LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — We are about a month and a half away from the midterm election. One of the groups with rising voting numbers are Latinos.
Good Morning Las Vegas anchor Justin Hinton says one local organization is working to register Hispanic voters and get them to the polls.
"Do you want to register? Not right now?" asks Kimberly Juliao of Mi Familia Vota.
REGISTERING VOTERS
"Hello, Hi guys," says Juliao.
The journey to 2,000 registered Latino voters, passes through this parking lot.
"It is kind of difficult and tricky to get those that are not registered," says Juliao.
They're finding people here are either already registered, or they are not U.S. citizens and can't vote.
She says sometimes it can take hours to get someone registered. But as our cameras rolled, it happened.
Getting people registered to vote is just half of the battle. They'll follow up with phone calls and door knocking to make sure that folks show up on Election Day.
GROWING NUMBERS
According to the Educational Fund of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed officials, the number of Latinos voting is growing.
The group projects more than 165,000 Latinos will vote during the midterm elections. That's a nearly 6 percent increase from the last midterm election 4 years ago.
"They are the largest minority voting group in the electorate in Nevada, so that's been a trend that we've seen overtime," says John Tuman, Political Science Professor at UNLV.
That means there is a lot of political power. But Tuman says, polls of Latinos show fewer than 50 percent of them have been contacted by either major party. Though Democrats have fared better.
"This is an area where frankly, the Republican party has a lot of work to do. They've been increasing Spanish-language advertising, they have apparently opened up some offices around town to do some outreach. But those offices don't have very high visibility as of yet in the community," says Tuman.
KEY ISSUES
Back at the grocery store, Juliao says Latinos want to be heard. They are not a monolith.
The main issues she hears they want addressed; inflation, environmental justice, abortion rights and crime. But in order to vote, it comes down to registering.
"Hi, how are you?" asks Juliao
Capitalizing on the power they have through their numbers.
