Before the 2016 election, we heard a lot about the potential voting power of the “sleeping giant” Latino voters and how Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration could awaken it.
But after the results were in, they seemed underwhelming. Even though groups like One Arizona had registered record numbers of new Latino voters, reports suggested that their voter turnout wasn’t what it was expected to be and that the Latino vote didn’t have the effect it could have.
But One Arizona Communications Director Pita Juarez disagrees. Now that the numbers are all in, she says Latino political power did mobilize change in Arizona, and it will continue to in the future.
She recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post making that argument, and The Show’s Lauren Gilger sat down with to talk more about that.
Juarez says that Latino voter turnout was at a record high in Arizona in 2016 and that the power of Latino organizing had real results in local races, like defeating Sheriff Joe Arpaio, passing a higher minimum wage law in Prop. 206, electing the first Latino to Maricopa County-wide office, and 3 Latinos to the Phoenix City Council.
