and i were shot in tucson, arizona. this event was democracy in action. a member of this body, the people's house was meeting one-on-one with her constituents. six wonderful people died that day, including my friend, gabe zimmerman, go-to guy on the congresswoman's staff. >> c-span, powered by cable. ouo voters. mr. vargas, first explained the mission of the association and its history for viewers who may not know. guest: good morning and thank you for having me on your show. we are actually two

organizations. one is a membership organization founded in 1976 by the late congressman who was the first latino elected to congress in california in modern times. it started as a network of supporters all over the country. republicans, democrats and independents. to work together to promote the participation of latinos in american democracy. five years later, they funded an educational fund. to implement programs. i have been with the organization 30 years. the impact we have had over those three decades billy shows that in how many latino elected officials there are today in the

country come of the number of latinos that are voting and the impact we are having on the political landscape. host: how is the government funded, for those who do not know how it works? caller: contributions and grants are tax deductible. they are made primarily by foundations, national foundations, regional foundations and also, we get contributions from corporations. host: earlier this year, they released a report on latino voter turnout in election 2024. what did you find? guest: in 2024, we anticipate 17.5 million latinos will vote in the presidential election come november.

one thing to keep in mind about 2020 is that was a historic election not just for latinos but for the entire country. we had unprecedented turnout from across the country and to see a 6% increase on top of that in 2024, we continue to get more and more involved in the political process. host: is that across the board in every state? are they focusing on some states more than others? guest: we do have a breakdown come of that 6% is a national increase. some have lightly -- slightly larger turnouts that we predict because they are swing states and there is an investment by candidates to reach out and mobilize voters. but we are seeing latino voters being the target of the campaign and swing states such as arizona

or specific campaign, we think arizona or nevada, where they are a significant segment of a statewide election and can make a significant difference in a statewide race, as we saw in arizona and nevada in 2020, in 2022, and in earlier elections. host: a 6% turnout in 2020, a 6% increase in that turn out, i should say. how do you come up with these numbers? how much is based on latino voter turnout during the primary for 2024? guest: well, actually they are not based on the primary. if we look at the past five similar elections, where we look at the past five presidential elections, 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, we studied the trends in terms of turnout. we looked at how the latino

electorate is growing, and based on those trends, we come up with projections of what we think the turnout will look like in the election. now, as i said, this is the floor, and it does not take into account other things that may happen and may influence turnout among latinos and non-latino voters, things like how much money is going to be invested by campaigns and candidates to mobilize voters. more voters -- will voters in texas and california be ignored because they are taken for granted by both political parties? candidates will say any time in those states, talking to voters, the problem is half of latino voters in the nation are in those states. so if you are ignoring california and texas, you are ignoring half of the latino electorate.

these factors contribute to what will be the ultimate turnout of voters, november. host: another thing these projections do not take into account is the impact of misinformation and disinformation on election 2024. explain what that impact could be, and what you are concerned about. guest: well, we are seeing latino voters be the subject this information and disinformation campaigns more and more, in both english and spanish, and broadcast and social media, where we are seeing messages that are designed to discourage latinos from voting, to perhaps question the integrity of our political system, of our election system, to, again, develop a lack of confidence in our voting system so that people will decide not to vote. so what we are trying to do with the naleo election fund -- naleo

educational fund is we launched a campaign, spanish for defend the truth, and what we wanted be as a source for accurate information about the voting process, making it available to voters, what are the laws in their particular state, advising voters if they are eligible to vote or not. we are available to help figure out where to cast the ballot, how to cast a ballot, how to fill out a mail-in ballot, if people decide to vote early, so that they have access to accurate information about the voting process. we cannot advise anybody about how to vote, we are a nonprofit organization. that is up to individual voters. but what we want to do at naleo

educational fund is make sure people have the accurate information to be able to cast an informed ballot. host: talking with arturo vargas, ceo of the leo election -- naleo educational fund. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. potato voters, setting aside a separate line for you, -- latino voters, setting aside a separate line for you, (202) 748-8003. about 20, 25 minutes or so to get your messages and. if you dictate what the top issues are heading into 2024, how would you answer? guest: one of the things we will be doing this year is to actually find out exactly what is on the mind of latino voters

in 2024. one thing to keep in mind is priorities change from election to election. we have conducted tracking polls for a number of elections now, and we have seen how priorities do change for latino voters, according to circumstances, what is happening that year. so, for example, in 2020, consistently latino voters told us one of the most important issues for them was which candidate for the presidency was going to be -- was going to address the pandemic more straight on than anybody else, and that was in part because latino voters were hit hard by covid, in terms of transfer rates, the impacts of their social economic well-being, then we go to 2022, covid is no

