‘Ultimate persuadable bloc’: Georgia Hispanic voters will sway the midterms
In a swing state where small margins make a big difference, Georgia’s roughly half a million Hispanic voters will sway the midterm elections.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won reelection with fewer than 300,000 votes in 2022. That year, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection with fewer than 100,000 votes.
So, 500,000 ballots cast — or about 6% of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters — will make a difference, and their ballots could go red or blue.
As the 2024 presidential election showed — when President Donald Trump received 48% of Latinos’ votes nationally — no party has a total lock.
And, while former Vice President Kamala Harris won 64% of Georgia Hispanics’ votes to Trump’s 35% in 2024, according to the GA Latino Voter Report, small shifts in preferences for one political party or the other will make a difference.
Governor and senator nominees seek Latino votes
While previously, Georgia often saw politics through a Black and white lens, the growth of Hispanics to now 12% of the state population, according to census figures, means this community is big enough to be decisive.
Moreover, the number of Hispanic voters skyrocketed from 145,991 in 2008 to 498,298 in 2024 — a 241% jump.
The candidates at the top of the ticket in Georgia’s midterm elections know this and are appealing to Hispanic voters for that reason. Consider a few recent examples:
- In July, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms — the Democratic nominee for governor — attended a GALEO (formerly the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials) Impact Fund house party. The organization produces the GA Latino Voter Report.
- On Aug. 1, GOP gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson attended Latin Festival in Cumming and said he spoke to eventgoers about affordability.
- Republican senatorial nominee U.S. Rep. Mike Collins went to Plaza Las Americas in Lilburn and spoke about the 91,000 Latino-owned businesses on Aug. 7.
- At the Aug. 29 Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce annual Black Tie Gala and Business Awards, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, delivered a video message to the audience. Ossoff and Warnock secured $189,000 for the chamber’s business development center.
National polling data over the years show that the top issues for Latino voters are consistently cost of living, the economy and jobs.
That appears to account for Trump’s strong showing in 2024 when high inflation under the Biden administration made an impact on voters’ choices at the polls.
In 2026, affordability is in play again, but this time with Trump as president. It could create a pendulum swing back to Democrats as the war on Iran, tariffs and high interest rates play a role in increasing gas, food and housing prices.
I spoke with three experts attuned to issues facing Hispanic individuals and families in Georgia, each offering their take on how they feel the community will swing.
- Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, is the majority leader of the Georgia Senate and the highest-ranking Hispanic lawmaker in the Legislature.
- Jerry Gonzalez is the founder and CEO of the GALEO Impact Fund.
- Gigi Pedraza is the founder and executive director of the Latino Community Fund of Georgia.
They all see the Latino vote in play, but they also offered different perspectives on the impact of cost of living, immigration enforcement and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America movement and how it might impact voters’ choices.
While immigration historically has not been a top issue for Latino voters, September marks a year since the Supreme Court allowed race, ethnicity and speaking a language other than English to be factors in immigration enforcement, and that has had a disproportionate impact on Latinos, as citizens have been wrongfully detained and mixed-status families — where some are citizens and others are undocumented or pending legal status — are separated.
Anavitarte: GOP will keep making inroads with Hispanics
Sen. Jason Anavitarte’s father moved to Georgia from Puerto Rico, and he grew up in Doraville.
He considers himself a “son of the South and a son of Atlanta.” He helped found and previously chaired the Georgia General Assembly’s Hispanic Legislative Caucus. Its first meeting in 2023 drew seven members of the 236-member Legislature.
Anavitarte thinks that Republicans can appeal to Latino voters like they did in 2024.
“I do think Hispanics can make and break elections,” Anavitarte said. “We’ve seen that across the country — we’ve seen it in elections at the presidential level.”
When so many Latinos nationwide voted for Trump in 2024, the senator credited the president’s policies on securing the border and public safety, but he does not see Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a factor in voters’ decisions.
“I do agree that economics, income, entrepreneurship — I think all of those things — are the No. 1 issue of how Latinos will vote,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s immigration. I don’t believe it’s ICE.”
He sees another factor at play too: the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America in Democratic Party primary elections and also in metro Atlanta elections.
“In Doraville, Georgia, Marietta, Georgia, Dallas, Georgia, in localized communities, some people want socialism and communism to be kind of a normal way of life and thing,” he said. “And I think that goes in a complete opposite direction than (President Ronald Reagan) or even (President Lyndon) Johnson.”
