Experts ask: What impact will Hispanic Catholics have on the 2024 election?

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 06:00 am

As a record number of Hispanic Americans will be eligible to vote this November, many are asking what impact Latinos — and Latino Catholics in particular — will have on the 2024 election.

Several Hispanic Catholic experts explored this question Monday night at a panel discussion hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life in Washington, D.C.

Though acknowledging the great diversity in culture and thought among American Hispanic communities, the panelists posited that the overarching values of family, faith, and care for the poor will factor largely into Latinos’ decisions at the ballot box this November.

“We are big on family, family values … We want to be welcoming and be very attentive to the needs of others,” said Lia Garcia, one of the panelists and the director of Hispanic ministry at the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“We throw big parties, we eat a lot of food,” she added, laughing. “Everybody is invited to our gatherings, so our faith teaches us that we are built to be in communion in relationship with God and in relationship with one another.”

Hispanics don’t fit into a box

Speaking with CNA after the panel, Garcia said that in her work with Hispanic Catholics, she has heard “a lot of anxiety about what is going to happen” and “about who is going to win” the presidency.

She said that many Hispanic voters “feel pinned” between conflicting priorities held by Trump and Harris.

“They feel that they have to choose between the issue of abortion and defending immigrants,” she said. “Latino Catholics are very much for life. You can see that in our big families. But they also have a concern about the immigration issues. Even if immigration doesn’t directly affect them because now they’re documented, but they know someone, they know a family member, they know a colleague … it’s really scary to people how Latinos are portrayed to the rest of the world as criminals.”

Hispanic voters have historically favored Democrats in national and local elections. The panelists noted, however, that Republicans have been faring better with Latinos in recent elections and polls, giving credence to predictions that the Hispanic vote is no longer a monolith.

Recent polling on Hispanics backs up this theory. Newsweek reported this week that while Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is still leading among Hispanics by a wide margin, 56% to 38%, her lead has shrunk from the 59% Joe Biden held in 2020 and even further from the 66% held by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Instead of loyalty to a party, panelists said Hispanics appear motivated mostly by their family values and concern for the poor and downtrodden.

Father Agustino Torres, a priest with the New York-based Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said that in his ministry to young Latinos he has witnessed that Hispanic youth “have this fire” for caring for the downtrodden, especially for poor migrants.

“Sometimes we’re American Catholics rather than Catholic Americans. We allow our politics to inform our faith rather than our faith informing our politics,” Torres said. “But this is the reality: I’m responsible for you and you’re responsible for me. If I see someone falling down on the sidewalk, like, I am obligated because of my baptism, and this is a good thing … This is the Gospel.”

 “When we teach this, they are just like, ‘yes,’ and it unites their worlds, family, faith, outreach,” he said.

To be clear, like most Americans, U.S. Hispanics are most concerned with the economy. EWTN published a poll of U.S. Catholics in September that found that most of the country’s Hispanic Catholics — 56.8% — said the economy (including jobs, inflation, and interest rates) is the most important issue deciding their vote this election cycle.

The next-highest priorities were border security/immigration at 10.5%, abortion at 9.7%, health care at 5.3%, and climate change at 5%.

Yet, according to panelist Santiago Ramos, a Catholic philosopher at the Aspen Institute, even when it comes to their approach to economic issues, Hispanics do not easily fit into the political right or left.

Ramos said Hispanics challenge the “nationalist, right-wing” as well as progressivist categorizations.

“There is a community aspect to our existence, family-oriented, dare I call it socially conservative aspect to our existence that doesn’t always mesh with mainstream liberal institutions,” he explained. “So, there are all sorts of ways that we pop up in American politics and force people to see things they don’t want to see.”

Among new voters, Hispanics loom large

Aleja Hertzler-McCain, a reporter on Latino faith and American Catholicism for Religion News Service, pointed out that half of the new voters who have become eligible to vote since 2020 are Hispanic.

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According to the Pew Research Center, there will be 36.2 million eligible Hispanic voters this year, up almost 4 million from 2020. While noting that U.S. Hispanics historically have low voter turnout, Hertzler said the sheer volume of new Hispanic voters could have a “big impact” on the election.

Whatever the outcome of the election, Garcia said she is “really excited” to see the Hispanic community have its voice heard in the democratic process.

“I can’t wait to see that. I’m really excited about the election for that particular reason,” she said.

“The beauty of our culture,” Garcia went on, “is we can draw from our own experiences growing up with big families, big celebrations, and also with our faith that draws us to relationship with one another. And I think that is where we can sense how [concern for] the common good is not only something that comes from God but comes from our culture as well.”