longer a top priority, but what are top priorities are the economy, many felt the pinch of growing inflation in 2022, and the importance of women's reproductive rights, for the first time, registered as a top priority for latino voters. that was, of course, a reaction to the supreme court decision that overturned roe v. wade. so, again, different circumstances committed for years, different priorities. for 2024, what i'm hearing around the community as inflation and the economy continue to be very top of mind for latino voters, but i also think voters are keeping an eye on what is happening in the world. i think they are concerned about the middle east, other parts of the world, affecting the economy here, such as ukraine. latino voters are not immune from world events, just like any american voter is not immune

from world events. they study the impact. we will do some polling to make sure we understand exactly what are the priorities for latinos in 2024. because the worst thing to do, and we see this often times with the candidates, is to assume you know exactly what a latino voter's priorities are, because they are a latino. they think we are single issue voters, will he want to talk about immigration reform, and they don't talk about the whole country of issues affecting people's daily lives in the united states. host: one facebook.com/cspa viewer on our twitter feed wants to know the difference between "latino" and "hispanic." guest: the way we do our naleo educational fund, we use latino, because it is our name.

if you have somebody who is latino or hispanic, a semi can trace their background to a spanish-speaking -- it is somebody who can trace their background to a spanish-speaking country, whether latin america or spain. host: john, go ahead. good morning. you are on with arturo vargas. caller: i was born and raised and am an american of mexican descent. i am voting for trump, and i agree that there is not enough media were social coverage for mexicans, american mexicans, or spanish-speaking individuals that see the other side and view the political agendas for both

sides in equal processes. host: mr. vargas. guest: well, i think what the caller is getting to is the fact that people, again, make assumptions about how latinos are going to vote. they assume that they will always vote democrat, they will never vote republican, but in fact, if you look at how latinos perform in election after election, it is, again, specific circumstances that drive the priorities that motivate latinos to vote and to vote for certain candidates. so one always is in danger of leaving votes on the table when everybody assumes that they know how latinos are going to vote. instead of going in and asking latino voters themselves, what is important to you this election? which candidate do you think will do a better job of leading the country? we don't spend enough time in

this country and our political system listening to voters. we tend to much to assume that we know exactly what is on their mind and try to cater messages to them that sometimes fall flat. and with those messages fall flat, you will not get people to turn out and vote. host: why do you think joe biden won 63% of hispanic vote in 2020? and the thought of this headline from 2024 about biden stepping up his hispanic outreach as warning signs/20 come to his latino support? guest: 63% of the vote in 2020 i think, in part, because many latino voters saw him as better being able to deal with the pandemic, because in 2020, that was the number one issue on the minds of latino voters. and i think he probably came across as a candidate most able to put the rate back from 2020.

in 2024, the trump campaign, and any campaign, will be best invested by trying to serve latino voters. don't assume. go into the communities and actually spending time with latino families in understanding what businesses are today. and the candidates that are able to take the pulse of the latino community, more often than not, and up being the most successful getting the support in the election. host: in new york, this is steven, live for democrats. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. thank you for all the work you put in on c-span, and thanks to your guest here. i have a question, i think you

mentioned this information a few minutes back, and i just want to get your thoughts. how can someone, again, this is for everyone, right? we are riddled with misinformation on social media, you know, friends and family have misinformation. how can someone educate themselves to know what is misinformation and what is not? how should they approach those conversations with friends and family and others that, you know, talk about these different topics? host: thanks for the question. guest: yeah. thank you for that question, because that is important. there are different definitions for what is disinformation and misinformation. in some cases, myths and disinformation is intentional, designed to actually communicate erroneous information, so that is to confuse voters or try to influence the way voters behave in the voting booth, based on, again, myths and disinformation. sometimes it is just the wrong

affirmation that is not intentionally distributed. what we are really concerned about is what happens when there are different sources trying to influence american voters. we have heard about this coming from china and russia, but it comes from the united states as well. one of the things we do at naleo educational fund's we are doing training for community leaders so they can recognize what mis- and disinformation looks like. learn the definition. i encourage them to go to our website at www.naleo.org, and there we have the landing page for our campaign, where you can look at the definitions of mis- and disinformation as well as what you can do about it

to ensure that our immunity is not bombarded by messages designed to confuse them and discourage them to vote. host: what is mall information? guest: the worst con, like we canceled election day today, or polling places are closed on tuesdays this year because of different circumstances in the community, you have to go on wednesday. that would be true mal information. host: here is david. caller: thank you for taking my call. thanks as always to c-span. if you questions before i jump in, the first one is about latinos voting as a bloc. if you can comment on -- in the coming years and how folks should be messaging those communities accordingly. i was wondering if you have any comments on that. another one is how the data is

