The bulk of the national news media has been struggling to come to terms with what appears to be a Republican win in tonight’s election. Among them, Univision is no exception. In several instances, the nation’s leading Spanish-language television network has virtually resorted to outright pleas in order to move its viewership to the polls; ostensibly, to support Democratic candidates.
Colorado is particularly prominent on Univision’s radar, given the state’s large Hispanic population, and the fact that this formerly-red state has swung purple-to-blue in recent years. However, Democratic overreach has positioned Colorado Republicans for major gains. It is against this backdrop that Univision makes the most naked of get-out-the-vote appeals to its Rocky Mountain viewership.
In a recent report on the Latino vote, correspondent Juan Carlos González highlighted Lt. Governor Joseph Garcia’s Hispanic heritage and biography as though he were a stranger to Coloradans. Furthermore, García tried to tell voters that President Obama is not on the ballot (although the President himself undercuts this argument), and sought to remind viewers that he and Gov. Hickenlooper support comprehensive immigration reform. However, Colorado Hispanics interviewed for the piece were quick to note that President Obama dithered on immigration reform and that this is an accountability election.
On Sunday’s Al Punto, the despair seemed to be even more palpable. The show’s election preview opened with a piece by Univision’s Los Angeles anchor, Leon Krauze, highlighting the need for Hispanics to turn out in order to forward the “Hispanic Agenda” (which sounds a lot like Univision’s “Agenda Latina”), and casting Hispanics as the potential difference in places like North Carolina, Georgia, and Alaska (!), in addition to Colorado. The panel consisted of Krauze, former Harry Reid staffer José Parra and Texas conservative Adryana Boyne.
And it is in this segment that the bias flew like shrapnel. In quick succession, Parra asserted –unchallenged- that the states in play are merely red states that Obama lost in 2012 (although he won those Senate seats in 2008), and Ramos tried to rebut Boyne’s claim that the Democratic Party was not the “party of Hispanics”. Then Krauze went on to express bewilderment that Obama’s delay in imposing executive amnesty has a greater effect on the immigration narrative than does “Republicans’ atrocious inaction” on immigration.
Ramos expresses bewilderment that House Republicans have not paid an electoral price for opposing comprehensive immigration reform; and in a very meta moment of un-self-awareness, Krauze goes on to blame “Dreamer” activists for publicly pressuring the President on immigration (which is a bit like Frankenstein blaming his monster for all the havoc he wreaked). Boyne rightly pointed out that Hispanics are not monolithic single-issue voters, citing the economy, ObamaCare, and border security as important issues. Ramos was left with no other choice than to meekly interrupt Boyne and throw it back to Krauze and Parra.
In sum, both pieces were a tacit admission that Univision’s race-mongering has largely failed to move the needle in this midterm election, and perhaps going forward. Even a network newscast chaired by a Clintonista Lincoln Bedroom occupant has to admit that it sees the writing on the wall.
