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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Yes, it's election season, and we're going to talk now about Latino voters ahead of November's elections. According to pure research, Latinos are the second largest racial and ethnic group in the country now after whites whose growth makes up 50% of all newly eligible voters since our last presidential election.

If we've learned anything in these past few months about Latino voters, it's that old conventions aren't totally applicable anymore, right? First of all, party loyalty to Democrats is not a given. Back in March, The New York Times found that 46% of Latino voters polled intended to vote for Trump while just 40% stood behind Biden. This was after Trump claimed that immigrants are, "Poisoning the blood of our country," but Republicans shouldn't rejoice too quickly.

A recent poll conducted by Voto Latino of Hispanic voters in swing states found increasing interest in supporting third-party candidates, particularly RFK Junior. We'll talk about that too. Then there's the common misconception of border politics and immigration, more broadly being the motivating issue for Latinos at the ballot box. In reality, Latino's issue agenda doesn't vary much from other Americans according to UnidosUS pocketbook issues like housing affordability and economic security are of higher importance.

That's not to say that migration isn't relevant, but their views on our asylum seeker crisis and Biden's recent executive order closing the border are more nuanced than "Open borders versus build the wall." We have a very interesting guest on this, Mike Madrid, political consultant and author of The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy. Brand new book, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy. He notes that despite growing up as a Republican, he believes now that neither party has a grasp on what resonates with Latino voters. Mike, thanks for coming on today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mike Madrid: Brian, thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to today's conversation.

Brian Lehrer: For you as a Republican or a former Republican, how did you begin to identify as one, and has the rise of Trump, in particular in the Republican Party, changed you in that respect?

Mike Madrid: Two great questions. The answer to the first is my focus was really always on economic issues, pocketbook issues, not unlike what Latino voters have been telling us for 30 years. Most of what I was hearing was predominantly immigration-related, immigration issues, those issues related to the undocumented, for example, or farm worker issues, especially here in California where I grew up.

I was hearing from both parties a really racially, ethnically, tinged argument when the vast majority of the people I was growing up with were much more focused on these pocketbook issues, not unlike the polling that you just cited would suggest. Again, this is not new. This has been going on for many decades, and the disconnect that I was growing up with, I found was far, far more common than not, especially when the politicians were trying to drive more of a racially, ethnically driven narrative.

Now, having said that, there is an importance and a sensitivity to us, and that is absolutely when the break with me and the Republican Party came. I was opposed to Donald Trump the moment he came down the golden escalator. The truth is, I had seen a lot of things I did not like in the Republican party before Donald Trump. The reason I wrote the book and wrote the book at this time was to try to explain why this extremely fast-growing group of voters does have some racial and ethnic sensitivities, which stands to reason but is increasingly growing more as an economic and pocketbook issue voter. That's again, what brings us to today and explains a lot of the polling data that we're seeing.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can have a voice in this conversation, Latino voters in particular. What do you think either party, Democrats or Republicans gets wrong about your community or a part of your community since obviously, Latino America is extremely diverse? There's a question for you Latino voters. If you have a question for Mike Madrid, author of this new book, you can also ask it, but our question for you, our invitation to you is to answer the question, what do you think either party the Democrats or the Republicans gets wrong about your community? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Mike, you emphasize in the book the potential to bring forth "The next great American realignment" as you put it. What does this great realignment look like potentially, and what's the Latino voter's role in it?

Mike Madrid: That's such a good question, Brian. Look, I do believe that our traditional understandings of realignment suggest a shifting from one party to the other. There's a lot of pollsters and pundits who are suggesting that we are in the midst of a racial realignment from this overwhelmingly democratic constituency shifting to Republicans.

While that seems to be emanating and has been for the best part of 10 years, there's been this gradual shift of Latino voters away from the Democratic Party and to the Republican Party. I think it's best understood through the light of the polling that you showed from Voto Latino, which showed that RFK Junior is actually starting to pick up quite a bit of steam. The answer becomes why? The answer really is this rise in Latino populism, which is an outward rejection of both parties. When given the option, Latino voters are increasingly opting out of both major parties.

We have the weakest partisan anchors of both major parties. We have some of the lowest voter turnout rates in the entire country. Increasingly, there's this rejection of affiliation in both parties. The two American candidates that have done the best, surprisingly the best with Latino voters, despite all of the polling data has been Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right.

This is a very, very strong sign of a rejection of the parties. Both of those candidates were running against the establishment of their parties, and that became really the rallying cry for Latinos to get actively and civically engaged. The realignment that I'm suggesting we're on the cusp of, is really going to be defined by Latino politicians themselves, who unfortunately for the past few decades have been towing the line of both major parties, but are recognizing that their own voting constituencies are not responding to that message anymore.

