Spanish-language conservative network readies launch as Latino voters drift right

The United States' first Spanish-language conservative radio network, Americano, is set to launch Tuesday morning on SiriusXM satellite radio in what one pollster called a "Defcon 1" moment for Democrats, NBC News reports.

"Democrats took Hispanics for granted for too long, and no one thought to create a home for us in conservative media," Americano founder and CEO Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo told NBC News. "There is an appetite for this. You see it on social media. You see it in elections."

Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi was inclined to agree. "This is a Defcon 1 moment. We should worry," he said. "The Democrats' response to all of this Hispanic outreach from Republicans — whether it's disinformation or conventional campaigning — is to do the bare minimum."

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Latino voter turnout jumped 31 percent between 2016 and 2020 compared to around 12 percent for white voters, suggesting that this demographic will play a key role in any future winning coalition.

President Biden won a comfortable majority of the Latino vote in 2020, but nationwide trends show this once reliably Democratic bloc drifting to the right. According to Vox, between 2016 and 2020 "there was about an 8 percentage-point swing toward Trump" among Latino voters.

A poll conducted in January showed that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who lost the Latino vote by more than 10 points in 2014 and 2018, is polling dead even among Hispanics with Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke ahead of the 2022 election.