In 2024, voters elected Colombian American Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, D-Smyrna, as the first and still only Democratic Socialist member of the Georgia General Assembly.
Anavitarte sees the rise in socialism — what he claims will lead to communism — as a threat that most Latino voters would reject because several communities immigrated to the U.S. from countries with repressive socialist or Communist policies.
“That’s why I think we’ll continue to see Republicans make inroads with Hispanics as we look forward into the future and have future policy debates on whatever the topic is,” he said.
One of the Hispanic caucus’s original members, Rep. Reynaldo Martinez, R-Loganville, accompanied Rep. Mike Collins to Plaza Las Americas last month to help him reach out to Hispanic voters. He declined an invitation to comment.
Gonzalez: Why Trump is losing support of Latinos
The GALEO Impact Fund CEO Jerry Gonzalez said Latinos in Georgia are paying attention to the politics of the day and how they are affecting them and their families.
“President Trump has lost significant support from Latino voters that had turned his way,” Gonzalez said.
“In fact, he’s underwater in Latino voter support because of the high cost of living for many folks, the price of gas, the price of groceries, but also when it comes to their tactics on immigration and how they’re approaching attacking our communities and terrorizing our communities with all the murders that have happened across the country with ICE agents killing community members,” Gonzalez added. “That’s been something that’s very been impactful to the Latino community.”
When it comes to immigration enforcement, Ossoff and Bottoms have opposed Trump’s ramp-up of Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics of mass detentions and deportations, but Jackson and Collins support the president’s approach.
Collins sponsored the Laken Riley Act that allows federal agents to detain undocumented immigrants accused of committing a variety of crimes. The act is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant with a criminal past. Incidentally, Ossoff voted for the final legislation.
“I think other things that are weighing people’s minds these days, many Latino citizens and Latino voters live in mixed-status households,” Gonzalez said. “And the activity on immigration has been something that has been worrisome for many families across the region.”
Some factors that could suppress the Latino vote, he added, include the state’s difficult verification process for new citizens, language restrictions for people whose first language isn’t English and the fear that ICE or the military could be patrolling polling places in November.
Pedraza: ‘Immigration is tightly connected to economics’
The Latino Community Fund of Georgia is a nonprofit that offers direct civic, health and education programs to clients; performs statewide research; and also makes grants to support community-building programs.
Voter protection is a part of LCF Georgia’s work. Pedraza, the organization’s leader, said politicians who don’t appeal to Latino voters are doing so at their peril.
“What happens is that if people either take us for granted or think we are not going to turn out into a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then they don’t invest or they don’t appeal to our voters, then we don’t show up,” she said. “We are the ultimate persuadable bloc. And to me, that is power that needs to be exercised.”
Pedraza also spoke about more Latinos identifying as multiracial, which means there is “a true opportunity for understanding and solidarity and really just an intersectional understanding.”
While affordability is key, Trump administration policies on immigration enforcement and opportunities for legal noncitizens are having an impact. For example, earlier this year, the Small Business Administration, run by former Georgia U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, decided to end SBA-backed loans for foreign nationals, even if they are legal noncitizens. That has a direct impact on several of those 91,000 Hispanic-owned businesses, as Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Veronica Maldonado-Torres wrote in a guest opinion column for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in May.
“Immigration is tightly connected to economics,” Pedraza said. “So, I think what people are going to see is how it’s affecting them in their pocket first.”
She added that she does not think culture war issues will make as much of an impact.
“People are worried about their daily lives, not some philosophical idea,” she said.
Percentage of Latino vote presidents have won
- This is the share of the Latino vote for winning presidential candidates received since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center:
- 1980: Ronald Reagan, Republican, 35%
- 1984: Reagan, 37%
- 1988: George H.W. Bush, Republican, 30%
- 1992: Bill Clinton, Democrat, 61%
- 1996: Clinton, 72%
- 2000: George W. Bush, Republican, 35%
- 2004: Bush, 40%
- 2008: Barack Obama, Democrat, 67%
- 2012: Obama, 71%
- 2016: Donald Trump, Republican, 28%
- 2020: Joe Biden, Democrat, 61%
- 2024: Trump, 48%
David Plazas is the AJC’s opinion editor. Email him at david.plazas@ajc.com.
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