Southern California is a focus for group working to elect Latinos to Congress

Getting Latino Democratic candidates on the ballot increases representation and voter turnout, PAC leaders say.

Rep. Linda Sánchez is on a mission to increase Latino representation in Congress.

Sánchez, in March, took over the helm of the BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that works to elect Latino and Latina Democrats to Congress. The goal, she said, is to ensure Congress is more representative of those who vote lawmakers into office, and the political action committee does that through recruiting candidates, providing financial assistance and making endorsements.

“If we don’t have elected representatives that are making policy decisions that look like the Americans they represent, chances are they’re going to get that policy wrong,” said Sánchez, whose district includes a portion of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Southern California plays an outsized role in the PAC’s strategy for 2024, said BOLD PAC’s executive director, Victoria McGroary.

“California is just so critical for our efforts as a party to take back the House,” said McGroary. “The key is really going to run through California in terms of who has the majority in the House.”

The PAC is focused on three congressional races in Southern California: CA-31, CA-40 and CA-45.

The 40th and 45th congressional districts are held by two incumbent Republicans, Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel, respectively. They are two of the first three Korean American women elected to Congress and work with Republicans to court Asian voters.

In CA-40, which covers eastern Orange County and a bit of western Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the PAC is backing Allyson Muñiz Damikolas, the first Latina elected to the Tustin Unified School Board.

For CA-45, covering Orange County and a portion of Los Angeles County, the PAC is supporting Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee and a Mexican immigrant. When she first won her seat on the Garden Grove City Council — where she represents the eastern District 6, home to the city’s densest population of Hispanic Americans and Christ Cathedral — she became its first member of Latin American descent.

And in the San Gabriel Valley seat, it’s former Rep. Gil Cisneros who has the PAC’s support. Cisneros flipped an Orange County seat blue in 2018 but lost it to Kim in a 2020 rematch. Cisneros, who was the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness in the Biden administration, is vying for an open seat as longtime Rep. Grace Napolitano is retiring.

“In all of those (races), it’s really about us making sure that those candidates just have really strong campaigns, that they are doing everything that needs to get done to really build up a successful operation that can win, that can reach out to voters, that is culturally competent,” McGroary said.

Getting Latino candidates on the ballot is important for two particular reasons, said McGroary: representation and voter turnout.

“It’s so important for our community to be well-represented because that is how our community is able to really prosper and thrive. When we have Latinos at the decision-making table, that’s how we know our values are represented,” said.

Still, “it’s not just about representation … but it’s also smart strategy, smart politics,” McGroary continued. “When Latinos are on the ballot, Latinos vote for them.”

That was a message given, too, by California Democrats during the party’s endorsing convention in Sacramento earlier this month. State party leaders convened a panel to discuss how the party targets Latino voters, young and old. Plans ranged from hitting issues important to voters — like the environment and student loans for younger voters — and using digital platforms to reach no party preference voters, KGET reported.

The 2024 focus on Latino voters comes on the heels of statistics showing Hispanic voters increased support for Republicans nationally in 2022 and concerns that campaigns didn’t do enough to reach California’s Latino voters during the last election cycle.

The Hispanic population in the U.S., as designated by the Census Bureau, accounted for 19.1% of the total population, making it the largest racial or ethnic minority in the U.S. as of July 1, 2022.

In California, Hispanic residents outnumber White residents, the latest census data found. In 2020, Hispanic residents accounted for 39.4% of the state’s population compared to White residents at 34.7%. In 2010, White residents made up 40.1% of the population; Hispanic residents accounted for 37.6%.

In Southern California — where the population in every county grew from 2010 to 2020 while other counties across the country saw declines — the growth of non-White communities was more predominant. The Hispanic population in Riverside County, for example, grew by 20.8% during those 10 years.

Yet, despite that population growth, Latino voters have the lowest voter registration rate in California, a 2022 study from UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute found. About 60% of eligible Latino voters are registered, the study found, which is lower than the overall 69.4% registration rate.

However, that same study found that once Latinos are registered to vote, most of them cast ballots: About 91% of registered Latino voters participated in the 2020 election. Broken down by county, turnout rates were highest in Orange, Alameda, Sacramento and Santa Clara counties.

For 2024, BOLD PAC has endorsed congressional candidates in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska and Texas, as well.