Tuesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The ReidOut went out on the road to Fort Worth, Texas as part of the network’s ongoing midterm election coverage. After interviewing Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke and other Democrat Party activists, Reid turned to former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro to get his take on the ongoing trend of Hispanic voters abandoning the Democrat Party. Although Reid and Castro both dismissed that it was actually happening. Instead, blaming the media for furthering the narrative.
“There is this thing that's happening in the mainstream media that they say, oh, Hispanic voters are going Republican. As if they are now a solid Republican group, because you do have some south Texas counties that are shifting red,” Reid started by whining.
She then read from a number of recent headlines that highlighted the recent shift. “Latino vote shifting toward Republicans. Will it again? NPR, Democrats are losing Latino voters. Dallas Morning News, Republicans pin hope on Latino vote. On and on and on,” Reid cried.
Attempting to disprove the exodus of Latino voters from the Democrat Party, Reid turned to polling from leftist Hispanic media organizations: “Telemundo did a poll of Latino voters, and they prefer Democratic control of Congress 54 percent to 33 percent. It's not even close. The narrative doesn't match the data.”
Turning to Castro, Reid asked: “Why do you suppose that narrative is taking hold?”
Castro was just as frustrated as Reid and admitted “I have been pulling my hair out for the last couple months as I have seen story after story after story that you mention acting as though the Latino vote is somehow firmly a Republican vote now, which couldn't be further from the truth because when you poll it, Latinos are still firmly Democratic.”
Castro went on to worry that the media coverage of Latinos abandoning the Democrat Party will become a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, and that Hispanics who don’t follow politics regularly will “start to think, hey, okay, oh, folks are going Republican now,” Castro worried.
He then ended by warning that “there is a bandwagon effect that I fear can happen based on essentially inaccurate narrative that is out there over and over and over again.”
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To read the relevant transcript click “expand”:
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
10/25/2022
7:35:56 p.m. EasternJOY REID: But that thing about narrative, there is this thing that's happening in the mainstream media that they say, oh, hispanic voters are going Republican. As if they are now a solid Republican group, because you do have some south Texas counties that are shifting red. But we pulled up the data. I mean there are all of these polls, Latino vote shifting toward Republicans. Will it again? NPR, Democrats are losing Latino voters. Dallas Morning News, Republicans pin hope on Latino vote. On and on and on. But so we pulled the data. Telemundo did a poll of Latino voters, and they prefer Democratic control of Congress 54 percent to 33 percent. It's not even close. The narrative doesn't match the data. Why do you suppose that narrative is taking hold?
JULIAN CASTRO: I have been pulling my hair out for the last couple months as I have seen story after story after story that you mention acting as though the Latino vote is somehow firmly a Republican vote now, which couldn't be further from the truth because when you poll it, Latinos are still firmly Democratic. Yes, there was movement in 2020, but they still are firmly Democratic. My worry, Joy, is that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, basically. People that aren't -- that are not super political, you know, that's not all they do is follow politics, they start to think, hey, okay, oh, folks are going Republican now.
There is a bandwagon effect that I fear can happen based on essentially inaccurate narrative that is out there over and over and over again. What that takes on the other side is very hard organizing, door knocking, phone calling, going and doing what Beto O'Rourke and his campaign and other campaigns are doing, especially in the Rio Grande valley of Texas where we did see some hemorrhaging of support for Democrats, and making sure that folks understand what the stakes are and that the hispanic community gets that touch that you need to keep them in the Democratic column.
