Elections

Hilario Deleon on Republicans pursuing Latino voters in 2024

Republican Party of Milwaukee County Chairman Hilario Deleon discusses local efforts to cultivate voters in Latino and other communities to support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

By Murv Seymour | Here & Now

September 11, 2024 • Southeast Region

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Hilario Deleon:
Every time I'm out in the community, they're very frustrated and tired. The issues of what's going on at the border, the amount of fentanyl and drugs that are pouring in in areas like Milwaukee. Milwaukee is a hub for human trafficking, and more and more people are starting to talk about it. So I think you're starting to see a lot more movement go towards President Trump and wanting to return to his policies that push for, you know, lowest unemployment across the board from Hispanics and Blacks to women to Asian Americans, et cetera, et cetera. And you're also looking at a wanting to return to investing here at home, economic opportunity zones, instead of sending our millions of dollars overseas to fund foreign wars. So that's what we're starting to see and hear a lot from the community.

Murv Seymour:
And what do you think it takes to pull people in who may not support him just yet?

Hilario Deleon:
I think it's just having a conversation with them. I think people are gonna vote with their pocketbook. I think what we're doing in Milwaukee County, as the chairman, we unveiled our Latinos Coalition. We're going to be unveiling our Black Republican Coalition tomorrow at Juneteenth. So by showing up to those events and having just a real conversation, a lot of times Republicans did not go to these communities, even though Blacks were historically Republicans back in the 1800s, you know, the party really lost track with them. But now it seems to have a huge comeback. We're seeing a lot more people wanting to get involved, make their voices heard. They feel like that they're being left behind by the democrat party. They feel like the party has gone way too far to the left and they want to just kind of return back to the middle, and they feel that going to Trump might be that returning to the middle. They may not like his personality, but if there's one thing that they do say is that he brought us jobs and he put money in our pockets, and we were able to, you know, have, you know, better life under him than under the previous administrations.



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