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 thir