Dems: Latino turnout up 174 percent over '14 in early voting

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic Party says a $30 million investment in engaging Latino and other minority voters helped the Democrats achieve a net gain of 34 House seats and improve on 2014 turnout numbers.

Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that in early voting, compared to the previous midterm election, Latinos increased their participation by 174 percent in 2018 while Pacific Islanders increased their numbers by 218 percent and African-Americans by 157 percent.

"Latino voters played a pivotal role in taking back the House," Lujan told reporters during a conference call organized by the political action committee Latino Victory to discuss the impact of the Latino vote. "Evidence is clear: Early and active and robust outreach to communities of color — in this case, into the Hispanic community — clearly pays off."

Lujan, the first Hispanic to head the party's arm focused on House races, said the engagement effort included an investment of at least $21 million in Latino candidates and in 17 Spanish-language district specific ads. His office also launched the first multistate Spanish-language TV ad the last week before the election to get out the vote in the Latino community.

The Democrats targeted 111 Republican House congressional districts, 29 of which had at least a 10 percent Hispanic electorate.

Dan Sena, the DCCC executive director, said the polling company Latino Decisions conducted nationwide focus groups to better identify the needs of Latino voters and to tailor a proper message.

"What we wanted was a real, organic way to engage Latino voters and Hispanic voters across the country with a message that was positive and a reason to participate," Sena said. "We did a fair amount of studying how to create urgency without it feeling overtly heavy."

During the campaign, President Donald Trump kept up a daily drumbeat of warnings about a caravan of "bad thugs" and potential terrorists intent on invading the U.S. from Mexico. He suggested sending up to 15,000 troops to the border to contain hundreds of Central American immigrants heading toward the southern U.S. border with the intention of claiming asylum.

Lujan highlighted the victory of Antonio Delgado in New York as an example of how a Latino candidate won by keeping a positive message even when facing racist attacks.

Delgado, a Harvard Law School graduate and Rhodes scholar, defeated Republican Rep. John Faso for a congressional seat representing the Hudson Valley. Republicans seized on his brief hip-hop career to portray Delgado, who is black, as unfit for office.

"Antonio did not get distracted by any of that. What he did was he talked to the American people and the people of the 19th District of New York about the economic challenges that they are facing every day," Lujan said.

The Hispanic community will have a record level of representation on Capitol Hill with at least 42 members: 34 Democrats and eight Republicans in both chambers. One House race featuring a Hispanic candidate has yet to be decided.

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Follow Luis Alonso Lugo on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/luisalonsolugo

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This story has been updated to clarify that the percentages in the second paragraph refer to early voting, not overall voting.