gathered. i work for the census a little while, and i remember confusing whether there was -- confusion whether there was race or ethnicity. big data, if the public should be advocating for data changes that would clarify. lastly, the position on local and state initiatives to allow noncitizens to vote. thanks. host: thanks for the question. guest: let me work backwards to our position in the naleo educational fund is voting is for united states citizens, and that is why we work every civil day to help lawful immigrants apply for and become u.s. citizens. our founder had a vision when he started the naleo educational fund of helping immigrants from mexico and central america who have come to this country, helping them on the road to clemency, if they are illegal, and they -- if they are not

if they are legal, helping them obtain a green card. going on for 45 years, i think we have helped more than a quarter million lawful permanent residents become united states citizens, so they can have full voting powers, full voting rights in this country. now, with regard to the census, something that i spend a lot of time thinking about, i was just really honored a few weeks ago to be named to a brand-new advisory committee at the census bureau, the 2030 committee, and it was established by the census bureau to get advice from experts around the country on how to prepare for and diplomat the 2030 census -- and implement the 2030 census. i was asked to share that committee.

i will be working quite a bit to try to help the census bureau get it right in 2030, and making sure that not only do we count everybody, so we have an accurate count, we also want to make sure we have the right characteristics of the population collected as well, which is one of the reasons why we applauded the recent decision by the office of management and budget, omb, that decided to modernize the way we asked everybody in the country have a identify themselves, by race and ethnicity, because the way it was asked previously was very confusing. we did not get complete and accurate data on the racial and ethnic background of latinos we are hoping this new approach of a single question that asks people to identify their race and/or ethnicity, because they are two separate things, race and ethnicity are come about people identify sometimes only by their race, only by your ethnicity, or if it is more than one category, and that is fine

could we should give people the opportunity to self identify themselves as they see themselves, and we are hoping that the new approach at the census bureau will be using for the 2030 census will give us, again, more accurate data on the characteristics. host: just after 9:45 on the east coast. about 15 minutes left in this conversation with arturo vargas. i did want to let you know that going on right now over on c-span2, a discussion on priorities for nato ahead of its 2024 summit. that is with the atlantic council featuring u.s. investors nato julianne smith -- ambassador to nato julianne smith. come outt 10:00 here on c-span, th revend william barber and others will talk about plans for the poor people's campaign march on washington set for late june, the discussions were planning on

that here on c-span, or you can watch on c-span.org, and a free c-span now app. but this discussion, again, for about another 10 or 15 minutes. lewis is waiting in salisbury, north carolina, democrat. you are on with arturo vargas. caller: hi. top of the morning to you guys. i just heard a gentle man who called on the hispanic line, and he said he is going with trump and all that. a kind of behooves me to hear a lot of hispanics, some of them saying that they are going with trump, when trump has called you guys rapists, murderers, and all that other stuff that he said. now i want to ask this question. why did the head of the proud boys, as a hispanic, is it that some hispanics is trying to come i guess, you know, flock with the birds, because they are

almost the same color? do they know that they are white people wore black people or they've got their own little group, but they still mix in with intellectuals? host: that is lewis. mr. vargas. guest: one thing to recognizes there is a great diversity of perspectives within the latino community, and in fact, one of the earlier callers was asking about, do latinos vote as a bloc? is there a single latino vote? and there isn't. there are differences in terms of the way latino voters show up at the polls, based on their own personal experiences. if they are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves that have naturalized, or whether the families have been here for 10, 12 generations, whether they live in a community that has experienced certain historical factors that influence their politics, which you would say

like florida or new york or texas or california, where we seen differences of specific situations influence the latino electorate and that space. the california vote is different than texas, arizona, nevada, and this is why we keep saying that the campaigns for canada's really do need to listen to latino voters, don't assume that if you take a campaign message, you translate it into spanish, that you are done. no! it is probably the worst way to try the campaign among latino voters. it is hard work, but, you know, our political system can tend to be lazy. candidates are campaign and up campaigning only among the

likeliest of voters, those voters who vote in every single election. they are the ones who get the phone calls, the knocks on the door, they are the ones who feel like their votes are really being asked for. and then they ignore people who don't vote in every election and create this cycle of, what is the point of voting if nobody cares about me or my history? in the candidates are like, why should i care about those voters, they are not voters, they don't vote, not going to spend my resources talking to them, and we create a situation where some people actually do feel like the political system does not work for them, which is what we and the naleo educational fund are trying to work against, to make sure everybody feels like their vote is precious. host: younger voters and first-time voters, often we have conversations about those voters feeling overlooked or their issues are not being talked

