Latina voters have become a dynamic force and a major voting bloc in recent elections, prioritizing grassroots organizing and building online communities in support of candidates such as Kamala Harris. Additionally, Latinas are the largest group of women of color affected by state abortion bans. Groups such as the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and Voto Latino are galvanizing support for reproductive rights, workers’ rights and immigration reform—but candidates must recognize the importance of the Latina vote. Whoever captures this voting bloc will exponentially increase their chances of winning the presidency and down-ballot races this November.
Ms. spoke with Lupe M. Rodríguez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, to discuss what’s motivating Latina voters in this year’s election.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Alia Yee Noll: Intersections of Our Lives (a collaboration between NAPAWF, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda) conducted a survey to find out what women of color are prioritizing in the upcoming election. Based on the data, what are some of the main factors that are motivating Latina voters in the upcoming election?
Lupe M. Rodríguez: Many in the community are somewhat motivated or very motivated to vote—87 percent of the Latine respondents said that. Seventy-five percent of the Latine folks who responded are supportive of abortion access, and 75 percent specifically agree that it isn’t enough to make abortion just legal, but they also stated that they want to make sure that people can access abortion care.
This means that folks want abortion care to be affordable; they want there to be the possibility of coverage through healthcare insurance plans. They want it to be considered and connected to regular healthcare. Seventy-three percent of the Latine folks that we spoke with said abortion would be an important voting issue in the November election.
As a result of some of the changes that have happened in the last couple of years, such as the Dobbs decision around abortion, 57 percent said that things have gotten worse in the country over the past year, and 52 percent said that they also think things have gotten worse in their communities over the past year.
We found that consistently, women of color are supportive of abortion, and not only of the legal right to abortion, but of access to it.
Lupe M. Rodríguez
Overall, though, the top issues that will determine votes in this year’s election for Latine folks appear to be women’s rights, abortion, rising costs and concerns about the economy. A lot of this data points to the fact that folks understand the connection between their ability to pay for rent, their ability to put food on the table, and access to health care like abortion and the ability to make choices for their families and their communities. We think that this is connected to reproductive justice, which we talk about a lot in the context of folks’ economic realities, like the way that they’re living in their communities.
Noll: How does this data compare to Intersections of Our Lives’ older polls from 2019 and 2021?
Rodríguez: The patterns are similar. We found that consistently, women of color are supportive of abortion, and not only of the legal right to abortion, but of access to it. We found that in this year’s poll, there is an increase in respondents who see cost of living and concerns about the economy as central, whereas in the previous polls, that wasn’t one of the things that rose to the top. It makes sense with what we’re seeing anecdotally with folks being able to make ends meet right now.
I think many in our communities are often thought of as low propensity voters, but what our data shows is that we are high priority voters. We are voters that folks can actually move with the right investment and with the right attention to the issues that matter to us. Our community sees voting as a really important part of change, and there are lots of factors that might keep us from doing it or might dissuade us from doing it, but we are voters who should be invested in, who should be looked at and can be moved. So I’d say we are high potential voters.
Noll: Can you define low propensity voters?
Rodríguez: We have seen some data that suggests that some Latine folks and other folks of color don’t vote in every election, but our case is that the reasons why are more complex than folks just not wanting to vote or not being interested in voting. We know that folks are motivated and see voting as a way to make change, but we think that there are barriers for folks to vote often that may be systemic issues like getting time off work or having accessible polling.
Our data also found very specifically that women of color specifically want to see folks address issues that are important to them in order to feel more motivated or more activated to vote. There are functional things, there are barriers and systemic inequities, and then also there’s motivation. And so the case here is that folks aren’t low propensity voters. It’s unfair to cast that assertion on our voter base, because of what we know about motivation and activation to vote.
Many in our communities are thought of as low propensity voters, but what our data shows is that we are high priority voters. We are voters that folks can actually move with the right investment and with the right attention to the issues that matter to us.
Rodríguez
Noll: We’ve seen politicians fail to engage Latina and Latino voters. Have you seen any changes over time, positive or negative?
Rodríguez: There’s still a long way to go for politicians, legislators and policymakers responding to the needs of our communities. We’ve definitely seen changes in the time that we’ve been organizing—Latina Institute, for example, has been around for 30 years now, so we have seen some change. It’s slow going, and I think we still absolutely need to see more investment around voter engagement and actually talking to our communities. Part of why we do this research is to demonstrate the power and veracity of women of color voters and the necessity for policymakers and politicians to speak to our community and invest in us.
We have seen progress in terms of recognition about reproductive justice as a distinct movement strategy for addressing the concerns of people of color. Reproductive justice is not just changing laws to protect legal rights—it goes even further than that. We know that so many of the people that we serve or work with are folks of color or folks who are making ends meet. Even if they have the legal right to abortion, they may not be able to exercise that right as a result of systemic barriers that exist—inequities in terms of access to health care, geographic issues, issues of being able to take time off from work or issues of being able to pay for transportation.
We know that it’s not enough to just say, ‘Okay, you have the legal right to something.’ We know that we have made some inroads because of the work that we’ve done to change perspectives, and to bring these perspectives and voices to policymakers so they understand that, at the very least, there has to be a fight to create coverage for care in addition to the legal right. What we’ve made the most headway is around removing the Hyde Amendment and really attacking some of the existing restrictions that exist around folks being able to access care because of coverage issues.
