DALLAS — Republicans used the opening stretch of the GOP’s midterm convention to make a direct play for Hispanic voters, elevating Mexican-American candidates and reviving the themes that helped the party make gains with Latinos two years ago as it looks to shore up slipping support.
Hispanic voters, the country’s largest ethnic minority group and more than one in eight members of the electorate, could prove decisive in determining control of Congress in January. GOP organizers underscored that stakes by featuring three Mexican-American House candidates on Wednesday’s first-day program, with two more slated to speak Thursday.
In 2024, President Trump carried more than half of foreign-born Hispanic voters after arguing that Democrats would push the United States toward the kind of socialist rule seen in Cuba and Venezuela. He also campaigned on ending illegal immigration and raising take-home pay through tax cuts on overtime and tips.
But Republican expectations of a durable political realignment have been tempered by recent surveys showing Latino support for the party falling to 35% or below.
The convention’s Wednesday lineup leaned heavily into the same message that resonated in 2024, casting Democrats as socialists while touting newly enacted tax breaks and what Republicans described as the near-eradication of illegal border crossings.
Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and former kickboxing gym owner, was the first speaker after the opening prayer. He cautioned that Democratic victories would mean “a return to open borders and higher taxes.”
“I’ve seen what these criminal enterprises do to our communities and I’ve seen what happens when politicians look the other way,” said De La Cruz, who is seeking a House seat in a district that includes parts of San Antonio and nearby suburbs.
“We cannot go back to the lawlessness that we experienced under Democrats … I’ll work for safe streets, a strong economy and a country where our kids can grow up free and have a future.”
De La Cruz was followed by his sister, current Rio Grande Valley Rep. Monica de la Cruz, who recalled their grandfather picking watermelons “in the hot Texas sun so that I could stand before you today.”
“Our grandparents taught us that if you work hard and love this country, America will meet you halfway,” she said, recalling “open borders” and runaway inflation under former President Joe Biden.
“Groceries went up 20%, rent ate the whole paycheck and the open border brought fentanyl into our schools and drug cartels into our neighborhoods,” she went on, claiming Democrats would bring back “a return to open borders and higher taxes.”
Under Trump, continued De La Cruz, “that border is safer than at any point in history. We passed legislation that created the largest tax cut in American history: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security. Up to $4,000 a year back in the pockets of hardworking Americans.
“It means the waitress in Weslaco keeps her tips, the roofer in Alamo keeps his overtime and the retiree in Beeville, she keeps her entire Social Security check.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told The Post before her remarks Wednesday that “the conversation around Hispanic voters is much deeper than traditional party boxes.”
“We have a large Cuban and broader Hispanic population, particularly in South Florida, where many families have direct experience with what happens when socialism or communism takes hold of a country and destroys it from the inside out,” said Luna, who is of Mexican descent.
“That history matters when voters are looking at the choice in front of them today.”
Luna added the convention will push the argument that there are “two very different visions for the future of this country, and outright socialism from the Democrat Party is going to make it much harder for them to hold onto [Hispanic] support when Republicans offer a path forward that speaks to opportunity, stability, and confidence in America’s future.”
Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a tough-talking, cowboy hat-wearing Republican who is challenging scandal-affected South Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and is slated to speak on Thursday, offered a blunt choice to his would-be constituents.
“What has the Democratic Party done for the Hispanic voters? That’s my big question,” he said. “No tax on tips, what [Trump] is doing for Social Security, there’s a lot of things that he’s doing for the people here. It’s just a matter of time.
“I think we just need a couple more years, I think we’re going to continue moving this forward.”
Tijerina added that while an economic appeal helped Trump two years ago, Hispanic voters also align with Republicans on cultural issues, “don’t believe in woke” and feel the commander in chief is an authentic messenger.
“You see a president that’s actually breaking it up and being real with the people,” he said.
“When all of a sudden you have a man that’s really doing it for the will of the people, look at what happens.”
Other scheduled speakers on the second and final night of the convention include Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose father was from Cuba, and yet another South Texas House candidate, Eric Flores.
Still, polls indicate economic anxiety is dragging on Republicans, with high gas prices, elevated mortgage rates and revived inflation caused by the Iran war threatening to overshadow the convention’s message.
“Hispanics will decide critical races in Texas and every poll, including the latest Univision poll, show that Democrats are reversing the gains Republicans made for several reasons,” said Democratic strategist Meghan Hays.
“Republicans are bleeding with this key demographic because they control every lever of government, and yet, Latinos have been the hardest hit by the economy and some families even have to donate plasma to get by.”
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who is Cuban-American, said he feels the convention is coming too late to reverse public opinion trends, adding his party was guilty of “maybe the biggest missed political opportunity of the last one-and-a-half years.”
Curbelo explained economic pain hit his community particularly hard because “‘Hispanic-Americans’ and ‘working class’ are synonyms,” while aggressive immigration arrests of people already in the US “turned off” many voters, despite polls from 2024 showing backing for mass deportation.
“The president really worked hard to win Hispanic support [in 2024] beyond traditional constituencies like Cuban-Americans who have always supported him,” Curbelo said.
“As a Hispanic Republican who spent a good 20 years trying to help the party win support from Hispanics, it is a little frustrating to see this fumble and with just a few weeks left, I think it’s going to be very hard for Republicans to fully recover the confidence and the trust of all of the Hispanic-Americans who supported the president in 2024.”
Another Florida Republican, longtime political strategist Bertica Cabrera Morris, said the GOP needs to educate voters at risk of seduction by the promises of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“These folks that are evoking communism and socialism haven’t talked to people like me, they haven’t,” said Cabrera Morris, who escaped Cuba as a child after her father was confined to a potato freezer and tortured for 13 days under the Fidel Castro regime.
“It’s just fashion. It’s cool to say ‘I’m socialist.’ What is ‘socialist?’ Where has it worked? And how did you make that conclusion?” she went on before adding: “I think you will still see the importance of the Hispanic vote. I hope that both parties don’t forget it.
“Because the worst thing that could happen is they took us for granted.”
