Getting out the vote for the 2020 election: Lessons from Bernie Sanders’ Latino outreach

This Facebook Live discussion is part of “Every 30 Seconds,” a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 US presidential election and beyond.

With fewer than 100 days to Election Day, the question on many people’s minds is what the Latino vote will look like in the fall.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump are trying to secure the Latino vote with different strategies. Democratic super PAC Priorities USA is spending $24 million to help turn out Latino and Black voters for Biden. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is sticking to the Republican playbook by appealing to Latino business leaders.

But are candidates doing enough to capture the decisive Latino vote? What does outreach look like for first-time Latino voters? 

The World’s senior editor Daisy Contreras brought these and other questions to political strategist Chuck Rocha, former senior adviser to the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign and author of the book “Tio Bernie,” a chronicle of the historic Latino outreach program he pioneered.

And Every 30 Seconds reporters Alejandra Martinez from KERA in Dallas and Michel Marizco from KJZZ in Phoenix were also part of the discussion.

For the past five months, The World’s “Every 30 Seconds” project has been following the stories of eight young Latino voters in different corners of the United States, reporting on the issues, influences, concerns and challenges driving Latino decision-making and turnout for the 2020 presidential election.