In Minnesota, Latino voters play a pivotal role in the election

Olga Beltran cast an early vote for Vice President Kamala Harris; she likes that the Democratic presidential nominee is a woman who seems connected to the community. In addition, when Beltran's shop at Mercado Central was vandalized during the 2020 riots, she felt that Harris' running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, showed support for Lake Street merchants like herself.

As a Colombian immigrant, Beltran laments that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump "talks a lot of bad things about the immigrant community" and said she finds many of his remarks absurd.

Latino voters such as Beltran are expected to play an important role in the Nov. 5 election. Minnesota is projected to go for Harris and polls show that the majority of Latino voters across the country back the Democratic nominee. But polls also indicate more Latinos moving to the right.

Nationwide, Latino support for Democratic presidential candidates dropped from 68% in 2016 to 56% in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of Hispanic likely voters. During that same period, support for Trump rose from 28% to 37%, even as he and supporters have made controversial and disparaging comments about that group.

At a Sunday Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe spurred a backlash for vulgar remarks that employed racist tropes about Latinos and called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."

Roxy Rueda is among Latino voters in Minnesota shifting toward Trump, although she described the former president as the lesser of two evils. She voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and didn't go to the polls in 2020.

The 37-year-old mother of three reached a turning point after the pandemic, when she nearly lost her job for refusing to take the COVID vaccine. Some of her relatives had religious objections to the vaccine and Rueda said Democrats weren't letting people make their own health care decisions.

She's also concerned about Democrats' stance on transgender issues and the messages her youngest child, who is 8, could receive in school.

"I think a lot has shifted since the last few presidencies," Rueda said. "People are starting to question things. There's more social media, there's more access to information … People are starting to do their own research."

Immigration an issue for some

Immigration is another issue for Rueda, a health care professional who lives in South St. Paul. Her father was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, and she married an undocumented Mexican man who is now a citizen.

While she supports immigration, she wants it to be regulated.

"The difference between immigration now and before is just the sheer amount of people that are coming … I feel like our government is not placing a lot of importance on security, on how are we checking people that are coming," Rueda said. "Do they have a background from wherever they're from that could potentially be dangerous?"

Charging that migrants "are poisoning the blood of our country," Trump has said he will carry out mass deportations and workplace raids and cease hearing asylum claims of people trying to cross the southern border.

The New York Times/Siena College poll found that the majority of Latinos surveyed, whether born in the United States or abroad, did not believe Trump is talking about them when he discusses immigration problems.

Eduardo Aburto Ortiz shares Rueda's concerns.

The 45-year-old Ham Lake resident immigrated here from Chile 16 years ago and recalls going through a legal process, paying fees and undergoing background checks. He voiced concern about news reports that show people using immigration loopholes to come into the country and then commit crimes, and raised questions about newly arrived migrants receiving taxpayer assistance in some cases.

"It's like, what's going on? This is not the process that you have to go through when you're coming here legally … You see that and that kind of gives a sentiment of unfairness."

He believes the Democratic party is advancing the same policies that made his native country unlivable to him. As an attorney practicing family law, he deals with many clients who come to the United States without legal permission and wind up heavily in debt to coyotes or end up in abusive relationships in which their partner threatens to report them to immigration authorities if they don't do what they're told.

"When I see these people, they are basically being set up for failure because they're in debt and they basically become a slave to the system because they can barely live, they have to live in these crammed apartments with other families, they get abused because of the circumstances … and people are making a profit," said Aburto Ortiz, a father of four.

DFL powers up outreach

While he sees a lot of potential for Republicans to reach out to Minnesota's Latino community, neither Aburto Ortiz nor Rueda said they have been contacted by the party.

"The Democrats do a way better job of reaching out to Hispanic constituents," Aburto Ortiz said.

Both parties are aggressively courting Latino voters in battleground states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the GOP recently opened a Hispanic outreach center in Milwaukee.

Trump's Minnesota team did not respond to messages about outreach to Hispanic voters.

Democrats have been knocking on thousands of doors, registering voters and making phone calls across the state to reach Minnesota's largest community of color. State Democrats have five full-time organizers to reach Latino voters this election cycle, staging events well beyond the Twin Cities from Duluth to Sleepy Eye, according to Edwin Torres DeSantiago, who manages the Minnesota DFL's Latino program.

Another 75 volunteers are also door-knocking and making phone calls. The DFL team recently called 1,500 Latinos in one night, he said, and has held events at festivals and during Hispanic Heritage Month. They also rented a Latino-owned restaurant and nightclub for a recent event with state Democratic leaders.

"We're going to call every single Latino registered voter in our files and we'll do it three times in this election," said Torres DeSantiago.

The campaign hasn't come across any hardline Republican Latino voters, though some are undecided, he said. "I doubt that the other side is doing this robust engagement authentically in person and so … when we're able to connect with them, we've been able to persuade almost every single person that I can think of."

Torres DeSantiago said top issues they hear from Latino voters are career development, affordable rent and housing and a decent education for their children.

"Latino voters are exactly the same as any other voter … They want to be respected, they want to have a dignified life and they want to have the opportunity for their kids to have a much better life," he said.

He maintained that immigration doesn't seem to be a top concern among Latinos the DFL Party has contacted.

Emilia González Avalos agrees. She's the executive director of Unidos MN, whose sister organization Future Fund is involved in political donations and voter outreach in key House districts. She noted that when knocking on doors, the top issues Latino voters speak of are jobs, inflation, reproductive rights, climate change and environmental issues, and wanting rich people to pay their fair share of taxes.

"There are 36.2 million Latinos in this country who are eligible to vote — that's our power," said former state Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, a Democrat.

Last week, she went door-knocking with State Rep. Brad Tabke in a Shakopee mobile home park where many residents are Latino. Torres Ray has been raising alarms about GOP plans to spend billions on border security and surveillance, but as they walked from house to house, she said conversations with Latino voters were about work opportunities, and education if they had children. For more affluent Latinos, she said, college affordability is a priority.

"What kind of issues do you care about?" Tabke asked a woman who opened the door.

"I usually vote Democrat," said Samary Matos, a 30-year-old mother of Puerto Rican heritage.

She went on to say that she cares about the economy, abortion rights and addressing police brutality. She said she likes Harris more than Trump, in part because of his racist comments.

"I know people think economically he does well," said Matos, "but I do think morals and culture and that stuff matter."