(bouncy Western music)
(Mexican music)
(ringing)
(upbeat swingy music)
- When I came here, there might've been 25,000 Latinos
in Southern Nevada.
49 years later there are 720,000
Latinos residing in Southern Nevada.
(upbeat music)
- One in six Nevada voters is Hispanic.
- A lot of folks really think of Vegas as a big city,
booming lights...
But it's really a small town in a lot of ways.
The gaming industry is the largest source of revenue
for the state, and there are a lot of Latinos
who work in the casinos.
- Nevada's been a swing state for a while
because we're a melting pot.
You have this huge Hispanic population.
Latino vote here wasn't even talked about,
even as recently as say, 10 years ago.
But it's gradually gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.
The percentage of the electorate that the Hispanic vote
turns out to be is going to be very important.
(speaking Spanish)
- Good to see you, welcome to our show.
When we started our radio show, I used to get calls
from the audience saying, you know, you are a traitor.
They were telling me, you're a traitor.
You're supposed to be Democrat.
(speaking Spanish)
Welcome to our show. - Glad to be here,
thank you Jesus.
(speaking Spanish)
Thank you very much for being here.
What have you done in the last two years
that is good for the people of district four,
which, by the way, a lot of them are Hispanics.
- Absolutely, almost 30%.
You know, I've been a small business owner myself.
- There's the assumption that because you're Latino,
you are going to be a Democrat,
and that's just not the case.
The number one issue among Latinos right now, is,
surprisingly, not immigration reform, but it is,
the economy, and jobs.
Every Latino knows somebody that is in the situation
of being here illegally.
Immigration reform is important,
but not the number one issue.
- Jobs, the economy, education, health care,
those are really things that Hispanics care about,
because those are things that pertain to their family
and their everyday life.
Pretty sure I don't have emails for them.
Do you, by any chance have those,
or do I need to ask Crescent.
My mom had me when she was 16 years old
and she never felt bad for herself, she never
felt like she was the victim.
And she always worked really, really hard,
and she had a theory that if you work hard
you can do whatever you want, and you never take a handout.
And I think the Republican party reflects those values
and have been drawn to it ever sense.
- Congressman Hardy's running against Ruben Kihuen
in congressional district four, the core of it
is in the urban core of Las Vegas and North Las Vegas,
a very heavily minority population.
- [Joanna] The Hispanic population in
congressional district four, which is our district,
is 30% Latino.
It definitely could be the group that tips the balance, and,
Hispanics have made it very clear that
their voice will be heard, and we're here to
be a part of that conversation.
- [Man] Are y'all registered to vote?
- Yes we are. - Thank you sir.
- There's about 100,000 Latinos that have not been
registered yet to vote. - All self explanatory.
- In the past, most Latinos have been registered Democrat.
But in the last election in 2014, we did notice
it shift to be independent.
- You gotta put your previous address here.
- [Jesus] Those are the ones that both sides
are gonna be after to bring to their party.
(upbeat Latin music)
- [Man] I'm gonna introduce our congressman who knows
how important education in the business community is,
Congressman Joe Heck.
(applause)
- I've been honored to serve the
third congressional district now for six years.
- [Jon] Joe Heck is a congressman from Southern Nevada.
He's running against Catherine Cortez Masto
who could be the first Latina ever elected to the US Senate.
So that's gonna be very, very important
in the Latino community.
- [Reporter] The race for Harry Reid's senate seat
is getting ugly. - This is arguably
the most important senate race in the country,
Steve, it could determine control of the US Senate
it's just gonna get worse from here on in.
- [Will] He doesn't need to win 50% of the Latino vote,
but he does need a certain percentage to make it through.
- Hey, nice to see you - Thank you.
- 24/7 here? - No.
- [Jon] Joe Heck is not your normal Republican in the sense
that he has tried outreach to the Hispanic community.
- Miguel, how are you doing? - Good, and you?
- Good, how long you worked here?
- But Donald Trump has made that very, very difficult
for them with his rhetoric.
I think their attitudes is, let's try to stanch the bleeding
if we can, in other words, we don't think we're gonna get
to winning the Hispanic vote,
but we can't lose it 75/25.
- If we don't invest in the education of our children today,
we will not have the leaders of tomorrow.
- As Republicans, the more that we show up,
the more people that we discover share our values.
- And having a incubator here.
- Latinos have increased as a percentage
of the electorate, and the Democrats
have very skillfully tapped into it.
(clapping, cheering)
The Culinary Union is the best turnout operation
of Latino voters.
- We really see 2016 as a year to really make sure
that our members are organized and understand
how important it is to elect Democrats
who will fight with us.
- [Crowd] Two two six! Two two six!
Two two six! Two two six!
(cheering)
- Good morning!
Happy election day!
(cheering)
We said we wanted to spend the summer doing
voter registration and also preparing our members to
lead us into the 2016 fight.
We did, 2000 plus votes during early vote.
We had a goal, and we crushed it.
Today, we're gonna do it again.
So, let's break out into our teams and
let's work this thing!
Are you ready?
(cheering)
Getting people involved who have never really
felt included in the political process before.
(speaking Spanish)
That builds the next generation of voters, of organizers,
of leaders.
And to me that's exciting.
- [Crowd] Ruben, Ruben, Ruben Ruben, Ruben!
(cheering)
- Today is game day!
Because, I'll tell you what, this election
might come down to the last vote.
So I'm asking that today you work hard
because tonight we will celebrate,
and tomorrow we will rest,
and we will dance a little bit too.
- Yes!
(cheering)
(singing in Spanish)
- [Yvanna] I don't think anything beats personal contact.
And I think people are itching to feel
like they have a voice in the political process.
- I looking for Mark Silverman.
- Yes.
- [Yvanna] So we will do all of that through the fall,
and then hopefully be victorious in November
and flip Nevada to be a blue state again.
- Nice meeting ya, have a good day.
Thank you. - Have a nice day, bye bye.
- Would you be willing to share a email address with us
so we could send you more information about the
Joe Heck campaign?
- OK, well thank you for your time today
and have a great day. - You could say, for example,
economy, immigration, national security,
whatever you feel is most important to you.
- I think a lot of Hispanics see us as something we're not.
- You guys are the backbone in the success of a campaign.
- Maybe they see us as, we're all rich, we're all white,
and we're all old, but that's not the case.
- [Man] One, two, three.
(camera shutter clicks)
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- [Man] All right, time to hit the streets.
- Don't get overheated. - Yeah.
- One of the barriers that we face is trust.
Republicans can't show up a few months
before an election and just expect people to vote for them.
- They say today, it's about 114 degrees.
That's cool enough, I'm thinking about
going on a sleigh ride.
- [Jesus] Republicans are doing a poor job
reaching out to Latinos.
For so long they have just neglected Latino community.
- Well, apparently we have another one
that's not home today, so...
- And I think that can be fixed.
(upbeat Latin music)