So for the first time in our countrys history latinos, the largest ethnic minority in electric with 32 million eligible voters and record numbers of latinos turning out to vote congressman hice numbers of latina and latinos weve seen in the previous election cycle. Both president ial donald trump and present elect joe biden benefited for the high turnout ofhe latino voters across the u. Yet the support that they received from this very diverse and complex electorate, and why, varied into parts of the country. Country. National the majority of latino mailing democratic, what a consistent levels are many different constituencies that cannot be so easilyy counted on by either party. Todays conversation will highlight how record levels of latino turnout and active the outcome of key races and [inaudible] the marquis battles instead. We are thrilled and acclaimed journalist and trusted voice in the Latino Community the moderate todays panel of experts. Together, they will explore critical among latino voters, the issues we can enter and care most which Campaign Messages resonated with specific latino constituencies, and why. As we transition to a new administration and intranet here it is important to focus on the Lessons Learned and to know the latino voice and our vote cannot be taken for granted. It requires an authentic connection and investment, and we want to be forwardlooking and will be included in this National Agenda as its being for problem to take a moment to give special thanks to our panelists, ucla and Aspen Institute team and to our sponsors, the Cocacola Company and wells fargo for making todays event possibl and that what is my pleasure to introduce a different one of todays sponsors. Ruben is Senior Vice President for exterl relations at wells fargo. Before joining wells fargo a in 2019 ruben was president and ceo of the San Diego Region Chamber of commerce pick you let a coortium of organizations focused on training and electing latino and latina candidatesor public office. Ruben served in the white house as Deputy Assistant to the presidt and director of White House Intergovernmental Affairs for president George George w. Please give a warm welcome to ben. Thankou. Thank you, domenika. Than you so much for having us here. So proud wel fargo could be a sponsor for todays session. Lookingor to the information and as a former latino elected official myself a kney great pride to see more and more latino and latina being elected to office which is part of the growing latino voter population that is increing or will hear from our professionals today in terms of whatsappening with the latino vote. Wells fargo is a leading the lender to families, home mortgages, Small Businesses and we know that latino economic powers tied to political power in the Latino Community. We are very interested in whats happening and wanto be part of helping t Latino Community as a grows ands reachests goals here in theit trend of america. Domenika of what to congratule you on your new role at the Aspen Institute at the latino an society program. Want to recognize others who fr helping out in thatffort as well. And its an absolute pasure for me on behalf of wellsargo to introduce our moderator this afternoo or more to come wherever you might be, the moderator today has been marketed by the New York Times as t voice of hispanic america and you will probably recognize hers the anchor of and shes a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Its my pleasure to introduce maria. Thank thank you so much, rub. That is very kind of you and all of her going. Butt afternoon if you joining us in the east coast and good morning if youre joining us on the west coast. Thank you [inaudible] as we assess impact of the latino vote in the 2020 election. I recently asked a very respected ceo for a story i did for cbs on the latino vote by before the election. I asked him if he thought the Sleeping Giant we finally wake up. And he answered very bluntly, i hate the reference of the Sleeping Giant. They havent been sleeping. What latinos want is to be engaged in the process that is ignored i guess i wont wont be asking that question again. For anyone who Still Believes in that reference, latinos were quite awake and 2020. They showed up and they made a difference. How they voted and why is a is e subject we begin to analyze today and will continue to do so for the coming months. So lets start this conversation with some facts. In fact, joe biden is the present elect of the United States and Kamala Harris is a a Vice President elect of the United States. In fact, more americans vote in 2020 election than in any other election in more than 100 years. Fact, 2020s saw highs voted for latinos in history, another fact latino voters make a difference in the outcome of the election in several states. Fact, latinos are not monolithic. In fact, President Trump made inroads with latino voters in his bid to win the election. Now let me introduce our distinguished panelists for you. Mr. Tom perez, chairman of the Democratic National committee, the first latino to hold that position. He presents it as assistant general for civil rights and secretary under president barack obama. Also joining us is mr. Mike cofounder of the Lincoln Project or use former political director for the California State Republican Party and a longtime republican political strategist with an expertise in latino voting trends and analysis. He is of mexican and native american dissent. Welcome to all of you. Now, i wanna remind those of you who are joining us in this i want to remind those of you for joining us in this conversation that [inaudible] for our panels in the q a function below. We will get to them in the last 15 minutes. So matt, you are the first one. You with an urgent need to know the latest numbers after an election, you always remind me that it takes time. [indiscernible] its great to be with everyone today. Great to be with you. I was especially excited to see your coverage on cbs. Its great to have such a strong latino voice on our National News coverage of the latino electorate. We are still digging through the numbers. That is the short answer. The data has not been certified and publicly recorded in every single state. But in many states, it has been. In many counties, it has been. The first headline we take away from the selection is one of the fact that you gave us. It was recordbreaking latino turnout. I looked back and look at historic data looked at historic data. In 2004, about 7. 