In California's 2020 primary, Latino voters could help Democrats defeat President Trump

SAN FRANCISCO – On a recent Sunday, Victor Garcia left his Silicon Valley apartment and traveled an hour north to attend a rally by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.   

Garcia, a 20-year-old political science major, is eager to vote both in the November 2020 election and in California’s moved-up primary on March 3. But as curious as he is about Yang, a passionate proponent of a monthly $1,000 Universal Basic Income payment, Garcia is still candidate-shopping. He wants to see which politician is most attuned to issues that concern the state’s growing Latino population.

“This election is really important,” Garcia says as a largely youthful crowd gathers at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco ahead of Yang's speech. “That said, most candidates really aren’t reaching out to us yet."

With California's earlier primary date giving the state newfound clout in choosing who takes on President Donald Trump, political experts say presidential hopefuls would do well to step up their courtship of the Golden State’s increasingly powerful Latino voters. 

According to the Pew Research Center, not only are Latinos the majority-minority, with 39% (or 15 million) of the state's 40 million residents, but they also represent roughly a third of the state’s eligible voters (at 7.7 million).

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

While Latino voter turnout lags that of other ethnicities – 45% of Latino adults are likely to vote, compared with 68% of whites, according to the Public Policy Institute of California – those numbers have been shifting.

In the 2018 midterms, contests that traditionally draw fewer voters than general elections, Latino voter turnout hit 36%, a doubling from 2014 that helped California Democratic candidates flip seven perennially Republican House seats.

California Democrats gather:Here's what you need to know

And Latino turnout expectations are heightened for the 2020 presidential election.

At play not only are robust voter registration efforts aimed at a heavily Democratic constituency – 58% register as Democrats, compared with 15% who register as Republicans – but also a powerful resentment of Trump, whose disapproval rating hovers at 70% among Latinos, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

According to a Nov. 13 statewide Latino Decisions poll commissioned by the Latino Community Foundation, 74% of registered Latino voters say they plan to vote in the March 3 primary. Concerns about racism was cited by 76% of respondents.

The poll also reveals that 31% planned to vote for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 22% for former Vice President Joe Biden and 11% for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro came in at 9%, and California Sen. Kamala Harris was at 8%.

“The message we want all Latinos to hear is that they have the power to determine who is going to run against Trump and who will win in November,” says Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, CEO of San Francisco- based Latino Community Foundation, which is working to get out the Latino vote across the state.

“The political climate we are in has awoken a new generation of voters,” she says. “I hate the term sleeping giant, because we’ve been working, not sleeping. Now the candidates have to engage.”

2020 Democratic candidates tackle Latino issues at TV forum

Democrats making a run for the White House will have an opportunity to lock in Garcia’s vote on Nov. 16 in Long Beach, California, site of a televised Univision forum that will include Harris, Warren, Sanders, Castro, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and entrepreneur Yang.

The event represents a rare in-state gathering by candidates who by and large have been visiting California mostly for lucrative private fundraising trips. Many have so far focused their campaigning on Iowa and other early battleground states.

In fact, Biden has skipped all events hosted by the state’s Democratic Party –  but has attended posh donor events up and down the state. He recently announced he would not be at the state’s party convention in Long Beach Nov. 15 through 17.

Rounding out the Univision forum's field of eight – and serving as last-minute replacements for original invitees Biden, Warren and former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who ended his once-promising campaign Nov. 1 – will be billionaire Tom Steyer, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The cost of not grabbing the attention of Latinos across the state is high, says Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

“A presidential candidate cannot win California without getting a very significant portion of the Latino population, so ignoring outreach here is a huge strategic mistake,” Romero says.

USA TODAY reached out to the campaigns of all those initially invited to the upcoming Univision forum to talk about Latino voters in California. Yang’s team was the only one to arrange an interview.

“As a child of immigrants, I appreciate that communities may have unique issues,” Yang tells USA TODAY in a makeshift greenroom just off Mission Street that by night is a chic cocktail bar. “But my campaign focuses on topics that affect all of us.”

Yang says that by highlighting the coming negative effects of automation on retail, transportation and food service jobs, he is in fact directly addressing the concerns of Latino voters.

“Many communities will be adversely affected by this coming economic natural disaster,” Yang says. “But those who will suffer the most will be people of color.”

So who has the edge? A recent Telemundo poll of Latino voters nationally showed Biden leading with 26%, followed by Sanders at 18% and Warren at 10%. The next closest was Harris at 3%. But 36% of Latino voters said they were undecided.

Those findings largely were borne out in conversations with a range of California Latino leaders, from the state’s top law enforcement official to a popular radio deejay.

“Most Latinos certainly know who Joe Biden is, so he’ll get solid support, especially from the older generation,” says Xavier Becerra, the state's first Latino attorney general. His office has sued the Trump administration more than 60 times on a range of issues.

Becerra says that for many Latino voters, name recognition is key.

“Four years ago, I was campaigning for Hillary (Clinton) and Sanders was having a tough time gaining traction with Latinos, and now he’s way up there,” he says. “What that shows is Latinos, like others, want to know who you are before they turn to you.”

Interest in Sanders and Warren indicates Latinos are “trending on the progressive side, which makes sense when you see the growth of younger voters,” Becerra says.

