For Buttigieg and Klobuchar, the ability to connect with people of color has become an existential threat to their campaigns. Both Democrats will likely wither if they cannot make inroads before Super Tuesday. And even if they could survive the primary without broadening their support, black and Latino voters are such a critical constituency in the modern Democratic Party that a nominee who fails to excite them is all but assured of defeat in the fall…

Asked about Buttigieg and Klobuchar following a Monday event with one of their competitors, Elizabeth Warren, Héctor Sánchez Barba, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, declined to address the candidates specifically. But he said, “A lot of these campaigns have never engaged with the Latino community. So, I’m not speaking about which one does or doesn’t, but for us, it’s important to see their past, their present and their commitment for the future, because we know this game: They come every four years and make all kinds of promises, and then they forget about our community until the next election.”

He called Klobuchar’s inability to name Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “unacceptable” and “embarrassing.”