5 million latino voters were cast latino votes were cast. This year, we are estimating over 16 million. It has over double, the latino vote, in less than 20 years. That cannot be said for the overall american electorate. While this was a big turnout here, the overall turnout did not double from 2004. The latino vote over doubled. That trajectory is going to continue. Our population is very young. It is growing in Voter Registration, and we are going to continue to see that. One of the most important cameways is a latino vote through in very significant numbers. The voter turnout was really a story. I think that is a testament to just how engaged latinos were this year. For me, i think that is the most important finding of this election. That very high number of latino votes. Thank you. This question is for all of you. [indiscernible] surprised. I was really heartened to go to places like arizona. I spent a lot of time in arizona. I was involved in the litigation 10 years ago. Because when 1070 you look at what happened in saw aa in 2020, you dramatic increase in latino voter turnout, roughly 650,000 turned out in arizona in 2020. You were looking at Something Like 450,000 in 2016. Byember, joe biden one 11,000 or 12,000 votes in arizona. When i look at the battleground state by battleground state breakdown, you really see battleground states or latinos made a huge difference. I will give you one, wisconsin. Where roughly 100,000 latinos. Oted in 2016, we were regularly polling and three states, three battleground states. In 2020, we were regularly polling and doing a lot of work in 10 states. That difference reflects the fact that latinos, while the denominator varies, they can make a huge difference. Georgia is on our mind because we have an election in january there. Again, latinos are part of a future coalition. And he can latinos are part of huge coalition. Eligible voters in georgia and again you look at the margin of victory and you see that the denominators are moving up. Thats the most important thing that i think we should talk about is, the percentage of votes that joe biden is getting is impressive, but the percentage of a biggerve denominator means a bigger margin, and thats the one to punch that we saw in a number of states. My final point is we still have work to do in places like miamidadede county. We didnt do as well there as we would like to come and we are analyzing that and we recognized with work to do there. Having saidt that, when i read reports that we lost florida because of latino voters in miamidade county, if we left the benchmark of 2016 of Hillary Clinton or 2012 of barack obama, we still wouldve lost that state by 250,000 votes because a number because a number of other factors totally unrelated to latino voters. And by the way in orlando and the puerto rican vote i think was 70 . [inaudible] yeah, the obvious is difficult, but i think the question remains the same. The surprises that i think i saw were twofold. Two things that were remarkably different than what weve seen in the past 2530 year trajectory. The first is the vote, you cant deny that. Donald trump did stronger numbers than anybody anticipated, is and weve got to recognize that, weve got to be honest whats happening in the community for a whole host of reasons. So that is surprising. The second and, i think most importantly, the efforts we have never seen before, mexicanamericans predominantly in texas d from a per e speci have historically the trend line different than, saw, arizona and california. Laterally, i think, because of the politicization process you were talking about. Very strong historical markers in place in california and arizona which have created, essentially are, or a bloc of voters 25, 27 local standards for gop support. That was exceeded considerably in texas. I think floridas a unique dynamic. Again, i dont think its an apples to apples comparison, but if we watch other states, every four years latinos are making the difference in these elections. And its also in many ways a typical, similar pattern to watch the vote mature to second and Third Generation voters [inaudible] and others just a completely unique way to watch america change and changing, our demography, our culture. And, of course, about politics. And we like to say were not monolithic, but the truth is we have not that we have been quite monolithic, i think, up until recent election cycles in 2020. To your point, exactly dead on, its quantifiable now. This is not your grandfathers voting bloc, right . [laughter] this is a different dynamic. I i think were going to continue to see the diversification change, our Political Landscape for years to come. Interesting. What was new, what was surprising. Yes. You know, its a privilege to be or on here with all of you. Thank you, maria. So for me in idaho, we expected, you know, at least on a personal note there was a hope and expectation for a blue wave, and when thats happened in the past, you know, a district like mine would have been us pent susceptible to being more competitive. For instance, medicaid passed by over 60 , 16 out of 19 counties voted in support of it. When it comes to the kitchen metable issues, that resonates with people, and that where i sit, thats what the Democratic Partys all about. But in Rural America and much of suburban america where hispanic communities are at the forefront of growth, heir the largest population theyre the largest population thats helping grow rural communities, were seeing a lot of struggles when it comes to the Democratic Partys message connecting with people. And so i think that was a surprise. But we did have progress. For instance, in kenney county where i come from, or we had a hispanicserving Higher Education institution, the college of western idaho, its board of directors changed over, and it was all minority women and latinas that got elected. So thats progress. But we definitely have a lot more room for improvement and especially when it comes to our messaging. And ill give one last example. I remember going to a low riderrer show outdoors over the summer and having a young latino coming up to chat with me, and when i learned that i was a democrat, they said why are you pushing to give everything away for free. And i had to explain thats not where were coming from and thats not what were about, but in so many of these places were getting patiented with a painted with a broad brush that doesnt represent exactly what were about. Okay. So probably to most of america, other than the latinos, the one thing that was [inaudible] we as latinos already know. You know, what is it that they didnt understand . What do they need to know . And also we know that diversity even exists within the [inaudible] its more geographical than on the [inaudible] a republican in florida is not interested in the same issues that the republican latino in texas or california, the same thing goes for democrats. So how can we direct the messaging with that kind