“We’re not seeing the Democratic Party take advantage of this moment in time, really looking to leverage more engagement in a more strategic way with our community,” said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza.
One top criticism is that Clinton waited until this month to launch a sustained campaign of traditional, Spanish-language ads in key markets. Previously, the campaign’s Hispanic strategy centered on reaching millennial voters through new media such as Facebook and YouTube. Its television outreach was produced primarily in English and aimed at bilingual households. According to critics, Clinton missed a chance to deploy a broader effort to target the Hispanic electorate like the one that Obama pioneered four years ago.
“This approach may end up being vindicated on Election Day,” said Fernand Amandi, a veteran strategist who led Obama’s research, messaging and paid media operation for the Hispanic vote in 2012. “I just find it to be more risky than replicating what we know worked, which is the sustained approach that the Obama campaign put in place.”
Clinton aides and her allies insist that they are facing a very different opponent than Obama’s, along with new challenges posed by a Hispanic electorate that grows younger and less reliant on traditional modes of communication with each passing cycle.
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