lpetrich
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A Progressive Latina Thinks Democrats Are Blowing It with Hispanic Voters - POLITICO
In the general election, she beat a moderate-Republican and John-McCain-admiring Hispanic by 34% in a district that the Cook Political Report rates as +20% Democratic, winning in Chicago by 53% and barely winning in DuPage Cty - 2% - and winning Hispanic areas there by 14%.
Something like AOC's success.It was a Saturday, about a week and a half before the midterms, and Delia Ramirez wasn’t taking any chances. The heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District with its 40-plus percent Hispanic population was almost guaranteed to send her to Washington. But Ramirez was out knocking on doors anyway. She didn’t want to just win; she wanted to prove something.
Since 2020, much attention has been paid to Republicans’ increasing popularity with Latino voters. To reverse this trend, some have argued, Democrats would need to hew much closer to the middle. But Ramirez had a different theory, and she was determined to prove it here in the western suburbs of Chicago.
Democrats, she believed, were losing Hispanic voters because they weren’t talking to them the right way. And that means telling working-class Latinos the party is going to fight for them against the “rigged” economic system that favors, as she puts it, “a bunch of riquillos,” or rich people. What brings out working Latino families to vote, Ramirez argues, is a straightforward economically progressive message — not threats to democracy or rhetoric on social justice issues but pocketbook issues such as health care and housing.
It's the opposite of Mayra Flores, who won against a Democrat in a special election in South Texas. She lost in the general election against another Democrat, however.This is Ramirez’s playbook: hammering on Latinos’ hunger for better political representation and connecting her progressive economic platform to her own personal story as “the daughter of two Guatemalan immigrants working factory jobs.” Ramirez’s parents are how she bonds emotionally and politically with voters. Her mother, she says, “nearly died in the Rio Grande,” pregnant and crossing the river carrying Ramirez, and her 71-year-old father, she says, “can’t retire with dignity” because “he needs to get another job to afford his Medicare supplementals.”
In the primary, she won against a moderate Latino opponent by 42%, 40% in Chicago and 47% in the suburbs of DuPage County.Joshua Ulibarri, a Democratic strategist at Lake Research Partners, said Democrats have a perception problem with Latino voters who often view them as “weak” and ineffective, while associating “strength” and “getting things done” with Republicans. “That’s not what they see with Delia,” Ulibarri said. “They see an assertive campaign orientated around affordable housing, health care and education. That is pretty exciting for voters.”
In the general election, she beat a moderate-Republican and John-McCain-admiring Hispanic by 34% in a district that the Cook Political Report rates as +20% Democratic, winning in Chicago by 53% and barely winning in DuPage Cty - 2% - and winning Hispanic areas there by 14%.