of diversity . Who wants to take that . A couple of things that we did, maria elena, that are directly on point with what you just said, in 2016 our voter file, we didnt have the capacity [inaudible] me just use a concrete example. There was a guy down in florida, and you want him to vote for joe biden. Or back in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. You know, the most important thing, i would argue, that you want to more is [speaking spanish] we didnt have that capacity to do some of that modeling. Now we do because i understood that its indispensable. Our conversations that we were having with puerto rican voters in florida were very different in many reasonses from conversations we had respects from conversations we had with voters. Erican and matt was very involved. And when we were sending mail to voters, we understood that we were sending there were, obviously, some overlap. You know, the pandemic has touched everyone across this country. But there are specific issues, and if we dont understand that we are a latino communities, plural, then well never be successful. Thats one of the things we did, you know, very differently in thee 2020 cycle. And and we had those conversations. Now, in places like texas, and somebody mentioned texas, whats really interesting about texas when you dig in the data is with did remarkably well with latino voters in the urban areas. Go look at harris county. Off the charts turnout, really good numbers. Along the rio grande valley, a different story where we didnt do as well. So when you talk about the ethnicity modeling, actually even within the psalm ethnicity sometimes the same ethnicity, sometimes the rural urban design is another dimension that we need to understand moving forward. Is sod. Those are two examples f how weve been doing things differently, and i think that really helped us to connect with voters. But we still know, and somebody in this conversation mentioned misinformation. Those are big issues, especially in south florida. The misinformation infrastructure was very, very robust. It started it didnt just start in 2020, its been around for many years. But weve bullet our own. But its built our own. But its a formud bl infrastructure to address. Matt, i know that you are the numbers guy [inaudible] Biden Campaign. What are the numbers that you find, not the numbers, but the issues that the people were interested in . What did you find, how diverse were they and what what what thn mpis doing to address the issues of concerned voters in these different locations. Yeah. I think, you know, building on what tom just laid out, it is important to try to segment and understand the Latino Community, the electorate. We are all latino, and we do have many things in common. But we also have diversity e in our politics, and thats okay. And i think for a long time, for the better part of the 21st century, campaigns have really had efforts to microtarget and understand different segments of the white vote, suburban women, noncollegeeducated men, hipster types, whatever it is, they have been segmenting the white community. What we did on the Biden Campaign was very large sampling and communitydriven research and outreach. It doesnt mean that we still dont have opportunities to grow and do better, but i think we this year turned a big corner in understanding that having very large samples in arizona so that we could segment young, u. S. Born, firsttime voters compared to third or fourth generation latinos in arizona, mexicanamericans who have been there for a hundred years or longer. We took that approach this year. We need to keep doing that. We need to keep understanding those differences within the Latino Community so that we can more effectively communicate with someone who still considers themself latino, but is maybe third or fourth generation and has a different sort of view than someone whose family has onlyre been here 25 years, and thats it. I want to encourage everyone to keep that up. And when you do that, you will understand that the, yes, there still is commonality even between cubans, venezuelans, Puerto Ricans andee mexicans. There are thingss that bind us together, but our politics are unique. And our politics at the end of the day and this gets to your Opening Statement from arturo. I can almost hear him saying those exact words to you latinos want to be engaged. They want to be engaged as latinos but also as americans. And when you do a that, you will make inroads. I think the Biden Campaign was on the right track. I think it will continue going in that direction. But there are other groups like the group that mike participated in that was perhaps targeting latinos that considered himselfs maybe more centrist and conservative. And we need to continue those outreach efforts for both parties. We need to talk to those folks and understand what makes them tick and how we can make them feel engaged in our system. Mike, i want to ask [inaudible] i want to follow up on what we just heard as far as the messaging is concerned. It seems like not only in florida and in some parts of texas, but, you know, all across the board there were some inroads that President Trump made with latinos. Even if it was only 2 , there were inroads across the board in the u. S. Now, i know you werent supporting President Trump, but what was it about his campaign, his message, what was it that resonated with voters . Yeah. Look, thats a great question, and i think its a good segway from what matt just articulated, and i think he articulated it verye well. What hes doing and leading the forefront on is segmenting the latino vote in a way that has never i been looked at before. And thats very important when hes talking about these oversamplings with key demographics, your finding theres key variations, but whats driving those decisions . Thats going to have to be done on campaigns going forward. Thats no longer going to be something that you might say was the luxury of a campaign in the past. The vote is so big and so diverse now, these segmentations will be very important. Which leads, i think, to the answer. What we identified as this sort of trumpy sort of vote tend to be a u. S. Born hispanic 40 and under, u. S. Hispanic male under 40. Now, the reason we called it a little bit trumpy was because they were responding to a lot of the same messaging that white, noncollegeeducated males were responding. And again, its a fascinating look. By the way, latino women were having one ofke this nonseasons. The goodd news is nonsense. You could move them back with some messaging, especially a more cultural message, but there was some economic messaging that for whatever reason was compelling them to vote and develop these attitudes that were