The politicians who can define a better economic Latino agenda that is more aspirational are going to be the beneficiaries of the fastest-growing segment of the working class. That, I think has the potential to really upend a lot of the political system as we've known it. I think that we're probably much closer to that than we realize.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think that means at an economic policy level? We have Bidenomics, as he himself calls it, we have Trump running against inflation but proposing certain things that are controversial among economists. Some see them as actually very inflationary like a big tax cut and a strong US dollar. What are the particular anti-inflation, since that's the number one concern now, and growth in prosperity generally, policies that you are seeing Latino American support?

Mike Madrid: That's another great question. The answer really comes down to the question of affordability. We talk a lot about Bidenomics, especially, and it's why people are not responding or believing in Bidenomics is the average working person doesn't care what the S&P 500 is doing. They're not really concerned about how much GDP the US economy grew or contracted by in any given quarter.

They're worried about being able to pay the rent on Friday. They're worried about the price of eggs and milk and gas. The number one issue that Latinos have been consistently citing is the price of housing. Housing affordability is impacting the Latino community disproportionately in this economy for a couple of reasons. The first is we're a much younger community. The average age of the Latino is 30 years old in this country compared to 40 years old for non-Hispanic whites.

That means we're closer to that home-buying age or that first rental experience or our families are beginning to grow and we need to upgrade to get more rooms. Of course, with housing, both rental and mortgage prices, that's becoming less and less a possibility. Remember also that in the past four years, interest rates have more than tripled. The value of our currency has declined by about 20% to 25%. Those are really harming young people, especially blue collar workers. Latinos are overwhelmingly filling the roles of blue collar jobs, the non-college educated jobs in our economy today at an extremely rapid pace. Unless politicians start talking about affordability, specifically through the lens of housing, which neither candidate is by the way, neither party is at this point, you start to understand why this voter driven by affordability, driven by economic angst concerns, anxiety, is simply rejecting both parties and saying there's literally no reason to vote here.

I'm not kidding, anybody who's talking about the specifics to which I'm telling them in polling, and I have been for many, many years, this is what I want to hear. Until that happens, and I'm not sure that that will happen anytime soon, you're going to see both candidates really struggle with this voting block. Joe Biden specifically is having disproportionate trouble for a Democrat at this point in the race. He got 59% of the Hispanic vote last time down from 72% where Barack Obama got that level in 2012. That's a steep decline, and most polling suggests he's doing worse than that now.

We're almost at parody here between the two parties, at least where polling is concerned. To me, it's not a surprise at all. Again, it's why I spent the time to write this book to explain to people that this strong sense and need that both parties have to characterize Latinos as an aggrieved racial minority and speak to them almost exclusively about immigration is not only not working, but it's starting to backfire here. They better start talking about bread and butter, economic issues, and affordability specifically.

Brian Lehrer: Political consultant Mike Madrid with us. His new book, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Julie in Hastings, you're on WNYC with Mike Madrid. Hello.

Julie: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. These are such important points that both you and the guest have made about pocketbook issues being so important to Latinas and Latinos. It reminds me of the fact that you hear this anti-immigrant rhetoric that immigrants take away jobs when in fact a larger percentage of Latinas and Latinos are union members population as a whole. I just wondered how that variable-- On the face of it, that would seem to help the Dems. Now we have a rising union movement, I just don't know.

Brian Lehrer: Good question about unions. Mike, do you address that in the book?

Mike Madrid: Yes, I do. I speak very specifically about it. Latinos actually have the lowest unionization rate of any of the four largest racial ethnic groups in America. It's the lowest. They're also the most likely to have a gig job, gig economy workers, but they also have the highest levels of trust and confidence in the economic system, which we attribute largely to a function of youth. Younger people tend to be much more optimistic, even though the odds are stacked more against them.

I think the challenge for the Democratic Party is really coming to terms and recognizing that it is increasingly no longer viewed as the party of the working class by the working class. That's not Mike Madrid, that's not political consultants. That's just evidence and data over the past 10 to 15 years. The solutions that the Democratic party are offering tends to be solutions from the last century. Like we need to unionize more people. That's maybe true and that's a great goal to have, but in a globalized economy, that's just not going to happen in the private sector.

The other is your previous guests were talking about build back better the infrastructure investments. Those are great too. A lot of those are hard hat jobs, but most of those won't come online for 10, 12, 15 years when you're building bridges. That's not the way working class people think. Working class people, again, are struggling right now. They're not worried about job prospects in 10 or 15 years. Until there's immediate economic recovery, especially as it relates to housing and housing construction, you're not going to see that change.

Let me give you one more specific data point. One in five Hispanic men are employed in the residential construction space or a related field. That is a jaw dropping number. 20% of Latino men are building, putting the sticks in the ground that build the housing that we all live in. When interest rates triple and the housing economy cools or slows entirely as it has, that's a gut punch to working class people.

