A8 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019 S LATIMES.COM
THE NATION
■■■ ELECTION 2020 ■■■
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Re-
publican leaders in Nevada,
South Carolina and Kansas
have voted to scrap their
presidential nominating
contests in 2020, erecting
more hurdles for the long-
shot candidates challenging
President Trump.
“What is Donald Trump
afraid of?” asked one of
those rivals, former Massa-
chusetts Gov. William Weld.
A spokesman for the
South Carolina Republican
Party, Joe Jackson, con-
firmed that the party voted
Saturday against holding a
presidential primary next
year. A similar move fol-
lowed in Nevada, where
party spokesman Keith
Schipper said, “The vote to
opt out of the caucus has
passed. We will vote to en-
dorse and bind the delegates
to the president at a later
date.”
The Kansas GOP
tweeted Friday that it will
not organize a caucus “be-
cause President Trump is an
elected incumbent from the
Republican Party.” Its state
committee planned to ap-
prove rules for an “internal
party process” for selecting
convention delegates, ac-
cording to Kelly Arnold, the
party’s former state chair-
man, and Helen Van Etten, amember of the Republican
National Committee from
Topeka.
Challengers to Trump
who have emerged include
Weld and Joe Walsh, a for-
mer congressman from Illi-
nois. Others may join them.
Weld, in a statement, saidvoting is “the ultimate right
of speech in America, and
Trump’s machine in South
Carolina has just told the
people of South Carolina
that they don’t need to be
heard. Donald Trump wants
to be treated as a monarch,
but we rejected that idea 200years ago.”
Walsh told CNN after the
South Carolina vote that his
campaign would “fight
South Carolina and any
other state that considers
doing this.” He also noted
that Trump complained
during the 2016 election
“about how the Democrats
were rigging the system to
get Hillary [Clinton] elected.
Well, look what he’s doing
now. You talk about rigging a
system.”
Primary challenges to in-
cumbents are rarely suc-
cessful, and Trump’s poll
numbers among Republican
voters have proved resilient.
Nonetheless, Trump aides
are looking to prevent a re-
peat of the convention dis-
cord that highlighted the
electoral weaknesses of
Presidents George H.W.
Bush and Jimmy Carter in
their failed reelection cam-
paigns.
Since last year, Trump’s
campaign has worked to
monitor and, at times, con-
trol the process by which
delegates to next year’s Re-
publican National Conven-
tion in Charlotte, N.C., are
selected. His campaign
wants the convention to be a
four-night infomercial for
Trump by sidelining his de-
tractors within the party.
The effort is an acknowl-edgment that Trump hasn’t
completely cemented his
grip on the GOP and might
not coast to the nomination
without some opposition.
To that end, the cam-
paign has worked over the
last year to scuttle any at-
tempts at a Trump chal-
lenge by party dissidents,
mindful that a serious pri-
mary opponent could weak-
en Trump heading into the
general election.
In January, the Republi-
can National Committee
voted to express its “undi-
vided support” for Trump
and his “effective presi-
dency.”
In years past, both Re-
publicans and Democrats
have cut state nominating
contests when an incum-
bent president from their
party ran for a second term.
In 1984, South Carolina GOP
leaders opted to call off their
primary as President
Reagan sought a second
term. In 2004, the state’s
GOP again canceled the pri-
mary, with leaders deciding
instead to endorse Presi-
dent George W. Bush’s re-
election bid.
The South Carolina
Democratic Party didn’t
hold presidential primaries
in 1996 or in 2012, when Presi-
dents Clinton and Obama
were the incumbents.Republicans scrap nominating events in 3 states
Trump gets a boost as
GOP cancels contests
in South Carolina,
Nevada and Kansas.
associated press
IN THREE STATESso far, neither former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld
nor other potential GOP challengers will get a shot at beating President Trump.Evan VucciAssociated PressLAS VEGAS — Beto
O’Rourke stepped up on a
red cooler so the crowd
packed inside Taqueria
Arandas could see him.
“Primero, buenos días,”
he began. He thanked the
family that owns the restau-
rant and launched his pitch:
“Necesitamos un país en que
cualquier persona [puede]
participar con su voz y su
voto en su democracía.” “We
need a country where any-
body can participate in their
democracy with their voice
and their vote.”
