The 2023 Poll of Nevada’s Hispanic Electorate was released on Dec. 14—and the main takeaway, according to voter advocates, is that candidates are not reaching Latino voters as well as they could be, due to mistaken assumptions.
This study was conducted by UnidosUS, which calls itself the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, and Mi Familia Vota, an organization that works to increase voter registration and participation.
“Oversimplifications about these voters have led to ineffective or anemic outreach,” said Clarissa Martinez De Castro, UnidosUS’ vice president of the Latino Vote Initiative, in a press release.
Martinez De Castro spoke with the RN&R by phone to provide some context.
“I think (candidates) are committing political malpractice,” she said, adding that most political campaigns assume that voters have a political history—but the study found that 19 percent of Nevada’s Latinos will vote for the first time in the 2024 election.
“I think that if candidates reach out, it would have a motivating effect on voters who are eligible but in need of registration,” Martinez De Castro said.
According to the study, only 53 percent of Nevada’s eligible Latino population is registered to vote—leaving some 218,000 unregistered.
“A lot of times, people used to assume if we talk to Latinos, the only thing we need to talk to them about is immigration,” Martinez De Castro said. However, the study found that inflation and the rising cost of living, jobs, affordable housing and health care ranked higher than immigration on the list of Nevada Latinos’ chief concerns.
How can Nevada candidates most effectively reach out to Latino voters?
“In terms of registration, person-to-person has been the most effective,” she said. “However, we know that a lot of Latinos are online through their phones, so I think making sure that people are leveraging digital channels like YouTube and TikTok and other things like that (is important), in addition to being visible out in the community.”