Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign announced a $3 million ad buy on Saturday for Spanish-language radio stations in battleground states in an effort to shore up more support from the Latino voter bloc.
The Harris-Walz campaign’s push comes on the eve of Hispanic Heritage Month, which campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said was a “key part of our aggressive campaign efforts to make our case to voters about Vice President Harris, who has spent her entire career fighting for Latino families, and as president, will always focus on the issues that our community cares most deeply about.”
“Hispanic Heritage Month is an important moment to celebrate the richness and diversity of Latino communities across the country,” Ms. Rodriguez said in a statement. “It is also a critical moment for us to leverage, as we continue to reach Latino voters about the stakes of this election, how crucial their vote will be in deciding this race, and defeating Trump and his anti-Latino agenda.”
The campaign noted that 96% of Latinos listen to the radio every week. Among those listeners are key voting blocs the campaign is trying to persuade to support Ms. Harris, including a large chunk of Latino millennial voters, 93% of whom tune into the radio each month, and 35-to-49-year-olds, 98% of whom listen to the radio monthly.
The ad buy includes engagements with influential radio personalities, sports-themed creative and advertising during local baseball, football and soccer coverage.
Ms. Harris’ efforts to reach more undecided Latino voters comes as early voting is set to launch in battleground states with sizable Latino populations, including Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
The radio campaign is part of a coordinated effort, dubbed “Latinos con Harris-Walz,” to sway more voters from the bloc to back her.
Ms. Harris is slated to address the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual conference on Wednesday, and the campaign will “will deploy surrogates to Latino events across the country to talk about Vice President Harris’ vision for Latino communities.”
One of those events includes the highly-touted boxing match between Edgar Berlanga and Canelo Alvarez on Saturday in Las Vegas, a day after former President Donald Trump held a rally there.
Ms. Harris leads Mr. Trump in Spanish-speaking and bilingual homes 59% to 32%, according to a poll from Latino advocacy group UnidosUS that was conducted in August. However, the margin is slightly closer in English-dominant homes, where Ms. Harris leads Mr. Trump 51% to 38%.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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