not terribly dissimilar from white, noncollege voters or [inaudible] the trump base. So the choice is too look at this. One is you can say, well, should we be surprised by that . [inaudible] economic concerns that their white cohorts maybe consuming the same media, behaving the same way, right . The other is a message of very strong the economic appeal incidentally [inaudible] Donald Trumps economic message, were going to be solving it or trying to, but there was something that was compelling this many. And then that led to other question which is how much are these cultural indicators that we have been historically using or drive turnout among the Latino Community, often quite successfully, is there a limit to that . Do we need to now expand into not jutte looking at the get out the vote model and talking about those issues that so strongly are associate with latino [inaudible] but now broaden it to this economic messaging which is what i think, ultimately, the definitive element of where latino politicization will be determined. So suck superintendently, i believe that the succinctly, i believe that the Majority Party in the next 20 years will be the one that captures the economic aspirations of a multicultural middle class. I think the Republican Party has a significant problem with that because theyre not interested in multicultural anything. The Democratic Party, i think, needs the really refine some of these economic messages. Theyre certainly way ahead of where the republicans are, but theres only so much [inaudible] you can prevent. As the Community Gets bigger, its going to diversify. So you have to be mindful that maybe democrats, you know, slipped 2 or 3 points, but in the raw vote its growing so fast that youre not really losing anything. I think the more appropriate way to look at it is saying republicans are losing the second fastest largest portion of the electorate by [inaudible] and thats the death knell. Okay. So another question for you. You cofounded the Lincoln Project. Can you describe it and explain what the objective was for those who still dont know about the Lincoln Project9 . Yeah. Briefly, the Lincoln Project was a group of eight republicans, current and former political consultants, who recognized literally a year ago this month that the republican establishment had basically failed, we believe, the country and protecting the constitution of the United States. It had become complicit in such a cult of personality e that what we view as really a demagogue express, the rise of authoritarianism in this country. So we decided that we would do what we do best, which is run a campaign. This started, as you probably are aware, right before the impeachment began, right before almost every republican u. S. Senator was, you know [inaudible] in their constitutional oath by not wanting to see evidence of the malfeasance of the president of the United States. So our objective was to bring the best talent we had to make sure h that donald trump was not elected [inaudible] to the democratic nominee, whoever that was. Obviously, it was joe biden. And were, you know, honored to be part of a coalition that was successful in that effort. So just to be clear, you approached President Trump opposed President Trump [inaudible] well, we were very aggressively opposed to most of the Senate Candidates. I think the only candidates that we would suggest we were supportive of was mitt romney. Really not an ideological organization. We view iwe the Republican Party as a threat to the american experiment. We view the Republican Party at this moment as a threat to the underpunnings of democracy underpinnings, and we believe those republican senators and the president of the United States were come plus sit in [inaudible] to the point where you were willing to leave the republican partiesome. I havent left yet. They may kick me out, they may drag me out screaming, but im going to go out down with a fight because i want to hold up a mirror [inaudible] i thinknk fighting this threat from this front. I dont believe that the threat has gone away, by the way. I think the Republican Party will continue to devolve into a really malicious form of white identity grievance politics. I think its going to be around for another couple decades. Va well, i read [inaudible] ucla have ine invited invited several republicans to join this conversation,er and they either refused to or were not available. But we did send out several invitations, and that is why they are not joining us in this conversation, because one of them were either available or accepted the invitation. Let meio move now, i know that [inaudible] democrat running a red state. So how and you got 30 of the vote, which is pretty good. You were in second place. Latino, democrat, how you won in a state like that, what kind of messaging do you have, and do you expect to got support from white voters and and maybe even [inaudible] youre on mute. Here we go. Absolutely, without a doubt, you know, i was born and raised in [inaudible] there are so many parts of my background that are diverse. You know, being a member of the sho showny [inaudible] if tribe of idaho, i grew up in public housing, overcame a lot of challenges. But more importantly, you know, i was running to stand up for people from all walks of life who struggle with access to i Affordable Health care like my dad who had lost his factory job in 2014, got laid off, lost his insurance shortly thereafter got sick, had cancer, couldnt get treatment and died [inaudible] so those are the tubes of issues types of issues that i was pushing to the forefront that, you know, really resonated with people from all walks of life. And so, you know, when it comes to people needing the stand up for folks from rural communities, reservation communities, thats the message that i brought to bear. And it was received very well. I received the endorsement of idahos largest paper, the idaho statesman, lots of elected officials, you know, locally throughout the state. And it was a very positive ating. And i think its important for people in places like where i rome from to see that, you know, minorities, hispanics, latinos, you name it run for office at any and all levels to normalize it. Because with us i being, you kn, for a lot of people that dont know, the county that i come from is the second most populace in the state. We still have a lot of challenges when it comes to even justil voting rights, Voter Suppression. You know, i was very much at the forefront of fighting that while also running the campaign because we went from having 55 polling locations to 5. And then i sounded the alarm on it, joined up with Senate Candidate paulless jordan paul let jordan, and we changed that and got it