Latino voters key to US election, but not 'monolithic'

Angel Ozuna can vote in his first U.S. election this year, but the 50-year-old, a naturalized citizen from Mexico, says he is unsure if he will exercise that right.

From his perfume shop in the key swing state of Georgia, Ozuna told AFP a few weeks ago that he was leaning toward Donald Trump, but the Republican ex-president's vicious attacks against Kamala Harris have left him conflicted.

"I don't think it's right for a man to attack a woman the way he does with her," said Ozuna, one of the nearly 36.2 million Hispanic Americans able to vote this year in the United States.

With analysts expecting the presidential election to be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of key states, Latino voters like Ozuna "could be the one that tips the balance," said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, research director of UCLA's Latino Policy and Politics Institute.

The impact could be decisive not only in the Southwest battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada, where Latinos represent more than a fifth of the electorate, but also in the five other southern and Midwest swing states.

Latinos have traditionally voted more in favor of Democrats, but recent polling shows a noticeable trend toward Republicans.

The latest New York Times/Siena poll showed Harris with 52 percent of support among Hispanic voters to Trump's 42 percent.

Exit polls in 2020 showed Joe Biden with more than 60 percent support among Hispanic voters.

- Racism row -

"Unfortunately, many times the parties see Latinos as a monolithic voting bloc, and that is not the case," Dominguez-Villegas told AFP by phone.

"In addition to the diversity of countries of origin and ancestry, there is diversity of ideologies, ages and even races," he said.

For example, Ozuna said he trusts Trump to improve the economy and reduce illegal immigration, expressing a sense of unfairness that new arrivals have more rights and benefits, according to him, than he did when he came to the country 27 years ago.

In recent weeks, Harris and Trump have courted Latinos with Spanish-language advertisements and both participated in separate town hall-style discussions with Hispanic voters organized by TV network Univision.

But the Trump campaign has been in damage control over the past day, after a speaker at his New York City rally made crude jokes about Latinos and Puerto Rico that were widely condemned as racist.

The remarks were quickly seized upon by the Harris campaign, which highlighted its economic support initiative for Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking US territory.

"It was a great insult to the Puerto Rican people, who are citizens of this country," said Elisa Covarrubias, 42, deputy director of Galeo, a Latino non-profit in Georgia.

"It was a great political mistake, because there are many Puerto Ricans in New York, Pennsylvania and other important states like Georgia, who are watching and listening to what they say."

Javier Torres Martinez, a Puerto Rican native living near Miami, put it more bluntly: "The damage is done."

"Before I was 100 percent convinced to vote for Trump and now I am 100 percent motivated to go out and vote for Kamala Harris," the 45-year-old health insurance executive told AFP.

- 'We have power' -

Martha Arce, who was previously undecided, said the remarks "cleared my mind."

"Those racist comments have only given me the courage to go out and vote" for Harris, said the 41-year-old pediatrician, who moved from Puerto Rico to Miami after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.

On the other hand, Cesar Viera, said he did not think the jokes were offensive and that he would still be casting his ballot for Trump.

"He's just the best for the economy right now," said the 18-year-old handyman ahead of a Trump rally Monday in Georgia.

Earlier this month, organizers with Galeo's political arm were working in an office on the outskirts of Atlanta to boost Harris's showing with the Latino community.

Over the doorway was a pro-Harris sign in Spanish: "La Presidenta" (The President).

"What I always tell our community is that we have power, we have an influence," Kyle Gomez-Leineweber, director of policy and advocacy at the organization, told AFP.

"And if we are able to turn out our community, our community is going to be the one who decides who occupies the White House."