Brian Lehrer: Let me follow up on what you've just been saying though in the context of the union question that the caller raised because one could argue that organizing, whether it's formal unionization or not, organizing efforts to increase pay and improve working conditions for a lot of Latino New Yorkers, for example, in the delivery worker business or home health aides who got a home health aides specific wage increase at the level of policy at the New York State legislature, that those kinds of organizing efforts are key and it relates to unionization.

Mike Madrid: Look, I think that's great. I don't think anybody's against us, but let's consider a broader picture of what's happening here. Let's start with the pandemic, which New York City got hit, especially hard. We called it the essential workforce that allowed people to shelter in place and watch Tiger King and work remotely. The essential workforce was the Latino workforce. They were the people that were doing the delivery work. They were the people that were doing the food prep. They were the people that were working in the back ends of warehousing, trucking, transportation, making it possible for everybody else to shelter in place.

Brian Lehrer: With low wages.

Mike Madrid: Exactly. Why were Latinos disproportionately saying, "Let's open up the economy." The answer is they were working in the middle of the pandemic anyway. They were necessary. It was essential, and they were not getting the pay or the income that was required. A lot of people, I think Democrats were especially shocked when Latinos were voting more and more for Republican candidates than for Donald Trump specifically by saying, "Let's open up the economy." That shouldn't surprise anybody when they were out there working in the middle of a global pandemic anyway.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. I hear you. Edson in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Mike Madrid. Hello.

Edson: Hey. Hi. Thanks for taking my call, Brian. I would like to ask your guest about race because Americans, they have an obsession with race. When I'm listening to Brian Lehrer, there's this obsession that Brown people, Latino against white. It's like to me, bring a big resentment because try to put a group of people, we are very diversified and talking only about race and like your guest said, the Latinos are more worried about the economics and not race per se.

Mike Madrid: I think that's a fantastic observation and it's absolutely true. Look, I've been a student of race and politics and politicization for 30 years now. America does have a very difficult time talking beyond a Black and white paradigm for obvious historical reasons. I think that's entirely legitimate, but when I'm looking at the largest swath of ethnic voters that are growing by wide margins, they are reflecting the sentiment that that caller just had, which is they are much, much more focused on economics than they are prioritizing race or ethnicity as the primary lens through which they view their politics.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the follow up that some listeners may be confused about, if you have the presidential candidate of one party, Trump, going out and running so much on the notion of vilifying Latino immigrants in particular and saying they're poisoning our blood and they're bringing crime, and all of that stuff that, a lot of people think any group that's targeted in that way is going to have a massive backlash. If that isn't true, why isn't it true?

Mike Madrid: Let me answer that question by asking you another question about another group. I think this may put in perspective how racialized that question is and how perhaps less relevant it is. With white women, we have an existential threat to their rights being taken away. Not hypothetical the way Donald Trump is talking about, an actual removal of their constitutional rights in abortion. Why are white women still voting a majority for Donald Trump? Why are we not asking that question when we ask that same of Latinos?

Brian Lehrer: The answer that a lot of political analysts give is race. Is that they are-

Mike Madrid: Fair.

Brian Lehrer: -also into white identity politics. Go ahead.

Mike Madrid: If you let me finish, I think that's exactly right. The answer then becomes how do Latinos identify themselves? That's the question. Let's understand something, racially Hispanics are white. We are an ethnicity. Racially we are white. By the third generation, which is where this explosive growth in the Latino voter rolls is happening, overwhelmingly, these voters view themselves correctly as white. They don't view themselves as immigrants. They don't view themselves because they're not. They haven't been immigrants for three generations.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Interesting. I think Sarah in The Bronx has a follow-up on that, that might try to complicate it. Sarah, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Sarah: Hey, Brian. How are you? Exactly what I was trying to say. We talk about Latinos, we talk about Hispanics, and we group everybody together, but the reality is that we have white Latinos, we have Black Latinos, Afro-Latinos. The opportunity, the access, everything differs. A Black person, whether you're Latino, African American, is going to have very similar challenges to access to affordable housing, to where they live, where a white Latino is going to be grouped with Caucasians in the United States.

I think another caller talked about we're focused on race. The reality is that race is one of the main issues that we deal with. I am a Black Latina. If you look at me, you think I'm Black. Now I'm going to be I guess grouped in one direction, where if you look at, for instance, when people came from Cuba back in the '60s leaving the country, they received so many opportunities because they are white people. The same happens everywhere. We can't just say Latinos and Hispanics, they don't have the same opportunities, the same challenges and we have to look at it separately.

Brian Lehrer: Based on race. Sarah, thank you. Mike, we have a minute left in the segment, so respond to Sarah and say anything else you want going out the door.

Mike Madrid: There's no question. That's the premise of the book is what I essentially argue is that the Black-white paradigm that we have lived with as a country does still exist, but it is becoming both more complicated. That is both hopeful and challenging as race becomes far more complicated than simply Black and white in America going forward.

Brian Lehrer: Mike Madrid, political consultant and author of The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy. Good conversation. Let's do this again.

Mike Madrid: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

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