The Latino/Hispanic segment is a huge market for political parties. According to 2020 Census data, there are 62.1 million Latinos living in the United States. The Latino community represents 18.9% in the US of its total population – the second largest racial or ethnic group in the country, after non-Hispanic whites – and the trend is one of continued growth.

In the November 2022 midterm elections, Latinos made up 14.3% of all eligible voters in the United States. In view of the approach of the American elections next year, more and more political parties have invested in strategies to raise votes for their respective candidates. In this sense, the Latino population is understood to be decisive in electoral disputes and, therefore, the parties have articulated specific tactics for the profile of this electorate.

Among the campaign actions, the main focus is digital media and online platforms, as they have greater global reach. This is no different among the Latino population, which consumes virtual content so massively that it is estimated that companies invest an average of US$ 4.47 billion per year in advertisements aimed at this audience. Thus, what has been seen since 2021 is the use of the media as one of the strategies to win Latino votes, in the so-called “specialized media”.

During the period leading up to last year's legislative elections, it was observed that Fake News and “QAnon” conspiracy theories originating from the US extreme right circulated in large numbers among the Spanish-speaking population, raising concerns about their consequences. This strategy meant that many Latinos were discouraged from voting, or decided to vote based on fake news and even greater division within the community.

It was also found that the impact of this type of news was especially important in South Florida, a place with a large population of Spanish-speaking people born abroad and with significant political influence. It is important to note that Florida was once a battleground state, but since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, it has become a majority republican state.

In last November's elections, the main false narrative was about an alleged widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, according to Tamoa Calzadilla, editor-in-chief of the fact-checking site in Spanish, the “Factchequeado.com”, According to the article from CNN, “The spread of disinformation and false news in Spanish, some of them coming directly from politicians and partisan media outlets, has plagued social media platforms for years and has helped to sow doubts about the integrity of elections in the United States.” Online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, under pressure, have sought to find ways to slow the spread of false information about elections over the years. In some cases, platforms remove false claims entirely; in other cases, they label the claims as false and direct users to accurate information.

The so-called specialized media, which is also very active in specific situations, is defined as that “media intended to achieve a certain result that can be a political objective or a matter of great importance for a certain community or some communities at the same time”. It is also known as the media that fits into a specific area of political, cultural, mediatic, economic, scientific, security or sports life, in order to arrive at interrelated groups more consistent with the final product to be presented, the which increases the chances of adherence to the proposal.

In the logic of the electoral processes in the United States, it is mainly through digital media and online platforms that groups seek greater adherence by the population to a certain ideology, so that voters vote for the candidate consistent with it. However, the radio appears as a traditional media that has been the most used mean of communication for this purpose among the Latino community, despite the high television audience in the country.

The habit of Latinos listening to the radio at home increased from 29% in March 2020 to 39% in April of the same year, according to a new report by Nielsen. Additionally, Latinos are spending more than 12 hours a week listening to the radio, 33 minutes more than the total market typically listens to. Of the total of 39%, around 61% use this medium to find out about the latest news. Due to this data, Republicans and Democrats began to bring ideological content to radio stations, trying to convince listeners of the advantage of their platform. Therefore, it is worth presenting some of these attempts.

“Americano Media” is the first Spanish-language conservative media network. Launched in March, it had a standout moment in April 2022 when it conducted an interview with former Republican President Donald Trump – an important reference for any conservative news source in 2022. The Americano, based in Miami, is broadcast on the system on SiriusXM satellite radio and the conservative social network GETTR. From June 2023, the broadcast will be available on streaming platforms such as Apple TV. The network's president, Jorge L. Arrizurieta, publicly affirmed the "commitment to help promote the conservative ideology, in order to be able to win over the democrats".

According to an article in Politico, Americano Media initiated an aggressive expansion plan in an attempt to shape the opinion of the center-right Latino community in the country with the aim of raising votes in 2024. The initiative is important as the second largest demographic group in the country has come to play an increasingly critical role in election results. As per this year's Politico report, Americano Media has raised $18 million from three investors and is projecting to raise between $30-$50 million in order to influence all major battleground states and Puerto Rico before the 2024 election.