Currently, 44% of eligible Latino voters are in the millennial age bracket, 18 to 33, according to Pew.

'No issue isn't a Latino issue'

Chuy Gomez, a longtime Bay Area radio broadcaster, often has the ear of younger Latino voters.

“A lot of people I speak with want Bernie in,” Gomez says. “He speaks to the common folks, the workers. He’s anti-rich.”

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who is also chair of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, has endorsed Warren.

“She talks about bread and butter issues in a Midwest way, but it’s all about paying the rent, getting more power as a worker, and our community relates to those issues,” she says.

When asked about Julian Castro, the lone Latino in the shrinking cluster of Democratic candidates, many say that while Latinos instantly relate to a man with a familiar last name and life story, that doesn’t necessarily mean he has their vote.

“We want Castro in the race because he lives like us and represents us, so him being president is secondary to him just being on that stage,” Gonzalez says. “We should be an example for the nation. We were scapegoated by this president as a way to win the last election. So we want to help galvanize Latinos everywhere to vote.”

Political pundits often like to talk about voters being driven largely by specific issues. But conversations with Latinos make it clear this is not a monolithic group.

In fact, they hold a range of views, from progressive to conservative, and care about a rainbow of issues ranging from income inequality to climate change.

“There is no issue that is not a Latino issue,” says Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state who is also the first Latino to hold that position. “We want what everyone else wants. An opportunity for a good-paying job, access to health care, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing. Our dream is the American dream.”

Padilla says many Latinos see that dream as increasingly under threat by the Trump administration, which has appealed to its base by attacking illegal immigration and calling for tougher security at the Mexican border.

That, however, has served only to galvanize Latinos in a way that reminds Padilla of California’s Proposition 187, which was passed by the state’s voters 25 years ago this month.

Prop 187 denied undocumented immigrants access to health care and education. Although a day later the proposition was ruled unconstitutional, it created a movement that eventually saw 1 million California Latinos become citizens and arguably launched the ethnic group on a path toward increased power at the polls.

Election Day could be decided by Latinos

Latino political activists agree that while the debate over illegal immigration is deeply upsetting to Latinos, candidates would be making a mistake if they focused their messaging on this one topic.

“It’s very important for these candidates to understand that it is not the case that if you know what one Latino wants, you know what we all want,” says Latino Community Foundation CEO Martinez Garcel.

“For example, I’m a Dominican from New York, so when I hear AOC (progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) speak, I don’t hear socialism, I hear policies that care about the poor,” she says. “You have to know who you’re talking to.”

Another mistake for candidates would be displaying a level of sympathy that teeters into pity.

“Sometimes presidential candidates don’t talk about Latinos in uplifting ways but just as victims, and we need to challenge that image,” says Sarah Souza, president of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club, the first DACA recipient (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), or "Dreamer," to be appointed to the post.

Souza, who originally is from Brazil, says candidates who push for access to home ownership and financial resources for Latinos will find a ready audience.

“We want economic opportunities just like everyone else,” says Souza, adding that she supports Castro, Sanders and Warren. “They’re the most progressive and have an agenda that is for people of color, a group that has long been a target when it comes to economic equity.”

For Alma Beltran, mayor of Parlier, California, just south of the agricultural mecca of Fresno, the upcoming primary and general election are about restoring opportunity and dignity to the lives of her 15,000 constituents – 98.8% of whom are Latino, including her and the entire City Council.

Though times are tough in Parlier because of scarce economic opportunities and looming water quality issues, Beltran finds encouragement in the younger generation.

“I talk to some people who will say ‘It won’t make a difference if I vote,’ but then I run into young people like my son, who is 17 and told me when he gets older he wants to run for office,” Beltran says. “You think maybe they don’t understand what’s going on, but they’re watching. They’re the people who will make a difference.”

Presidential candidates have work to do

The crowd waiting for Yang at Civic Center Plaza is in fact mostly younger. Signs invariably tout the merits of his basic income plan, while most of the baseball caps say, "MATH," a play off Trump's MAGA slogan that stands for Make America Think Harder.

Marching with a smile is Eliana Jaramillo. Her large sign features a cartoon drawing of Yang as Uncle Sam, and in Spanish it reads, “Universal Basic Income: I want you to have $1,000 a month.”

Jaramillo says she was drawn to Yang’s campaign specifically because that kind of stipend would have allowed her and her two children to flee an abusive relationship sooner.

“I’m marching in the hope that other women don’t have to go through what I did,” she says.

Nearby, Milo Alvarez bops up and down on his toes as he tries to get his infant son to sleep in his chest-mounted sling.

“I was a Bernie fan, but now I like Yang because I love this idea of a universal basic income,” says Alvarez, a scooter repairman from Daly City just south of San Francisco.

Alvarez reels off the other issues that are important to him, including health care and climate change. He says he doesn’t particularly mind if candidates don't appeal to him specifically as a Latino.

“I care about the issues, which cut across a lot of ethnicities,” he says.

Whether a broad political appeal, like that made by Yang, will be enough to woo California's Latino voters come the elections in March and November remains to be seen. 

California Secretary of State Padilla suggests it may not be.

“You cannot compete in California without paying deep respect and responding to the Latino community,” he says. “Bottom line.”

Follow USA TODAY national correspondent Marco della Cava: @marcodellacava