Noll: You disaggregated the data in terms of ethnicity, religiosity, age, etc. What were some differences between these groups?
Rodríguez: Part of the reason why we do this disaggregation of the data is so that we can tell those more complex stories of who our communities are and what distinctions are within the communities as well. Our data suggests and supports that many women of color, in general, support reproductive justice and have similar concerns about the state of their communities.
Particularly in the Latine community, despite connections to faith and specifically Catholic faith, the majority of Latine folks support access to abortion care. There was a poll recently that found that 73 percent of Catholic Latine folks are against abortion bans. We also know that nine in 10 Latine voters would support a loved one seeking abortion care. So the numbers are really high in terms of folks believing that there should be access to this care, regardless of their religious connection.
Noll: What is the significance of disaggregating the data in these ways?
Rodríguez: We want to make sure that we’re clarifying for policymakers and for the public in general, that Latine people—depending on their country of origin, if they’re immigrants, their socioeconomic status or their language access—may have different experiences in this country. I think it is true that underlying a lot of those differences, there are some connections and commonalities, but we definitely see that there are different experiences and therefore different opinions in the community about the issues that we’re mobilizing around and that we care about.
I will say again that we’ve found that a majority of community members, regardless of that, are connected to abortion access. It’s been interesting to see that across the different experiences that we’ve seen through disaggregated data, there is still strong support. But again, I think it’s also incredibly important to be able to show distinctions.
When we’re asking policymakers to invest in the community, it’s important for us to have this information so that we can ask for the kinds of investments that make sense for each individual community. Not every intervention approach or message is going to resonate with everyone. So we want to be able to be as focused and as targeted so that we can have the most impact with the community.
Part of why we do this research is to demonstrate the power and veracity of women of color voters and the necessity for policymakers and politicians to speak to our community and invest in us.
Rodríguez
Noll: What do you wish elected officials or candidates understood about Latine voters?
Rodríguez: The majority of Latine folks in this country support abortion access, regardless of their background or connection to faith. I think that’s a very central thing that we have to combat as mis- and disinformation that has existed for a long time about the community, and that unfortunately a lot of policymakers still hold as true.
With the data around voters, we want to impart on policy makers and politicians and folks running for office that the Latine community is a very highly motivated voter community. We see voting as really important for making change and we’re really activated and motivated to vote, but also the community wants to see their concerns addressed in order to vote. They want to see that there is investment and attention in them.
I think the trends in the past have been that politicians and candidates ignore the community and cast us off as low propensity voters, and that’s not proven by the data, and it’s not the case in practice either. We really want to dispel that so that there’s adequate, equal and in some cases, over-the-top investment in our community. We know that, especially now, where elections are won by very low margins, every vote counts. And Latine votes are especially important, and women of color votes also are very important. So candidates and politicians need to be paying attention.
We know that politicians, they’re not going to save us. We know that the court is not going to save us in our community. However, voting to create the conditions that will allow us to do the liberation work that we need to do is really critical.
Rodríguez
Noll: We definitely need to view having spare time as a privilege.
Rodríguez: Particularly in the Latina community, a large proportion of our community work jobs that don’t provide paid time off, that have very restrictive policies around being able to have free time and time off in general, but also access to health care. And so for that same reason, a lot of these barriers and these systemic inequities are connected for that same reason. We’re some of the most impacted by abortion bans because we live in the states that have banned abortion in large majority, and we also don’t have access to the kinds of jobs and opportunities that allow us to take the time off to be able to get the care we need. So yes, that question of having time off is such a luxury.
Noll: What would you tell young Latine voters or people who want to get involved in voting activism?
Rodríguez: I would love to say that it’s been a long time coming, the sort of changes that we’ve had on abortion access. I think the Dobbs decision, many of us saw it coming. And I think we have been activating with many communities of color to fight against inequities that we already face and that existed before the Dobbs decision. We’ve been building to this moment, and are really prepared to welcome new activists and advocates into our operations. I think I’d have an invitation for folks who are motivated and activated by this moment, who might not have been able to or felt as connected to these issues in the past, to join in.
The time is now. Or, the time has long passed, I should say, but, but it’s never too late to get involved. This election this year is incredibly important, and we’re always encouraging folks to vote and to exert their power in that one way. We know that voting is not going to save us, ultimately. We know that politicians, they’re not going to save us, we know that the court is not going to save us in our community. However, voting to create the conditions that will allow us to do the liberation work that we need to do is really critical. So we’re also encouraging folks to vote for that purpose and then get involved to activate for building power for longer term change.
Up next:
U.S. democracy is at a dangerous inflection point—from the demise of abortion rights, to a lack of pay equity and parental leave, to skyrocketing maternal mortality, and attacks on trans health. Left unchecked, these crises will lead to wider gaps in political participation and representation. For 50 years, Ms. has been forging feminist journalism—reporting, rebelling and truth-telling from the front-lines, championing the Equal Rights Amendment, and centering the stories of those most impacted. With all that’s at stake for equality, we are redoubling our commitment for the next 50 years. In turn, we need your help, Support Ms. today with a donation—any amount that is meaningful to you. For as little as $5 each month, you’ll receive the print magazine along with our e-newsletters, action alerts, and invitations to Ms. Studios events and podcasts. We are grateful for your loyalty and ferocity.