about. i wonder what your stats about eligible voters, latino eligible voters in 2024 tells you about young latino eligible voters. guest: one thing to keep in mind, overall, latinos are a much younger population, our median age is much lower than the young hispanic white -- non-hispanic white population, the african-american, or even asian american median age, meaning a much larger segment of our voting population is younger than other population groups. so issues that affect youth, issues that affect young voters and what is happening in the country today, in which young voters are being pulled into different issues, probably will be affecting latinos, young voters, as much as all young voters in the country, and may have a disproportionate effect on our electorate

overall, given that we have a much larger segment of our voters in that youthful category. we try to make sure that when latinos come of age, and u.s. citizens turned 18 years of age, that they understand the importance of registering to vote and casting that ballot. i remember when i voted for the first time, when i was in college, and it was a big moment for me. i always try to make sure i never missed an election sense, because it is so important for everybody to understand that voting in this country is not about a single election, it is about voting over the long-term and making sure you are invested in the stakeholders in our political system. and that is the kind of culture of participation that we want to promote in the naleo educational fund. host: a few minutes left here. this is o'dallas out of crystal river, florida. caller: good morning. yes, i wasn't going to call, but

i heard the questioning as to why a hispanic, latino voter would be voting for trump. it is, you know, to me, it is very clear that people want to just a, oh, you are spanish, you are automatically a democrat. "i'm going to vote for president trump." "why?" the free-for-all provided is crazy. people are coming into the country, they are letting everybody in, it's like free health care, free food cards, free housing, free schooling. i've been here my entire life. i've got nothing for free. nothing! i worked my entire adult life. to me, it is crazy what is happening here, and everyone

seems to kind of, like, how do you let millions and millions of people in, taxpayer money, and they that is ok? i do not get it. it angers me very much that this is happening. host: mr. vargas. guest: well, i think that caller actually represents a sentiment by many latino voters and non-latino voters in the country have today. we have seen issues of immigration, what is happening at the border, with the migrant crisis, having an impact on how people are interpreting politics today commend this is one of those issues that i think is going to be rising to the top of priorities for the american electorate in this election, so i think that voter is experiencing what many voters in this country are experiencing. host: to ed in ohio, republican.

good morning. caller: good morning. you know, this guy you have online right now, kudos to him. a plus. latinos, you know, that is our country today, they put everybody in boxes. latinos want what is best for american, like we all do, whether you are black, white. i'm italian and german, ok? i'm just in texas come on contract united 30 years of military. many of the latinos that came into the military, your name it, you know what they all dead? they got here, they defended this country, they believe in a family, a two-parent family. most of them are christians, if not christians, they are catholic, as a matter of fact. almost totally against what the government has gone to, the far left today, they want secular families. i'm a hard worker. i lost my father at 14. when mother worked two jobs.

i never complained to my mother did it. we did it on our own. i'm 65 this year. i was just in brownsville. he knows where that is at in texas, do you not? that is on thetip. i have a big job down there to go back to. latinos want everything that is best for the america, and the senses, the problem with the open borders, democrats are legalizing, and they will not take for granted the hispanic vote anymore. they are not going to be lapdogs. they want what is best for everybody. i know so many, i have friends that i met in texas, 100% hispanic, guys that i went to school with. host: you bring up a lot of issues, and i'm running real short on time you want to get arturo vargas a chance to respond to some of them. guest: the real issue here is we

have a latino population in the united states that is able to succeed economically and socially an live the american dream. latinos are 25% of the american population. one in five is latino background, one and four of america's children is a latino. let's make sure we are preparing them for the workforce of tomorrow, for leadership roles of tomorrow, that is what we do at the naleo educational fund. we want to make sure that the latino population is able to thrive in the united states, lived the american dream. that is why we want latinos today to consistently participate in american politics, by voting, by having a voice, by not taking your right to vote for granted, and making sure that everybody has the ability to cast an informed ballot without being in any way

discouraged or confused about the processes. we want to make sure that our democracy works for everybody, and if it works for latinos, it will work for everybody. host: arturo vargas is the ceo of the naleo educational fund >>e will break away for live coverage of the u.s. house on is monday. lawmakers are considering handful of bills and doubles customs area of operation in coastal waters. another measure on the floor would protect children fro online sexualxpitation. live coverage of the house is here on c-span.

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