Both presidential campaigns are making a strong effort to reach out to the key demographic of Latino voters as election day nears. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that she would work to bring more funds to community banks to help Latino men secure small business loans, while Republican Donald Trump held an economic roundtable aimed at Latino voters.
The vice president sat down with Telemundo anchor Julio Vaqueiro for an interview on Tuesday. Harris said she would work to double the number of registered apprenticeships. She is stressing how she would remove college degree requirements for certain federal government jobs and encourage private employers to do likewise. Harris also wants to provide forgivable loans worth up to $20,000 each to 1 million small businesses.
Harris said, “I know that Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify.
“For that reason, I’m focused on seeing what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that better understand the community so we can give them that kind of loans.”
The Harris team accused her opponent of not caring about Latino men and their families, saying he “would abandon Latino workers.”
Trump’s allies refuted these claims and have argued that his policies favor Latinos.
“The truth of the matter is that Donald Trump’s policies—particularly on the border and economy—benefits Latinos, many of whom are hard-working American citizens who have been unjustly harmed by getting lower wages from competing with illegal aliens and foreign workers,” said Paul Ingrassia, a Trump campaign surrogate, in a statement to NTD News.
Trump did his own Latino outreach on Tuesday at a roundtable meeting with local leaders at Trump National Doral Miami.
The former president centered the discussion on migrant crime, commenting that “the criminals that they’re allowing in are tougher than any criminal there is. The only good thing about it is they make our criminals look like nice people. These are ruthless, horrible people.”
During Trump’s event, he sat after his opening remarks as elected officials and business leaders who are Latino praised the economy during his administration, thanking him specifically for tax cuts he signed in 2017.
One of Trump’s former White House staffers spoke of her experience working in his administration for all four years and how he showed his care for Latinos.
“I got a front row seat of how much you cared about the Latino community and you delivered results. And you didn’t pander to us. You gave us opportunity, and that’s what we want. We want the American Dream,” said Jenny Korn, former Special Assistant to the President and member of Latino Americans for Trump.
In a close race, the Harris campaign is betting that Latino men are getting more attuned to policy specifics as the election draws closer.
The Harris team’s Hispanic media strategy “builds on the campaign’s long-standing commitment and efforts to meet Latino men where they are, discuss the issues that matter most to them, and mobilize them to encourage other Latino men to vote for Kamala Harris,” the campaign said.
Based on focus groups, Matt Barreto, a Harris campaign pollster, said the Harris campaign found that Latino men in particular wanted access to apprenticeships that could give people without college degrees access to a financially stable career.
The latest Labor Department figures show there are 641,044 registered apprenticeships, an increase from the Trump administration, when apprenticeships peaked in 2020 at 569,311. Doubling that figure as Harris has proposed would put the total number of apprenticeships at roughly 1.2 million over four years.
Latino men also expressed a need for access to capital and credit to start companies, as the Treasury Department reported on Oct. 10 that Latino business ownership is up 40 percent over pre-pandemic levels and could keep climbing with better financing options.
Harris won’t be the only one on her team doing media this week, as her running mate and her husband will be trying to get their team’s message out to Latino men as well.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will appear on Univision’s “El Bueno, La Mala y El Feo” radio show, while Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, will be on the “El Free-Guey Show,” also on Univision, and he will do a Nueva Network Radio interview with Alex “El Genio” Lucas.
Trump hopes to convince Latinos that they can trust a fellow businessman such as himself.
“Hispanic people—they say you can’t generalize, but I think you can—they have wonderful entrepreneurship and they have—oh, do you have such energy. Just ease up a little bit, OK? Ease up,” Trump said at an Oct. 12 event. “You have great ambition, you have great energy, very smart, and you really do like natural entrepreneurs.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.