New York Times:
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
May 4, 2014
SANGER,
Calif. — “Ya es tiempo — you have a voice,” Amanda Renteria, a
Democratic candidate for Congress, declared one recent Saturday morning
at a park in this little
city southeast of Fresno. There was no need to translate the Spanish.
The park was festooned with “Amanda Renteria para el Congreso” signs.
As
she told her local-girl-makes-good story — daughter of onetime migrant
fruit pickers, degrees from Stanford and Harvard, a job in Washington as
a senator’s chief of
staff — men in ranchero hats smiled with pride. Women choked back
tears. Candidates like her, they said, do not come around often in
places like this.
“We
have been waiting, waiting,” said Diana Rodriquez, a retired teacher
whose parents also worked the fields here in the agriculturally rich
Central Valley, in a largely
Hispanic congressional district. “We helped Obama win the election, and
they still see us to be passed over. This is going to help the overall
national cause — respect for our community.”
But
if Ms. Renteria represents the hopes of her party and her people, she
also reflects Latino Democrats’ deep angst. Seven out of 10 Hispanic
voters supported President
Obama in 2012, but Latinos — the nation’s most rapidly growing minority
— are greatly underrepresented in public office.
“I
have been troubled by a lack of Latino bench for the future,” said Bill
Richardson, the Democratic former governor of New Mexico. He said
Democrats take Latinos for
granted, and have not been “as aggressive as Republicans in attracting
and encouraging Latino candidates.”
On
Monday, Cinco de Mayo, a new nonpartisan organization, the Latino
Victory Project, will announce an effort to promote Hispanic political
engagement, in part by grooming
Latino candidates; its political arm will endorse eight — all
Democrats, including Ms. Renteria.
Over
all, 6,011 Hispanics held elective office in the United States in 2013,
according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials. Most serve
on school boards or in municipal offices, and of those who cite a party
affiliation, 89 percent are Democrats. But at the upper tiers, that
pattern is reversed. It is Republicans, with big names like Senators Ted
Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, who
are winning the race to land a Hispanic on a national ticket.
There
are two Hispanic governors: Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian
Sandoval of Nevada, both Republicans, who lead a party effort to recruit
Latino candidates. Just
eight Latinos hold statewide office; five, including the governors, are
Republican. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is the only Hispanic
Democrat in the Senate.
“It
is stunning,” said Henry Cisneros, former housing secretary under
President Bill Clinton. He warned the trend is “very serious” for
Democrats. “Because many young
Latinos will say, ‘I want to advance in politics, it looks like the
Republicans offer a route — and in some states it’s the only route.’ ”
The
reasons are complex. In conservative states like Texas, for instance,
Democrats rarely win statewide, though that is projected to change as
more Hispanics come of
voting age.
State
Representative Trey Martinez Fischer of Texas, a Democrat who leads the
Mexican American Legislative Caucus there, is contemplating a statewide
run, but predicts
the climate will not be right until 2018. “For every Ted Cruz, you will
find there are 10 Julián Castros in the party,” he said, referring to
the mayor of San Antonio, a Democratic rising star.
Fernand
R. Amandi, a Democratic strategist in Miami, attributes the rise of
Hispanics in Texas and Florida to the Bush family, especially Jeb Bush,
who mentored Mr. Rubio,
among others. He sees Republicans as “more tactical,” a view shared by
Gary M. Segura, a Stanford professor and founder of Latino Decisions, a
nonpartisan polling firm.
“Republicans,
in the absence of policies that are likely to appeal to minority
voters, have decided to invest in faces,” Mr. Segura said. “Democrats
believe they have
the popular policies and they believe these are captured
constituencies, so they’re not investing, and it’s crazy.”
Democrats
insist they are investing, in candidates like Leticia Van de Putte and
Lucy Flores, running for lieutenant governorships in Texas and Nevada,
along with Ms.
Renteria. Ms. Renteria, 39, was the first Latina Senate chief of staff,
to Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan. She moved to Sanger
in August with her husband and two young sons, in a bid to unseat
Representative David Valadao, a well-liked Republican
of Portuguese descent.
“I
feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life being one of the few,” Ms.
Renteria said. “I see it as my responsibility to bridge two different
worlds.”
The
race is a priority for Democrats in what could be a bleak year.
Democratic donors and groups like Emily’s List have flocked to Ms.
Renteria, helping her raise $630,000
so far, though Mr. Valadao has twice that.
Now,
Ms. Renteria will get a boost from the Latino Victory Project’s
political action committee, which intends to run television ads and a
get-out-the-vote effort in key
districts.
Co-founded
by two top Obama fund-raisers — Henry R. Muñoz III, the finance
chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Eva Longoria, the
actress — the project will
“use our numbers, our votes and our dollars” to create “the next
generation of leadership,” Mr. Muñoz said.
Its PAC is open to backing Republicans, as long as they support immigration reform, and is looking far beyond 2014.
Here
in Sanger, though, Ms. Renteria’s race for Congress illustrates the
challenges. In 2012, Democrats ran a weak candidate, bungling an
opportunity to win this politically
diverse district, one of the poorest in the nation, where Democrats
outregister Republicans by 14 percentage points and Hispanics make up 55
percent of the voting age population. Ms. Renteria’s challenge now is
to get them to the polls.
The
cultural dynamics are complex. Mr. Valadao, 37, who calls Ms. Renteria
“an outsider from Washington,” has deep roots in the conservative
community of Hanford, where
his parents, who emigrated from the Azores, founded their family farm.
Despite his Spanish-sounding surname (he also speaks the language), the
race typifies the region’s class divide, said Darry Sragow, a longtime
Democratic strategist in California.
“There’s
always been a real class dichotomy between the Latino farm workers and
the farmers,” Mr. Sragow said. “We’re talking Steinbeck, a very deep
divide.”
Grow
Elect, a group dedicated to electing Hispanic Republicans in
California, has embraced Mr. Valadao. “We’re starting at the grass-roots
level,” said its president,
Ruben Barrales, “because you can’t depend on superstars.”
Immigration
is, not surprisingly, a pressing issue, along with jobs. Mr. Valadao is
among the handful of Republican House members who favor a path to
citizenship for undocumented
immigrants, though Ms. Renteria accuses him of not pushing his party
leaders to act.
The
congressman says he believes his conservative politics on social issues
like abortion and also on taxes, appeal to Hispanic voters, especially
small-business owners
who “work really hard for their money” and “don’t want to see a bunch
of government guys regulating them.”
But
analysts say the race will be close, and Ms. Renteria is working her
way into Latino circles. At a Mexican-American dinner dance in Hanford,
Mr. Valadao’s hometown,
she ran into the parents of a Stanford classmate, and was invited by a
local woman for a midnight meal of menudo, a traditional Mexican soup.
Earlier
in the day in Sanger, the city’s former mayor, José Villarreal,
introduced her. He said he had “a lot of questions” when she moved to
town, but was won over. “She
is a daughter of the Valley,” he told the crowd. “She is one of us.”
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