While Republicans defend the network, claiming it is the freest place to express opinions, ensuring inclusive representation of the Latino community in the Western Hemisphere, Democrats, on the other hand, accuse Americano Media of spreading false information. Media Matters for America, a leftist media watchdog organization, highlights fallacious questions about electoral integrity, attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community and dissemination of conspiracy theories.

But Democrats are not standing still. A media company led by two former Democratic advisers made a move that gave it control of 18 radio stations across the country, including another famous conservative radio station in Miami, Radio Mambí: The “Latino Media Network” bought Mambí and another 17 Spanish-language radio stations as of June 2022. According to NBC News publication, the AM and FM stations involved in the deal are part of the TelevisaUnivision network. The group expects radio stations to reach a third of Latinos in the US, or about 20 million people. As NBC News revealed, “The Latino Media Network is led and founded by Stephanie Valencia, a former Obama administration official who now directs Equis Research, a Latino polling and research firm, and Jess Morales Rocketto, also of Equis Research and veteran of the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton”.

The sale of Radio Mambí faced opposition from Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar and Republican Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. The three signed a letter to try to stop the deal, along with other Republican members of Congress, claiming it would "silence conservative voices". When the efforts were unsuccessful, claims emerged that the initiative sought to "sell socialism to Hispanics." This version was instigated by congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who also came out in defense of Rádio Mambi for being “one of the bastions of freedom of expression” and “conservative values”.

Latino Media Network declined to elaborate on the purchase, but provided a statement saying "all views are welcome and encouraged". Other advocates of negotiation have treated it as a way to combat misinformation spread among the wider Latino community, whether in English or Spanish, and say that lines that hint at communist movements are just another way of scaring people with lies.

Democratic concern about the “Republican turn” increased in the last midterm elections in November 2022, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was re-elected with majority support from Latinos across the state and in Miami-Dade County, where more than half of the Latino population was born abroad. Furthermore, recent polls, including those by The Wall Street Journal, have shown evidence that Latinos who traditionally support Democrats are shifting their political preference to the Republican Party.

The 20 percentage point increase in the share of Latino votes in a South Texas district in the midterm elections is an example. A study by Pew Research points to 17% Latino vote intentions for Trump in the 2024 elections.

As we have previously pointed out, the Latin public, compared to the general population in the United States, demonstrates a greater tendency to consume and share fake news and information online for spending more time on online platforms like YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram. In addition, many of the false information originating in the United States are reproduced in content on websites and digital media in various Latin American countries, including Brazil.

The concern about a new wave of false information is important not only for important issues that are constant targets of misinformation, such as women's reproductive rights and immigration, but also for Democrats, who fear losing the influential position historically won among voters. Latinos in the country. Only the two investments mentioned here in information aimed at this community moved more than US$ 78 million, and the trend is that by 2024 more media companies will be used by parties to raise votes.

In any case, the battle for Latino votes affirms the extreme importance of this population in the US electoral system. According to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials' (NALEO) Education Fund's 2022 post-election analysis of state and federal races in the current 118th US Congress, there are a record number of new Latino members. The election of 14 new Latino members made the current Congress the most Latino ever. There are 47 deputies in the Chamber, that is, 11% of the 435 deputies in the country.

As The Washington Post reported, “many of the new Democrats who have been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC share origins in working-class or immigrant experiences, and conducted progressive campaigns in congressional districts with significant Latino populations”. As for Latino voters, while much has been made of their swing to the right in recent years, Democratic members of Congress reflect a growing part of the Latino community whose political views have become more progressive as a result of the relative youth of their voters who have sought to counteract the increase in recent years of Latino candidates supported by former President Donald Trump.

It must also be borne in mind that in order to gain more attention from Latino voters, it is necessary to consider more their needs within the country, which will bring issues ignored to the fore. There is an increasingly scathing complaint that their needs are not being met by both parties, and that it is increasingly difficult to differentiate policy proposals around this community amid growing polarization and the vertiginous increase in false information. The controversial issue of immigration is at the forefront of concern, whether for the adoption of a more flexible policy, as advocated by the Latino Democrats, or to create barriers to the new wave of immigrants that scares the population of the southern border. In general, the media can help with mobilization, but it is effective actions that can define the vote of the Latino/Hispanic community in the United States.