Julián Castro expects "good, healthy" turnout of Latino voters in Georgia
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is confident in Democrats' ability to turn out Latino voters in Georgia's special election on Tuesday. Democrats are hoping they can count on the voting bloc to help them gain control of the Senate, just as they helped turn the state blue in November.
"There's a lot of enthusiasm and an understanding about the importance of voting in these Senate runoffs," Castro, who ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, told CBSN's "Red & Blue" anchor Elaine Quijano on Monday.
The two Senate seats up for grabs will determine control of the Senate, bringing extra attention to the races. Incumbent Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are running against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have sent high-profile surrogates to the state, including President Trump, President-elect Biden and former President Obama.
The Associated Press' Votecast survey found that 3% of Georgia's 5 million general election voters were Latino and 60% of them voted for Mr. Biden in November. The former vice president had a more than 35,000-vote margin over Mr. Trump among Latinos in the state, according to AP.
Early voting data shows Latinos have the lowest turnout among any demographic in the state, with 24.2% casting an early ballot. Yet Castro said he has no doubts about turnout.
"What I expect is that we're going to see a good, healthy turnout, not only in the Latino community but across diverse communities for these Democratic candidates," he said. "I'm confident … the Latino community is going to come out in a big way for these two Democratic candidates."
"Both of these campaigns have put a lot of effort and a lot of resources into pulling voters out and I'm confident we're going to see the results of that when all the votes are tallied after the polls close tomorrow," Castro added.