restored to we won polling locations. Just as recently as 2018 in our county, there was an englishonly rule so that there could be no assistance for spanishspeaking Community Members which we with thought, you know [inaudible] of the Hispanic Community there in idaho. So we have a lot, a lot of room for growth and for progress and, you know, it takes getting started. And ill mention just one other thing. You know, throughout the course of my campaign i met incredible young people. Ign remember one in particular, tomas, who is a national guardsman, like 19 or 20 years old, hes about to become a sheriff, and he was in a mariachi band that came out and helped me with a get out the vote event. Just are really incredible young man who i very much admire. So i think by seeing me as a candidate at a young age, 35, perhaps hell aspire to run for, you know, Student Government and get an early start and see that he could get involved in his community and, you know, shoot for the moon. For the stars and then land on the moon. Oh, thats a good one. I want to go back to florida because really, you know, we cant ignore the elephant in the room. It seems like the narrative on the latino vote has revolved around florida. In particular, miamidade county. President trump improved his margin from 2016 by 22 percentage points. So, you know, that is a lot. Tom, i know that you mentioned it before, and i know that you like to look at the grass half full and not Glass Half Full and not half empty, but, you know, i live in miami, and i can tell you that i saw the ads day in and day out. I saw the miss e information. I felt the misinformation really make, be ingrained in the minds of voters here not only cubanamerican voters, but then you have to include the Central Americans. So id like you to address more or less the same issue, mike, when it comes to florida. I mean, youre a republican. Youre not mexicanamerican, youre not cuban, but the Republican Party always says that the ground game was better than the democrats ground game, that they campaigned for four years, not for the last two or three months. Do yount feel that the remins are the republicans are doing a better job in trying to produce, for lack of a better word, latinos to their ranks . No. [laughter] no. No, republicans have been saying this for 30 years, and i know because ive been there. No, theyre not. Look, as a practitioner, look, there is validity to what is being said here. Look, i dont believe that you should contest the ever vote. I dont think thats how you win elections. I think when we were polling and looking at florida, we were seeing the [inaudible] in miamidade, seeing [inaudible] [audio difficulty] so it was working. The question is how much do you need to contest that . It was clear that the Biden Campaign was focusing to turn out the puerto rican vote, exactly the way we would have approached the campaign. So you cant win every vote. And, again, as were learning about the diversity of [inaudible] being talked and one about extensively and now that were seeing it happen on the ground, there are going to have to be determinations abouthe how this vote is going to be secured. Think the days of one party getting, you know, 80 of the vote, you know,w, 75 of the voe are probably gone. Thats okay. I think thats actually healthy for democracy, competition for these votes. And, hopefully, moving away from what the Republican Party has been doing which is kind of using the changing demographics as kind of a punching bag [inaudible] center of that. But to suggest somehow are republicans are doing a better job on the ground game with latino e communities is absolutely incorrect. Matt, in your judgment, i know that the you have been out there quite a bit doing polling for the Biden Campaign, do you think that there is a sanctimonious perception that republicans have actually been [audio difficulty] i do think that the miamidade electorate is unique. So well put that in perspective. And it represents a very unique area in which there is a long legacy of latino republicans elected to almost every level of government. So there is an infrastructure and there has been for 30 years in miami of latino republican leadership. Even ideologically diverse within the infrastructure there, there are more centrists and even leftleaning republicans because that is the party or that was in power, and that was latinodriven. So it has been there for a very longng time. An i think what has happened is that the Misinformation Campaign in 2020, i think, is really a powerful story about what happened in miamidade. That is, it is the case that folks like senator rubio started working on that misinformation. You saw just today additional wild theories about how some of these appointees are going to ruin america and are socialists. They have been working on that line in a otherwise republicanleaning constituency for a are long time very long time. And the democrats were aware of it, as tom said. You know, the dnc had an entire disinformation campaign. We would get daily updates from toms team on the campaign on what was happening on spanishlanguage Youtube Channels in miami. So i think what the democrats can do is recognize that, and they, knead to get they need to get9 in there at that level. And instead of thinking were only going to convince people with these great arguments, which i do think worked in most of the country, but they didnt work in miami, we need to go in and penetrate more deeply and have conversations to dispel those myths about socialism and changing america. Because it is the case. And it didnt just happen overnight, you know . As i said, it has been there for 30 years in miamidade. And i think that it is something to look at. But remember, it only represents 3 . Thats 3 of the latino electorate nationally, is in miamidade. And theres so much more across the country. And if so while i think its an interesting community to dissect, it is not representative of what happened inmm 2020. Right. But it is the one thats making headlines. It is the one that across the country and maybe even, you know, across the world, its the one that is really creating well, i think part of it attention. Part of it, i think, is a happenstance of time zones, okay . So if you could imagine, if we could all imagine a different scenario on Election Night where arizona was the first state to close, we saw these huge margins and these huge Growth Numbers as tom mentioned earlier. Probably 650,000 latino voters in arizona this year. 100 or 150,000 increase. And huge margins for biden harris in mare cope if pa county. What if that had been the first piece of information with all had on Election Night and and miami didnt record any data. They were like philadelphia, they