of the last four years and the craziness of the last six months.
--:-- Amy Walter: 90 plus percent of people are sticking with the candidate they had in 2020.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that is, in essence, our politics right now.
--:-- Amy Walter: It takes a lot to move anybody off of their partisanship.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so we are now fighting over a very small slice, the candidates are fighting, over a very small slice of the electorate, four or five percent.
--:-- Amy Walter: And a tiny sliver of them moving is the difference between one candidate winning or one candidate losing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Always good to remember that a very small number of people will decide this election.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Amy Walter, cookpolitical.com, Avishai Artsy and Eliza Dennis were in the kitchen making this show.
--:-- Amy Walter: Amina Alsadi, Laura Bullard, Andrea Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd were the sous chefs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained.
