For presidential candidates, Latino voters could make or break the White House

Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

Hillary Clinton ate a lime ice and met employees at La Flor de Michoacan, a Mexican ice cream shop in North Las Vegas. Marco Rubio chatted with voters in Spanish in the opening of a speech and drank Cuban coffee at Havana Grill in Las Vegas. Rand Paul gave a preamble to his September speech at a LIBRE forum in Spanish and talked about working with immigrants as a landscaper in his youth.

Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle are recognizing the extraordinary power of Nevada’s Latino voters — a population that has continued to rapidly expand over the last couple of decades. Last year, Latinos made up 28 percent of the state’s population, up from 20 percent in 2000. Latinos have also made significant gains in state offices in recent years. Gov. Brian Sandoval was elected the first Latino governor in 2010, and Catherine Cortez Masto was elected the first Latina attorney general in 2006 — and is poised to become the first Latina U.S. senator if she scoops up Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s seat in 2016.

The play by Hillary Clinton’s campaign for Latinos in the state is to be expected, said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego political science professor. Latinos were an important part of Clinton’s coalition in 2008 and are also one of her strongest constituencies against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

So far, Clinton’s Nevada campaign has recruited a handful of Latino, bilingual organizers and is reaching out directly to the Latino community through cafecitos, Latino-to-Latino phone banks and canvassing in Latino neighborhoods. “If you’ve never been involved in the political process, we like to break down those fears,” said Jorge Neri, the campaign’s Nevada organizing director.

Campaign events in the state have also played up Clinton’s Latino-friendliness. A watch party hosted by the campaign at the Wynn Tuesday night opened with a performance by a mariachi band from a local high school and Clinton’s rally at Springs Preserve the following day featured a performance by a Mexican dance company.

The Latino vote won’t be as important in deciding the Republican nomination, but could be affect the outcome in the general election — depending on who gets the Republican nomination, that is, Kousser said. “A Jeb Bush or a Marco Rubio ticket becomes a live concern for Democrats. A (Donald) Trump, (Ben) Carson or (Carly) Fiorina? Democrats are going to feel great about that.”

In Nevada, Latino voters make up 15 percent of the electorate, up 10 percent from 1994. The majority of those, 54 percent, identify as Democrats with 16 percent identifying as Republican and 21 percent identifying as independent, according to a 2014 poll.

The Latino vote has shifted over time between overwhelmingly Democratic and slightly Democratic, said Zoltan Hajnal, a political science professor at UC San Diego. A significant shift could turn the state red.

Bush recently appointed a 26-member Hispanic Leadership Committee in the state, headed by Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce board member Peter Guzman and Northern Nevada businesswoman Maria Davis. Bush’s more moderate plan for immigration reform distances him from other Republican candidates and could appeal to Latino voters in the state — along with his fluent Spanish and Mexican-born wife.

“He speaks with compassion and dignity. Instead of screaming at my culture and my people, he talks with them,” Guzman said. “Kicking people out and ripping families apart is not a policy.”

Other Republican candidates are comparatively tougher on immigration but still have shown some appeal to Latino voters in the state. Notably, Las Vegas resident and Colombian immigrant Myriam Witcher made headlines last week when Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump pulled her up on stage at his rally at Treasure Island. Witcher said she had to wait five years to get a visa and immigrate to the country legally and that she supported Trump’s immigration plan, which includes deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

Other Republican campaigns have begun outreach to the Latino community to varying degrees. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s Nevada campaign has secured the support of the only Republican Latina member of the state Legislature, Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman, and is working with her and several members of the Cuban community in Las Vegas to recruit Latino volunteers. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul spoke at a meeting of the Koch-backed libertarian Latino outreach group LIBRE in Las Vegas in September.

Any votes Republicans can pull away from Democrats from the Latino community could be enough to change the outcome. “Latinos are concentrated primarily in states that are not competitive, like California and Texas. But they can be incredibly important in a small number of states where they could potentially be the margin of victory,” Hajnal said. “Nevada is a quintessential example of where Latinos could turn the case.”