were waiting and counting ballots. Everybody would have been talking about how the mexicanamerican Community Came out and delivered and flipped arizona. Remember, arizona was the first state to flip. It was one of the last states to cert few e and finalize, but it was the first state to show that biden had reverse ared from trump 16. We were all nervous collectively on Election Night. Miami came in first, with got obsessed over it. Not me. I had been telling people and seeing the same data mike had seen, were probably underperforming. Historically were on track, but were dropping off from this election. So i want to put that into perspective. Its 3 of the electorate. There is work to be done there, but we should be talking about arizona. We should be talking about thehe latino vote in philadelphia which came out in huge numbersen including the latino vote in georgia, 185,000. Thats record breaking. And theres more work to be done there. We should be investing in latinos and discussing the latino vote in georgia. And i know that theres lots of Important Media stations and personalities in miami, buts it is onlyy 3 of the National Latino vote. Arizona was a phenomenon. Arizona has been working for ten years towards this moment where they would turn it blue. Its sort of like people were more engaged, latino voters were more engaged. Several organizations [inaudible] a lot of others that have really been working the streets trying to make sure that they register voters and that they get them out to vote. And it worked this time around. But this leads into my next question. During the years i covered elections while i was at univision, what we would hear from voters or is one of the things that kept them away from voting booths is not having a good choice. Many felt one party was hostile to them and the other was taking them for granted. So, tom, does the Democratic Party take latino voters for granted . That is the perception out there. Absolutely not. Thats why we started, i noted our subearth us inty model. We had to rebuild our infrastructure and rebuild trust. And if part of the infrastructure we bullet not sexy, but indispensable as it relates to connecting with latino e voters is developing the capacity to talk to venezuelan rahs differently from colombians, different from cuban knows. Having developed that capacity, then the use it. And thats exactly what we did not only in florida, but elsewhere. You look at what we were able to do in theok 2018 cycle, and, you know, we made tremendous progress. You saw latino voter turnout in the Midterm Election was actually, you had a higher percentage of latinos that voted in arizona in 18 than in 16. Thats nuts. Thats remarkable. And, you know, ive been in arizona for ten years starting with arpaio and s. B. 1070. So we understood. Not just in florida, we tend to think ofoo latinos, and we new f arizona and we think of arizona and florida and colorado and new mexico. Latinos are difference makers across the country. Lookre at nevada. Look at arizona. Look atiz wisconsin. I mentioned that before. A 44,000vote margin of victory for latinos in wisconsin. And we, we understood. We lost wisconsin by 22,000 or 21,000 votes in 2016. We knew that latinos could be the difference makers. We had a 40,000vote swing in wisconsin in 20 the 20. Deal 2020. Same deal in michigan, another state that we would talk about more if joe biden had actually won. He came close, but north carolina. You saw a dramatic increase in latino voter turnout. And you see the latino population is exploding. I recognized that immediately into my tenure, and thats why we made these early investments not only in talking to latino voters, but also fielding and supporting latino candidates down ballot. And weve seen tremendous progress in that area. Is there more to do . Its a timeless journey, of is. Se there but we are far better off now than we were four years ago. All politics is personal. You cant show up every fourth october at someones church and call that organizing, you know . Thats transactional politics. And the reason why we won in 17, 18, 19 and then the biggest prize of all again in 2020 is because we built these relationships. And weui have delivered on promises. People see the contrast between what joe biden and other democrats are fighting for, and i applaud mike and the work that theyve done at the Lincoln Project because this is really about our character as a nation. The party of lincoln is dead. And the party of trump is a very dangerous party. I wish the party of lincoln were not dead. Ru i i think we thrive in a democracy where both parties are operating within guardrails. Latino voters have seen that these guardrails have been to obliterated by a president who, when he went down the escalator of the trump tower five years ago,ta he started right away attacking our community. And that is why we are going i think we have a real opportunity here. And we saw it come to roost in arizona, and were seeing it elsewhere. But we need to sustain it, and thats exactlysu what were goig to continue to do, build on the success. Continue to climb the mountain in texas. We made progress in certain parts of the state, remarkable progress. Texas, i am certain, is going to be a real battleground state in 2024, and heres the reason, one word, latinos. Thank you, tom. Mike, before i go to my questions, i already have some questions from our audience. As a republican, is this the Republican Party of donald trump . Yeah, unfortunately, it is. Im not very optimistic about the Republican Party returning to the conservativism that i [inaudible] i became a republican because i was concerned about Economic Issues in the Latino Community. I wasnt seeing that voice being addressed. I think its desperately needed now more than ever. But this is very much a part that is driven by white identity, white grievance exclusively, you know . The economic moorings, Foreign Policy moorings, character moorings, the morality moorings even [inaudible] republicans claim for decades has shown to either be a facade, or people are okay with somebody who is a charlatan advocating for it. But it is very much, it speaks very much to identity. And this is the great irony, is the republican parties has always chat tuesdayed the democrats chastised the democrats for being identity politics, thats exactly whats going on. Places in a california, the Republican Party is 85 wheat. Its not hard to see whats happened. Its not hard to see the issue matrix that republicans talked aboutt are, obviously, very strongly infused with whites [inaudible] economic collapse or loss of stature blaming people for what they feel is the demise of america. So thats not going to end. Inin fact, i think that the loss of