In the 2020 election, Republicans managed to flip a number of House districts, shaking Democrats' confidence in the loyalty of several voting blocks they took for granted as Democrat voters. In each of those Democrat losses — more than a dozen in all — the Republican who prevailed was either a minority, a woman, or a veteran. One voting block in particular, Hispanic Americans, swung consequentially for Republicans in key districts, allowing Mike Garcia to win in California, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez to flip seats in Florida, Nicole Malliotakis to win in New York, and Tony Gonzalez to prevail in Texas while President Trump increased his share of the Hispanic vote by ten percent.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel noted that she is "proud of the inroads and investments the RNC has made in the Hispanic community," something she's now doubling down on.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the RNC recently opened a Hispanic community center, the first of several it has planned, to deliver its message directly to voters where they live. Others are slated for Doral, Florida, San Antonio, Texas, and in the border town of McAllen, Texas, suggesting the RNC seeks to do more than just talk about how its policies will help Hispanic communities by speaking to Hispanic voters in their own neighborhoods and showing them a commitment that lasts longer than an election cycle.
"This month and every month, we value the Hispanic voices within our Party making a difference in communities across the country," McDaniel said. "We’ve seen Republican support surge among Hispanics as they continue to reject the Democrats’ socialist agenda," the RNC chairwoman added.
Adding to the RNC's in-person appeal to Hispanic voters is a new video titled "Free of Fear" — previewed exclusively by Townhall — in which several senior RNC staffers share how Hispanic outreach and the issues that affect their communities are not just political, but personal to them and their families.
"The best thing that I found in this country is that it was possible to leave your house in the morning giving your daughter a kiss, knowing that you were going to be back in the afternoon to give her another one," says RNC Hispanic Communications Director Jaime Florez. "I didn't feel that when she was born and I was living in my country," he explains of his time as a radio host in Columbia and how his commentary elicited death threats. "The recommendation is if you have an opportunity to leave the country, do it, because they're going to kill you."
Danielle Alvarez, the RNC's communications director, explains what it was like being raised in a family that fled Cuba after Castro seized power and began his totalitarian campaign to remove religion, make children wards of the state, and strip the Cuban people of their most basic freedoms. "My mom was taken over and separated from her family and taken to do hard agricultural labor and be indoctrinated by the revolution," Alvarez says. "Fortunately for my family, they were able to escape through Mexico" after "they received visas and safe passage through Mexico and eventually were able to make it to the United States," she explains. "It's a story that most Cuban-Americans know."
"Living in Colombia, my parents, they didn't always live free of fear," says RNC Deputy National Press Secretary Nicole Morales. "My grandfather — my mom's dad — had been kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia and my mother and her mother, they both decided it was time to move to the United States," she recalls. "Being able to raise a family in a safe neighborhood with a strong police force and economic opportunity is the greatest gift that they have given me and my brother."
RNC Texas Communications Director Macarena Martinez, a first-generation Mexican-American, also shares her family's quest for the American dream. "My parents immigrated on their own behalf when my father was twenty-three and my mother was fifteen," she recalls. "They both had to leave Mexico due to the lack of economic opportunities that they had over there, so my grandfather actually had a coffee factory in Mexico and brought over the plant to Houston, Texas," Martinez explains of the plant that's now the largest of its kind in the world. "The United States gave them opportunities that Mexico was ever able to, and at the same time gave us opportunities — we were able to live in the freest country in the world and that for us is our greatest gift — so we try to give back in-kind."
The "Free of Fear" video is part of the RNC's recent increased use of personal stories to communicate the national party's priorities, an area where Democrats typically lead with the heart while Republicans are more prone to speak from the head, rattling off numbers and statistics in support of their policies.
As Townhall covered previously, the RNC released a video series titled "Not in Vain" featuring GOP veterans in Congress who told stories about their time in Afghanistan, the Afghan people, and the bravery of America's service members. And while research and data is still necessary to back up a party's platform, the RNC's use of new original video content suggests that Republicans are set on making sure Democrats don't stake a permanent claim to voters' heartstrings.