Dear DNC — where are the Latinos?

To be clear, as I write this column, the full list of speakers for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which kicks off Monday, hasn’t been released yet. It is possible Latinos will, in fact, be tapped to speak at high-profile, headliner spots during the four-day convention, but I’m not holding my breath for significant representation. What’s past is prologue, after all: In 2016 the DNC had only one Latina headliner; in 2020 it had three Latina speakers.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there will be Latinos on the docket this year at side events and daytime addresses — Chicago, the host city for the DNC, is about 30% Latino — and the Illinois Democratic Party chair, Rep. Lisa Hernandez, has done a lot of pre-convention outreach to drum up participatory enthusiasm.

Still, the hope for at least four Latino headliners at the DNC this year — which would be the most modest sign of incremental growth since the party’s last quadrennial gathering — may be a bridge too far. No high-profile Latino Democrat has been mentioned in the lineup yet, and even the known celebrity and musical talent that has been name-checked is curiously devoid of Latino performers.

Latinos are 19% of the U.S. population, and for the last two decades, have been characterized as the nation’s “sleeping giant” in terms of potential collective electoral clout. But what was once considered a slam-dunk for Democratic Party gain has become far less certain as the 21st century wears on.

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A Gallup survey shows that the 12-point gap between the percentage of Latinos who lean Democrat (47%) vs. those who lean Republican (35%) is at its lowest level since the polling firm began conducting interviews in Spanish in 2011.

There are many possible reasons for that narrowing margin, most of them likely playing a far more significant part in the decline in support — but the invisibilizing of Latino Democrats certainly doesn’t help.

No high-profile Latino Democrat has been mentioned in the lineup yet.

In the past 20 years, only two Latino Democrats have believed they could become visible enough nationally to run in presidential primaries (Bill Richardson in 2008 and Julián Castro in 2020). And for one memorable but fleeting political moment, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on everyone’s radar. But these are the exceptions to the rule.

And here we stand — mere hours before the beginning of the biggest Democratic shindig of the year — without any certainty of having gotten the invitation.

Kamala Harris’ entry into the race has shifted the numbers in terms of the likely Latino vote in the upcoming election. According to a recent Pew Research Center report: “Hispanic voters now favor Harris over [Donald] Trump by a 17-point margin (52% to 35%). In July, [Joe] Biden and Trump were tied among Hispanic voters with 36% each.”

A Quinnipiac poll says 49% of Pennsylvania Latino voters plan to vote for Harris. This is good news for Democrats. In this swing state, where in 2020 a mere 82,000 votes handed Democrats the victory, there are more than 600,000 eligible Latino voters.

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But can the enthusiasm Harris has generated with these voters survive four days of a DNC that, once again, fails to recognize the importance of its own Latino leaders, no less the importance of ordinary Latino voters?

It remains to be seen. Still, if the DNC truly wants to grow Latino support, it should pay heed to this advice from labor organizer and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta (who, by the way, should have a place of honor on that convention stage):

“When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish — people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people — and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.”

What works at the grassroots level goes double for the national stage.

Want us to contribute to your victory? Invite us to the party. And don’t let us think it was an afterthought.

Sabrina Vourvoulias is The Inquirer’s senior editor for commentary, ideas, and community engagement and the director of Sunday Opinion.