trump in this campaign, the demuse of the Trump Administration is perhaps only the end of the beginning, as churchill said. We thinker weve got a 20year demographic fight to make sure this element, this social problem doesnt destroy the democratic institution, because i new that is one and the same. Were going to go to our first question from the audience. The question is we knew there was significant anticipation among [inaudible] young voters [inaudible] estimates that there was a 340 increase in early voting turnout among this [inaudible] how do we speak to them, and as the future of the country and traditionally a more progressive segment of the latino vote . Im going to start with you finish. [inaudible] yes, thank you for the question. You know, i think its reaching them where theyre at. Reaching them through the mediums that they use, social media, tiktok, all the platforms that they engage in and through the things that they like. And so i think thats the most effective way, partnerships with, you know, influencers if all segments of society whether it be athletes, celebrities, you know, journalists, you know, elected officials, you name it. The whole gamut. Thats, thats what i believe. Matt, the next question is sort of along the lines of that same one. What can 2020 tells us how about how to approach the vote in 2024, 2028 and so on . Letsth puck up from the question, and the latino electorate is by far the youngest. It will continue to get younger as more young people age into the elect rate. So one statistic i used a lot during the campaign in arizona was that there were 150,000 Latino High School students in 2016 in the clinton trump election. U. S. Born, eligible to vote. Guess what . In this year, in 2020, they were all eligible to vote, they were 18, 19, 20, 21. We have the same thing happening. Theres another probably 175,000 la Latino High School students this year who just barely missed being able to vote in this president ial who will be eligible. So the youth in our community is transforming our recollect rate. And so we need to reach out to them electorate. We need to reach out to them, get them engaged, let them feel heard and massively target Voter Registration campaigns. So groups like [speaking spanish] other groups that are targeted registration, these groups need atto be encouraged to go after young latinos, because our community is going to continue growing. You heard earlier about the huge increase in the denominator, the number of latino voters. I mentioned that has over doubled in 16 years. That trajectory is going to continue. And so people need to be looking at the latino vote as the young vote, as a bicultural vote, a vote that many of these folks are u. S. Born, but they have immigrant parents. So engaging them in english but through a latino lens. Talking to them about their issues as americans, i think thats the best thing we can do, focus on the youth, and that will help us grow the latino vote for the next few election cycles. Thank you. The next question is for mike. What is your vision for an ideal Republican Party, and how does this vision include latinos . Im not sure that i really have much of a vision for the Republican Party anymore. Im not convinced, like i said, that its one salvageable. But i also, with all due respect to tom, im not really interested in Party Politics generally. Ive worked for good democrats whoo have advocated for the Latino Community, ive worked for good republicans, im more interested in advocating for my community regardless of party. I certainly have a belief system that im adhere to, im just not convinced that the Party Structure we have right now with both parties is working for the best interests of the community that i love. So thank you. Tom, this questions for you. How do you explain the losses in the house . Could you repeat the question . How do you explain the losseseseseses in the house . If you look at what happened in the cycle after a wave election, and we can go 2010, for instance, republicans won, i think, 60 seats or Something Like that, took over the house, what happened in 2012 was they lost a number a of those seats. Why . Because they won a2 number of seatsea in democratic districts. And then you have a president ial cycle, and you end up, you end up having greater turnout, and they lost some of those seats. You lookme at kendra horn, wonderful member of congress from oklahoma. She won in 2018 in a trumpplus 14 or 15 district, so she started small. Wonderful member. In new mexico, her district was, again, trump plus double digits. The list goes on. There were seven or eight people like that who didnt pull it out in this election cycle where you had greater turnout from the fact that we were in a president ial cycle. So that is to be expected in the year with after a wave election. We had a wave election in 2018 in the house, so i am, im i look at where we are now and where we were four years ago when we got to the d the nc, we didnt have the house of representatives, if we now have itt under speaker pelosis leadership. Yes, we have a smaller margin. Yes,gi i would like to have won some of those seats in texas that were really close rouses. And races. And what we saw was some of the turnout modeling that we had turned out not to be accurate, and so we lost a lot of close races there. But i, again, i look at history, and, you know, i frankly expected that we were going to end up in the net negative in terms of numbers of seats because we had done so well. Another explanation is weve got, you know, in 2010 the republicans, they wounded us out in a w lot of state elections fr governors, statehouses. And and so they were in charge of redistricting. So we have so many states where we not only have to one, weve got to beat the spread in order to t one our races because of theirly handerring that, unfortunately theirly handerringrr that, unfortunatel, the Supreme Court has sanctioned. And thats another factor. And thats why im glad we have ought more legislative chambers that have flipped andmb we have4 governors now instead of 15 governors. Thats going to help us now as we get into the next redistricting cyclele to draw fairer maps. When we draw fairer maps, we do pretty well. Look at pennsylvania. We went from 5 out of 18 to 9 out of 18. It makes sense. Pennsylvanias a swing state. You ought to have 99 or 108. But because of gerrymandering, it wasnt. Thats a continuing challenge because wisconsin is still gerrymandered. Other states in the same boat. We have time for one more question, and i want to address it to matt so we can wrap it up. Matt, the latino vote, thats what you do. Given theen diversity that we talked about today, can we say that there is a latino vote . Well, i think ive