Voters at voting booths with U.S. flags printed on side.

How Are Latinos Changing Politics and How Are Politics Changing Latinos?

Latino voters are a diverse, important, growing, and complicated political factor in U.S. politics. Polling data suggests that Latino communities can be decisive in key races and may be shifting in their political and partisan choices. Nationality, generational and geographic differences, faith, and family can shape and impact attitudes and votes within the diverse Latino electorate.

This online Latino Leaders Gathering will bring together a remarkable group of Latino leaders, analysts, and journalists to explore the ways in which Latino voters have made a difference in the November 2022 midterm election. They will examine what happened, why, and what it means for the future.

Participants:

  • Julián Castro served as the secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama and is the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas. He is currently the Steven and Maureen Klinsky Visiting Professor of Practice for Leadership and Progress at Harvard Law School.
  • Jens Manuel Krogstad is a senior writer and editor at Pew Research Center. He has authored or edited hundreds of studies on topics that include global migration, Latino public opinion, Hispanic demographic trends, and U.S. border enforcement. 
  • Alejandra Molina is a national reporter covering Latinos and religion for Religion News Service. Previously, she was a reporter for the Southern California News Group, where she covered cities, immigration, race, and religion for newspapers.
  • Michael Okińczyc-Cruz is the executive director and a co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual & Public Leadership (CSPL) and an adjunct professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago.
  • Olivia Perez-Cubas is the communications director at Winning For Women and the SuperPAC WFW Action Fund, a group committed to electing Republican women, and has served in many roles for Senator Marco Rubio. In 2017, she was named one of the top Latino staffers on Capitol Hill by Roll Call.
  • J.D. Long-García, who will moderate the conversation, is a senior editor at America, where he oversees coverage of Latino Catholics in the United States. He is the former editor-in-chief of Angelus News, Vida Nueva, and the Los Angeles Catholic Directory.

These leaders will discuss questions such as:

  • How are Latinos changing politics and how are politics changing Latinos?
  • How did differing parts of the Latino community vote in the 2022 midterm elections and why? What has changed since 2020, and what has stayed the same?
  • What are the major forces driving changing attitudes – geography, nationality, religion, class, and ideology – and how did political parties respond to them?
  • How did issues of the economy, abortion, and immigration shape Latino voters and votes? 
  • What major new efforts did Democrats and Republicans make to reach and persuade different parts of the Latino community? What worked and what didn’t? What do the major political parties need to understand to adapt to Latino voters, and how do these recent efforts contribute to a broader strategy for the future?
  • How have inclusion in and exclusion from the electoral process affected the political life of Latino communities? What are some of the obstacles to Latino political engagement, and how have communities responded creatively?
  • What are implications for policy and politics over the next two years? For the 2024 elections? 
  • Beyond electoral politics, how are Latinos and their communities working to address key  problems on a local level through organizing efforts that are an important part of the democratic process beyond the voting booth?

This dialogue will have closed captions. For all other accommodation requests, please email cathsocialthought@georgetown.edu by November 15. A good faith effort will be made to fulfill requests.

This Latino Leader Gathering is for young Latino Catholics and others to explore key issues and personal stories involving faith and public life with distinguished Latinos and other leaders and is supported by the Democracy Fund. Learn more about the Initiative’s Latino Leader Gatherings online.