The audience cheered,
clapped and leaned in close
to listen to the former Texas
congressman, one of several
2020 Democratic candidates
speaking at least some
Spanish on the campaign
trail.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor
Pete Buttigieg, who knows
seven languages to varying
degrees, has spoken Span-
ish at his events, as has Sen.
Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Former Housing Secretary
Julián Castro uses Spanish
for emphasis, for example
ending a message to the
president with “Ya basta”—
“Enough.”
But does a candidate
speaking Spanish make a
difference to voters who
know the language? The an-
swer can be as nuanced as
the Latino electorate, which
is often mischaracterized as
a monolithic voting bloc.
“There’s nothing more
powerful than somebody
saying, ‘I’m fighting for you,’
without the use of a trans-
lator,” said Edgar Flores, a
state assemblyman whose
east Las Vegas district is
nearly 70% Latino.
Flores, who is bilingual,
hosts events for constitu-
ents in Spanish and English,
and believes using the sec-
ond-most spoken language
in the U.S. is extremely effec-
tive in reaching voters, espe-
cially in Nevada, one of the
country’s most diverse
states.
But that does not trans-
late as the sole means to win-
ning the Latino vote, he and
others caution.
“When you come to the
community, just saying
‘hola’ isn’t enough,” Flores
said. “They need to know
what issues you stand for.”
The role of Spanish in
this year’s election cycle is
likely to bubble up again dur-
ing the Democratic primary
debate in Houston on
Thursday, which will be co-
hosted by Spanish-language
network Univision and
simulcast with live trans-
lation.
At a debate co-hosted by
Telemundo in June,
O’Rourke, Castro and
Booker spoke a bit of Span-
ish, at times with wavering
pronunciations and gram-
mar, leading some critics to
accuse them of “Hispander-
ing.”
Andy Hernandez, who
led Latino outreach during
President Clinton’s 1996 re-
election campaign, disa-
greed. When people dis-
count Spanish in English
settings, they’re saying the
Latino vote is less impor-
tant, he said.
“It’s no different than go-
ing to an Iowa State Fair and
eating a corn dog,” he said.
“Is that pandering? I don’t
consider it pandering. Now,
are they going to win the
Latino vote just on that? Of
course not.”
Latino voters could be a
major force in 2020, when
they are expected to surpass
African Americans to be-
come the largest minority
voting bloc, according to the
Pew Research Center; an
estimated 32 million His-
panic voters, a Pew category
that includes Latinos and
some non-Latinos, will ac-
count for more than 13% of
all Americans eligible to cast
a ballot.
In Clark County, home to
Las Vegas and about two-
thirds of Nevada’s popula-tion, nearly 1 in 4 people
speak Spanish at home. Ne-
vada falls third on the 2020
primary calendar, after Iowa
and New Hampshire, which
are both overwhelmingly
white.
“If you’re a campaign and
the first Latino test you have
is Nevada ... then it makes
sense to want to reach a
Spanish-speaking popula-
tion because it’s still a domi-
nant portion of the elector-
ate,” said Andres Ramirez, a
Las Vegas-based political
consultant.
Maria Luisa Escobar, a
housekeeper at the Venetian
hotel on the Las Vegas Strip,
said she respects politicians
who speak her first lan-
guage.
“I like that they are open
to other cultures,” the 51-
year-old said in Spanish,
which she and her co-work-
ers mostly speak at work.
Many of them are citizens,
she said, but are hesitant to
participate in English-domi-
nant settings.
“When it comes time to
vote, there are times when
they feel like they can’t, be-
cause they don’t under-
stand,” Escobar said, “so it’s
important that the informa-
tion is in Spanish.”
A candidate’s language
ability, however, isn’t as im-
portant to Latino voters as
their stances on issues, polls
have shown. Latino voters
rated the ability to speak
Spanish ninth — last — in
what they were looking for, aJune UnidosUS poll found.
Most said they wanted a
candidate who values diver-
sity and brings people to-
gether. A Univision poll after
the June debate found 53%
of respondents said a candi-
date speaking Spanish was a
motivation to vote for them;
35% said it didn’t matter.
For Las Vegas resident
Wendy Losada, hearing
Spanish at the debate was a
sign of acknowledgment. “I
was very excited that he did
that,” she said of O’Rourke,
the first to answer a ques-
tion in Spanish. “I was like,
‘Thank you, thank you,
thank you very much,’” said
Losada, 50.
