In the heat of the first week of her unexpected presidential campaign, Kamala Harris took time, with just over 100 days to go before the election, to host a barbecue on the grounds of her official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., for a select group of “Latino community leaders.”
The event took place last Thursday and featured Mexican food, papel picado ornaments and a band playing mariachi, salsa, and merengue music. Vice President Harris, who had just spent the day in Houston, Texas, where she gave a rally for a teachers’ union, welcomed Hispanic members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Miguel Cardona (Education) and Xavier Becerra (Health), as well as actors Rosario Dawson, Wilson Cruz and America Ferrera, television personality Ana Navarro and dozens of activists who work in defense of the community’s interests.
The Voto Latino Foundation, the event’s co-hosting organization, was one of the first to show its support for the U.S. vice president after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race. It also pledged to contribute $44 million to Harris’ campaign in the swing states that could decide the outcome of the presidential election in favor of one side or the other.
“While the far right seeks to demonize immigrants, destroy our democracy, and limit our rights, she has led the way in defending a multicultural democracy,” the organization said in its endorsement message. The group, it announced, will focus its efforts in Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
Harris knows only too well the boost the Hispanic electorate can provide. It proved crucial in her two campaigns as a contender for attorney general of California, a state with a quarter Latino voters. In the 2010 election, they even preferred her to one of their own, popular Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. “Most of us reject the mass deportations [proposed by Trump]. We prioritize the legalization of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for years. We also expect a firm hand against human and drug traffickers,” Martinez de Castro said.
Harris, according to a CNN poll conducted last week, has 6% more support than the president among the Hispanic electorate, whose voting intention has grown the second-most following the change of candidate, only behind African-Americans (8%). These brighter prospects are essential in two of the seven decisive states in November: Arizona and Nevada, where Latinos represent 21% and 19% of the electorate, respectively. If Biden won both in 2020, it was due to that support.
In the head-to-head with Trump, a New York Times/Siena College poll released over the weekend put the share of the vote Harris would receive from Hispanics at 57%, compared to 38% of those who would vote Republican.
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