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Ever since Republicans made surprising inroads with Hispanics in 2020, Beltway pundits have resorted to a cacophony of explanations to make sense of the Democrats’ problems with our community. While some have correctly pointed to the popularity of center-right policies among Latinos, others deny the shift is even occurring ("it’s just Miami Cubans," they argued) or turn to the fashionable, albeit false and condescending, theory that Spanish speakers are being duped by "misinformation."
As a former Democrat who is running to become the first Latina to represent Texas’ 15th congressional district in January, I know a thing or two about why so many Hispanics are saying adios to the Democratic Party.
For decades, if you were a Hispanic living in South Texas, voting Democrat was something you did by rote. In fairness, few Republicans outside of Florida took Hispanic outreach seriously. Then, something changed.
The Democrats went from being a party of union halls to a party of elitist faculty lounges preoccupied with pronouns, political correctness, and equality of outcomes. A transformation also occurred within the Hispanic community.
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US Republican congressional candidate Monica De La Cruz speaks at a campaign event on October 10, 2022 at the University Drafthouse in Mcallen, Texas. ( Photo by ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images)
The Hispanic poverty rate dropped by over 30% between 2010 and 2020. In 2019, Hispanic unemployment hit an all-time low as we led the country in the creation of new small businesses. These are not just statistics. As a single mom and entrepreneur, I saw the American Dream that brought my abuela to this country become my American Reality. Rather than coming to terms with these developments, the Democrats’ rhetoric and policies are increasingly out of touch.
A flashpoint was when former President Barack Obama pulled his party away from Bill Clinton’s "pro-growth" message that was popular with Latinos, toward a neo-Marxist preoccupation with "income inequality," by declaring it "the defining challenge of our time." Obama’s comments drew cheers from campus intellectuals, but it left upwardly mobile Hispanics scratching our heads.
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What Democrats, like my leftist opponent, fail to understand is that Hispanics are focused on moving our families hacia adelante. We do not envy others’ wealth; we aspire to success through hard work and faith in God.
Republican candidate Monica De La Cruz doesn’t believe Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media understand the Hispanic community in South Texas. ( National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC))
Democrats are equally oblivious to the fact that we do not view ourselves as victims in this country. In fact, polling from WPA Intelligence shows that 7 out of 10 Hispanics categorically reject this notion. Yet, Democrats approach Hispanics with the same cookie-cutter victimhood narrative they impose on all minorities by invariably reducing their Latino outreach to talk of "racial equity" and promises of amnesty.
East coast liberals are hardly the only promoters of the "victimhood" framework though. For over a century, South Texas Democrats have assured our community that we are oppressed and that they — and only they — can help us. It is true that too many Rio Grande Valley families struggle, but the Democrats’ self-serving solution is to hold Hispanics back to make us more dependent on them. No, gracias.
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Their policy failures are patently obvious. After over a century of Democrat control, The RGV remains among the poorest regions in our state; President Biden’s porous border policy draws drugs, gangs, and murderous cartels to our communities; and we have entire counties without doctors.
As if liberal policies were not bad enough, the 2022 iteration of the Democratic Party does not even respect our culture. Hispanics could not be clearer in our rejection of the synthetic gender-neutral term, "Latinx," that is part of an effort to gut the Spanish language of its grammatical gender. Yet, bizarrely, the Democratic Party — from Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren to the DNC and its cultural allies — insists on shoving this linguistic aberration down our throats. Their attack on our heritage is wrong.
Jordan De La Garza, left, and Nidia Garza, right, campaign for Republican Congressional candidate Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez on the last day of early voting at the Lark Community Center McAllen, Texas on October 30, 2020. (Photo by Julia Robinson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The good news for Hispanics who are fed up with the Democrats is that we have a better alternative. Republicans see Latinos as the fulfillment of America’s possibilities and want our families to prosper.
The Democrats are the party of Latinx. We are the party que respeta tu cultura and recognizes Hispanics as the people who have given the world cultural icons the likes of our beloved Selena, Luis Miguel, Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.
The Democrats are the party of extremists, like AOC, who demand ideological uniformity. We are the party of strong leaders as diverse as Congresswoman Mayra Flores, Congresswoman Maria Salazar, Cassy García, Yesli Vega and me.
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The Democrats call us "uneducated" and "susceptible" to misinformation when we do not vote for them. Republicans understand that good people can have honest disagreements.
Surely, Democratic leaders realize our community is fundamentally at odds with their policies and cultural diktats, which is why they resort to conspiracy theories — like MSNBC’s patently absurd notion that "misinformation" on Miami AM radio is turning Hispanics as geographically dispersed as Boricuas in The Bronx and Mexican American nevadenses into Republicans — to avoid confronting the fact that their party’s Hispanic outreach is a disaster.
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To be clear, Republicans have our work cut out for us. According to research data, large numbers of Univision and Telemundo viewers believe the lies those networks tell them about conservatives. Despite this, polls show the GOP is on track for record gains with Hispanics in next week’s midterm elections. Our community is sending America a message: La ola roja is just beginning.
Fox News Digital has also invited the author's opponent, Michelle Vallejo, to submit an oped about why voters should choose her in the midterm election.
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