Bernie Moreno's success is a warning for Biden about Latino voters

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Bernie Moreno’s victory in the Ohio Republican Senate primary Tuesday is just the latest example of how Latinos will be central players in Donald Trump’s 2024 election aspirations. And it’s simplistic to conclude that President Biden’s 2020 success with Latino voters will be replicated this cycle. Exit polls confirmed that Trump’s endorsement of Moreno propelled him into a critical November contest against incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown that could determine control of the Senate. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Moreno has an origin story that is textbook American Dream material. In Trump’s worldview, immigrants might be “poisoning the blood” of America or are “not people,” but not all immigrants, and definitely not an immigrant like Moreno, who is always quick to point out how much he wanted to assimilate into his adoptive country. The president’s campaign has become more vocal in making sure Latino voters remain in the blue column. “I wanted to become a U.S. citizen really badly. That was something that was really important to me. Even though I thought it was kind of cool that I had a card that said I was an alien, I thought maybe I wanted to be a citizen, that would be better,” Moreno said Tuesday night during his victory speech, emphasizing earlier in his remarks that “he was a kid from South America” who thought he was “on a field trip” as a 5-year-old when his family arrived in South Florida from Colombia. Moreno’s story and business success represent a familiar belief in U.S. Latino communities — that some immigrants from Latin America are better than other immigrants from Latin America. Trump echoed this sentiment in last year’s controversial interview with Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo. Citizenship, privilege and striving for acceptance by American society are appealing to the Bernie Morenos of the world, and there is enough support out there for someone like Trump to keep gaining with the estimated 17.5 million U.S. Latino voters expected to cast a ballot in 2024, particularly in a swing state like Ohio. A recent New York Times article about Latino voters in 2024 noted that “Former President Donald J. Trump’s growing support among Latino voters is threatening to upend the coalition that has delivered victories to Democrats for more than a decade, putting the politically divided group at the center of a tug of war that could determine elections across the country.” Earlier this month, Vox reported that according to one new poll of Latino voters, 19% of respondents would change “their political affiliation either by switching parties or becoming independents,” with 61% of that sample saying they would consider leaving the Democratic Party altogether. The consequences of such trends would be disastrous for the Biden, which is part of the reason why the president’s campaign has become more vocal in making sure Latino voters remain in the blue column. “I need you back,” Biden said in Phoenix on Tuesday, acknowledging that without the 2020 Latino support he and Vice President Kamala Harris received in swing states like Arizona and Nevada, the prospects of a second term were bleak. A new series of campaign ads and radio appearances by the president and others touts the administration’s accomplishments to Latino voters and emphasizes a clear contrast to Trump. “We have to stop this guy [Trump], we can’t let this happen,” Biden said on Univision Radio. “We are a nation of immigrants.” Republican politicians have done a very, very bad job about talking about immigration in a reasonable way.” BERNIE MORENO in 2021 That contrast hit a bump during the State of the Union, where Biden eventually had to apologize for the use of an “illegal” in an off-script remark. Still, it’s already been established that Biden-Harris 2024 has conceded the immigration debate to Republicans. Instead, the president is banking on women’s issues, threats to democracy, health care and the economy. Those issues also matter to Latino voters: a 2023 poll of over 3,000 Latino voters found inflation, jobs and the economy as a whole as the top three issues, with immigration coming in sixth. As Biden, Harris and their Latino advocacy allies work to keep the 2020 coalition intact, Trump’s extremist and dehumanizing language will still rankle many Latino voters. Someone like Moreno can be the Latin American immigrant buffer Republicans need to win over more Latinos in 2024, as immigration is still seen as the nation’s top political issue and is also viewed as a crisis by 75% of Latino voters. Even Moreno, who rarely strays from applause lines for the GOP base, acknowledged in a 2021 interview that Republicans have taken the immigration debate too far. “Republican politicians have done a very, very bad job about talking about immigration in a reasonable way,” Moreno said back then, “because when you talk about immigration in a way that’s harmful, what you do is you come across as somebody who doesn’t like immigrants, who comes across as could be racist,” adding that debates need to be done in a “respectful way.” In 2016, Moreno even sounded like a moderate Democrat, calling for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals. That is a far cry from what Moreno said at a candidate forum last month, when he supported mass deportation of all individuals not authorized to live in this country: “We have to deport anybody who is in this country illegally, no matter what it takes to make that happen ... Plus, changing our asylum laws.” These changes in positions might all be attributed to the value of Trump’s endorsement for a Republican candidate, but it also reveals that Latinos like Moreno have viewed assimilation and immigrant privilege as political ideologies too. The complexities of Latino voters have long been established and both political parties are beginning to fully understand that Latinos are just the next set of swing voters. Winning their support will be key to any party’s electoral strategy moving forward.