Republicans Making Inroads with Hispanic Voters with Spanish-Speaking Conservative Media
Among conservatives, the general consensus is that Democrats’ insistence that the U.S. southern border be all but non-existent, is because they believe that all those who enter the country illegally will eventually become Democrat voters. And among that population, Democrats are counting on a don’t bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you mentality. It is Hispanics who have come to the U.S. legally, or were born here that Democrats seem to be, like many of their other voting blocs, taking for granted. But it is also that same group of Hispanic voters, that are starting to see the Democrat Party for what it is, or rather, what it is not, and that is, a friend to the Hispanic community.
Currently, Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish do not have a lot of options for getting their news and information. They can watch Univision, Telemundo, or CNN en Espaniol. All lean heavily Democratic. But a new kid has moved onto the block, enter Americano Media, who launched in March of 2022 in partnership with Sirius XM’s Latino Variety station. They describe themselves as “Fox News in Spanish.” And they have some pretty big plans in mind. Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo is the fledgling network’s CEO. His communications background includes AT&T and Sprint, and his political bonafides include working on Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. It appears that someone is finally listening to Hispanic Republicans who have been saying he says, for 25 years, that there is a need for Spanish-speaking conservative media. Garcia-Hidalgo describes his goal with Americano Media as “blowing up” the way conservative Hispanics deal with traditional Spanish-speaking media.
Americano Media is not only sweeping the television airwaves, but the radio airwaves, online, and streaming platforms as well. By year’s end, Americano Media plans to have, in addition to being a major player in the cable news game in the run up to 2024, content on at least 25 terrestrial radio stations, and content on every major streaming platform, complete with a digital news website and phone app. They are also in the process of building studios in Miami, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. to launch new television programming. The goal is to have a very large footprint in every major battleground state by 2024. And they are not playing around when it comes to hiring on air talent either. Americano Media has hired over 80 Hispanic journalists and producers. They plan to have reporters covering the White House, Congress, and will be embedding with 2024 presidential candidates. Americano Media is also making sure that they are seen on the conservative and Republican event circuit. They had a very large presence at last August’s CPAC conference in Dallas, and in December at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, broadcasting live from both events. The network interviewed several high-profile conservatives like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rick Scott (R-FL), and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA).
Americano Media is a move that has been a long time coming for conservative Hispanics and might just be scaring the pants off Democrats. Tara McGowan is the founder and publisher of Courier Newsroom network, which leans left. She said, “There is an information war in Latino and bilingual communities in this country. It’s a very smart and very alarming move by conservatives to double down on their investment in Americano Media.” But if Democrats were smart, they should have been scared long before now. The midterm election saw a large number of Hispanics get elected. The tide may be turning in general, be it ever so slowly for the GOP when it comes to the Hispanic vote. According to a Fox News Voter analysis survey taken right after the November election showed that Hispanics backed Democrat candidates in 2022 by 56%. That is down from 2020, when Hispanic voters backed Joe Biden by 63% over 35% who voted for Donald Trump.
But there is an even deeper reason that Democrats should be worried that they are losing more Hispanic voters to Republicans, and they needn’t look any further than a place like the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. In June of 2022, Mayra Flores became the first Republican elected in a special election to represent the 34th congressional district in 100 years. She was defeated in the general election in November, but many of those who worked on her campaigns said that the Democrat Party did not reflect their values, especially when it comes to cultural issues like abortion, and gay rights. Cassy Garcia, who ran unsuccessfully for a Texas House seat in November explained it best, “We’re very faith-based, family-oriented down here in south Texas. I don’t think people realized that [Republican] values are their values…They’ve just always voted Democrat – but it’s not your abuela’s party anymore.” Mayra Flores has not said whether she will run again for congress, but in the meantime, she has signed on to be a senior political contributor at Americano Media.
It is just this kind of outreach to not only the Hispanic community, but African Americans as well, that many conservatives have been pushing for for years. The new GOP-led House of Representatives has the most black Republican members in over 100 years, and according to the AP VoteCast Survey taken a few weeks after the midterm election, showed that Republican candidates got roughly 14% of the black vote, nearly double the numbers from both the 2018 midterm election and the 2020 election. A Pew Research poll showed that 28% of black Republicans are ages 18-29. If the Republican Party is serious about being a big tent party, now is the time.
Americano Media has a growing and very real chance to, as Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo says, “blow up” the narrative the Democrat Party tries to feed Hispanic and black voters about Republicans in a way that could be a near fatal blow, and prove Ronald Reagan right when he said, “Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.”