Hector Fong Jr.’s first
thought when candidates
speak Spanish is that
they’re pandering. But the
21-year-old said older Span-
ish speakers like his relatives
would benefit from events in
their first language, a
thought shared by many of
the dozen bilingual voters
The Times interviewed in
Las Vegas. Older Spanish
speakers are less likely to say
they understand English
“very well” than younger
generations, according to
the Census Bureau.
“I have tías” — aunts —
“...who want to get active,”
said Fong, a political science
student. “They want to be
active in the community;
they don’t want to just vote
or not vote. They care.”
Some of the Nevadans in-
terviewed said holding anevent in Spanish, especially
when Latinos face attacks
for speaking the language in
public settings, would send a
powerful message. Even of-
fering translations could be
seen as a rejection of the rac-
ist rhetoric that speaking
Spanish is un-American,
they suggested.
At a town hall in Nevada
in March, California Sen.
Kamala Harris’ campaign
offered headsets for real-
time translations in Span-
ish. Massachusetts Sen.
Elizabeth Warren brought a
translator for a roundtable
event hosted by a Nevada
immigration advocacy
group.
“It was really refreshing,”
said Leo Murrieta, director
of Make the Road Nevada.
Murrieta, whose immigrant
advocacy group holds its
meetings in Spanish with
English translation, said he
appreciates candidates who
learn the language.
But “if you can’t tell me in
Spanish what you’re going to
do to lower drug prices for
my parents, let’s just stick to
English and let the trans-
lators do what they do,” he
said.
The most fluent of the
candidates and least likely
to use a translator appears
to be O’Rourke, who grew up
learning Spanish in the bor-
der town of El Paso and was
given the Spanish nickname
“Beto” as a child. As a city
councilman in his home-
town, O’Rourke hosted townhalls in Spanish and English
for the largely bilingual com-
munity, his campaign said.
It is not uncommon for
O’Rourke, who is Irish
American, to pepper Span-
ish words into speeches
wherever he goes on the
campaign trail, including at
a house party in front of a
mostly white crowd in New
Hampshire.
Castro, the only Latino
vying for the Democratic
nomination, does not speak
Spanish fluently, but he has
focused part of his campaign
on Latinos. His first cam-
paign stop was in Puerto
Rico, a bilingual U.S. terri-
tory, and he was the first to
release a comprehensive im-
migration plan. In talking
about his plan, he often
speaks about his grand-
mother, who came to the
U.S. from Mexico at age 7.
Castro has spoken about
how Latinos who have lived
in this country for decades
were punished or looked
down upon for speaking
Spanish. “In my family, like a
lot of other families, the re-
sidue of that, the impact of
that, is that there are many
folks whose Spanish is not
that great,” he said.
Castro’s story is one that
20-year-old Alma Romo can
relate to.
On a Sunday afternoon,
the college freshman sat
with her parents at the Las
Vegas office of Mi Familia
Vota, where she works as an
organizer, and spoke about
struggling to speak Spanish.
Like Castro’s, her grammar
is imperfect, and she ducks
into a room when she is
speaking Spanish on the
phone to avoid being over-
heard.
So for her, Castro’s lack of
fluency isn’t an issue. She
appreciates his record of
supporting Latinos and his
plan for immigration reform,
she said.
“Sometimes I feel like the
work that you put in is 10
times more important than
just being able to speak
Spanish,” Romo said.
Teresa Parraga agrees.
The housekeeper at the
Paris Las Vegas hotel said
she has struggled to retain
her English after becoming a
naturalized citizen in 1998;
she understands the lan-
guage well but gets by just
fine speaking Spanish. Ref-
erencing a common Mexican
saying, Parraga, 66, said she
thinks candidates often “do-
rar la píldora,” or sweeten
the pill, when they speak bits
of Spanish.
“If you’re speaking my
language and you’re ex-
pressing to me in my lan-
guage what your plans are
for issues I care about, per-
fect, I’ll understand you bet-
ter,” she said in Spanish.
“But if you are utilizing my
language to sweeten the pill,
no. I’ll go with English.”Does Spanish speak to Latino voters?
Some say Democratic
presidential hopefuls
who use it are just
‘Hispandering’; others
appreciate the effort.
By Melissa Gomez
BETO O’ROURKE,who regularly injects Spanish into his speeches, is Irish American but grew up learning
the language in El Paso. Rivals Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker and Julián Castro also use some Spanish.John LocherAssociated Press