been getting that question a lot, and its a very important question. I do think there are lat irk no voters. Latino voters. And i think theres a lot we have in common with each other, whether its cubans, Central Americans here in california, venezuelans, we do have a lot in common, but we also need to understand our diversity and segment this many. And Everyone Wants to feel included and engaged. And if you look at the areas where candidates and in particular the Biden Campaign focused heavily, you saw that return on investment. You saw very High Performance in some of these specific battleground states. We can still talk about latino voters, but we should not talk about the latino vote, because it is so many different segments, and it is so diverse. But all of us within that segment, within that diversity, we still identify as latino, and we do see something in common with other latinos, but as i said, we do have that diversity. Lets move forward with outreach to latinos as though theyre not all the same, and i think that willnk be the most successful strategy for political organizing. Right. Im sure theres a lot of lessonsn learned to be applied going forward, and i want to thank you. Were out of time. I know we could continue to have this conversation for hours, but were out of time. So, tom, mike, matt, rudy, thank you so much to all of you for joining us with your insights, for your intellect and for sharing your knowledge with us. And thank you to ucla and the Aspen Institute for inviting me to moderate this panel. And now i would like to pass it on to sonya diaz, direct e orer of ucla as latino policy and politics initiative. Again, thank you for inviting me. Awesome. Thank you so much, maria elena. Todays con conversation really outlined that its important to go straight to the experts. This robust and dynamic conversation about something many of us have been saying for a long time is simple. Theres no path to the white house without the latino electorate. Theres many lessons from 020. We heard 2020. We heard all about this many. But todays lessons should not fade with the news cycle. One need only look to georgia and the role of the black and Brown Coalition in insuring that they can overcome Voter Suppression to cast a ballot. Now,re latinos arent a monolit, and we know that engagement must be done early and automatically. Theyre not a single issue community. And with that, they want to shape our future economy. They want to decide about issues around global warming. I they want access to Quality Health care. Ey and, most importantly, they want to get over covid19 which has decimated black and brown communities. In order to dodo this, latinos like other voters of color cannot be taken for granted by areither partys candidates or campaigns. And we know and our research at ucla has made clear in 2018 and in 2020 that the campaigns that inspiree latino turnout will be rewarded with winning margins that have the power to swing outcomes like we saw this november. Now, there are states like arizona and georgia that provide a road map for the future. Wead know that its Community Organizers and advocates and young latinos along with black and indigenous voters who really are the smart investment. And these folks are eager. Theyre eager to transform policies around issues like guns, misabuse and climate change. Police abuse. And so policy necessitates representation. And yesterday we got news of the nomination of Alex Mallorca to lead the d. Of homeland security, the first latino to have that job. We hope that he is one of many black and brown and Indigenous Leaders who will play critical roles in the new biden administration. Their voices and their lenses are essential not only for the immediate if challenges that lie ahead, the ones that just seem to come and introduce themselves in the Science Fiction of 2020, but theyre necessary to get this under control. This pandemic has put so many of our households in a precare yous situation that requires urgent action. Toeds conversationat made this point clear, and let me reiterate it. Theres no american agenda without a latino agenda. And the future of prosperity in this country and our ability to recover, to continue to be resilient needs to center on the essential andtl frontlewin communities that will drive frontline communities that will drive the growthro in our econoy but will also continue to transform electoral outcomes. Theres no going back to whatever normal there was before january 2020, and latinos are ready and eager to be an integral part of a stronger, better america. The u. S. Senate is back today at 3 p. M. Eastern after the thanksgiving break. Their work on the nomination of Taylor Mcneal to be a u. S. District court judge for southern mississippi. A procedural vote is scheduled for 5 30 even. You can follow the senate live here on cspan2. On tuesday treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will testify on the response of their respective agencies to the covid19 pandemic. Watch louvre coverage from the Senate Banking committee at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Tonight on the communicators, netflix founder and Ceo Reed Hastings and business professor aaron my ier discuss the unorthodox Workplace Culture behind one of the Largest Tech Companies in the world in their book, no rules rules netflix and the culture of reinvention. You have to do what you think is right to help the customers and the company. You cant be trying to please your boss, me, youre not allowed to let me drive the bus off the cliff. You have to, you know, fight for the benefit of the country. And in general, we say dont seek to please your boss, seek to please the customers and to grow the company. So we want people to actively think the independently, not just to implement their boss wishes. Watch the communicators tonight at eight eastern on cspan2. Next, a look at the nato alliance, efforts to adieu crane and georgia as member countries, and russias opposition. The German Marshall Fund hosted this discussion. And im very pleased to welcome our panelists and our viewers on both side of the atlantic. So good evening, europe. Good morning, america. Greetings from brussels. The topic of today, ukraine, georgia merging with nato, something i would say is almost partrt of the German Marshall Fund. We have been working for many years now on ukraine and georgiarelated issue is. We do issues. We do [inaudible] support the new society and [inaudible] also by addressing [audio difficulty] so i also really want to thank our partners in this event, the new Europe Center for all support, they provide a terrific lineup of speakers ready to corrupt tonight. So today we want to dig a little bit more into the subject of