MIAMI—Former President Donald Trump hosted a “Latino Americans for Trump” roundtable at his hotel and resort in Miami-Doral, Florida, on Oct. 22, hours before Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for a television interview with Hispanic television network Telemundo.
Both candidates are making pitches to Latino Americans in the final two weeks of the 2024 presidential election, especially as the historically Democratic-leaning voting block has been trending further toward Trump. A recent poll from USA Today–Suffolk University found Latino voters favor Trump over Harris 49 to 38 percent.
At the former president’s roundtable—which featured Latino business leaders and icons in South Florida GOP politics—Trump told attendees that he thinks the border is a more pressing issue than the economy.
“The biggest thing is the border,” Trump said, criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies. He vowed to seal the border through executive action, saying, “Close the border, and it’s closed.”
In her Telemundo interview with journalist Julio Vaqueiro, Harris unveiled new economic proposals that would benefit Latino Americans, including efforts to “expand opportunities by investing in small businesses and entrepreneurs [and] professional development.”
“Latinos have dreams and hopes but not necessarily access,” Harris said. “Latino voters understand that they want a president who invests in their dreams. I understand working people, I understand the dreams that people have for their children, and that they are willing to work hard to achieve them. … We have to create opportunities.”
Harris said she would pursue an agenda that prioritizes a strong economy that supports working people, saying, “I’m very conscious of how it would affect Latino men.”
Some of those proposals include doubling training programs like apprenticeships and eliminating unnecessary college degree requirements for certain jobs and internships. She also suggested building on training models that would create higher-paying positions for Latino men and forming partnerships with businesses, unions, community colleges, religious groups, and Hispanic institutions.
Harris plans to give 1 million forgivable business loans of up to $20,000 to Latino entrepreneurs, a proposal similar to one she made earlier this month for black male voters.
Trump Roundtable Brings Enthusiasm
Speakers at Trump’s roundtable on Tuesday included Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—who is running for reelection this year—Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, and Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo.
“The Hispanic vote is the deciding factor” in this election, said Scott, who is in a close race this year with his Democratic opponent, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
“This is how you win, every day is election day until Nov. 5,” Scott told the audience, urging them to take advantage of Florida’s early voting, which began in many state counties on Oct. 21.
Florida permits early voting starting on at least the 10th day before the election, but individual supervisors of elections are allowed to offer additional early voting on the 11th to 15th days before election day.
“We believe in legal immigration vetted. We believe in safety in the streets … Safety is a priority,” Marta Mesa told The Epoch Times. Mesa is a Colombian American, a resident of Broward County, Florida, and the co-founder of Republican Amigos.
“We believe in hard work. We don’t like handouts. Most people believe that we can make an American dream, and that’s why they work so hard to get to buy a house, to get a job, to make a business.
“But also we want our safety and our families to grow up in a safe environment, not with open borders.”
Richard Vega, who traveled from Houston to hear Trump speak on Tuesday, explained why he thinks so many Latino Americans are moving away from the Democratic Party.
“A lot of our Latino values lean to the right, but yet, for so many years, we voted to the left, and I think a lot of the Latinos are just fed up. They’re starting to rise up … and so you’re seeing this large shift over the last few years,” Vega told The Epoch Times.
“There’s Democrats that are leaving the Democratic Party, especially in the Latino community, because it’s not the Democratic Party of 10 years ago,” he said, adding that he believes the party’s values have shifted in recent years.
Harris unveiled new economic proposals that would benefit Latino Americans, including efforts to “expand opportunities by investing in small businesses and entrepeneurs [and] professional development.”
In other words Cackles is buying votes…
Kamala- “I understand the dreams that people have for their children, and that they are willing to work hard to achieve them. … We have to create opportunities.”,,,,
So where are your children Kamala? How many aborted dreams of lost American innocence came out of your own loins whose souls now lie in limbo along with Doug’s lost Nanny discretions. If the dreams for a successful self-governing life you and Joe have unbirthed for millions of now debt-ridden financially depleted in dependency Americans you were trusted to lead, I say that WE THE PEOPLE’s next pro-choice move is to abort you and your entire spiritually contaminated campaign, where manufactured Trump boogeymen and failed financial responsibility just became “Created Opportunities” into the self-made crisis you never let an opportunity go to waste to exploit. We trusted you with our schools and received back teenage children who cannot read or write, we sent whole children to your schools and got back gender deformed, mentally molested children as your gift in return. We gave you our money,,,and you sold it for votes. Shame on you and those like you who are not fit to show their true faces in public. We asked for some bread and you gave us a stone, we asked for some fish and you gave us your snakes. We asked for the truth and you lied up your arse. We asked for unity and you cut us into pieces. Don’t go away angry, just go the hell away!!!
What peeves me off, is we see these events for “latinos/women/blacks/asians. BUT WHY IS THERE NEVER ONE FOR just whites?!”
because we know what the response would be..
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!
“Latino voters understand that they want a president who invests in their dreams…”
Great plan to buy Latino votes. Stop investing my grand-kids money in other peoples dreams!
“Both candidates are making pitches to Latino Americans in the final two weeks of the 2024 presidential election”,,,,,, Latino’s hit Trump’s pitches and policies out of the ballpark and even till today keep circling the bases for a score, while they just wiffed at Kamala’s word salad spit ball from a party where when the cleanup hitter gets too old they just replace him with the transgendered bat boy or in this case a Batgirl who now has her own search light up in the Gotham city sky asking for help to get saved by some democrat caped crusader whose shoes even Obama cannot fill,,,,,,,but their backup plan is apparently to turn to the Joker of a Tampon Tim Takeover of the locker room media interpretations of boys bared arses and an empty headed losing candidate miraculously transformed into a fully phlegm packed Lugie of a pistol packing luger whose caliber to this day nobody can decipher.