CHICAGO — Latino lawmakers and organizers Wednesday stressed their voting bloc as key to delivering battleground states to Democrats in November, as the Harris campaign launched a bilingual WhatsApp channel to target Latino voters.

“The Latino vote will be the deciding factor in this election,” actress and Democratic surrogate Eva Longoria said during a Hispanic Caucus meeting on the third day of the Democratic National Convention.

Members of Congress and officials from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign told delegates how they were reaching out to Latino voters, including the launch of the bilingual WhatsApp channel.

“The channel will be the first-of-its-kind in an American presidential election, and will provide culturally relevant content that reflects the Latino community that already exists on the platform and serve as another tool to combat misinformation and disinformation,” the Harris campaign said in a release.

WhatsApp is a popular messaging tool among immigrant populations and Latinos, and it’s a free encryption messaging app that can be used globally.

A Pew Research Center report found that about a quarter of Americans use WhatsApp, but that 46% of Hispanic Americans use it compared to 23% of Black Americans and 16% of white Americans.

Julie Chavez Rodríguez, manager of the Harris campaign, launched the start of the WhatsApp campaign with a video message, noting that the channel will provide a “behind the scene” look at the campaign and information about Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.

The channel will be operated by “Latinos con Harris-Walz.”

Michelle Villegas, the national Latino engagement director for the Harris campaign, said the Latino vote is key to victory in three battleground states, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

“These are places where Latino voters are going to help us win and beat the margin of victory in these races,” Villegas said.

Villegas said the campaign is also launching bilingual phone outreach and local organizations, as well as several coalitions like “Latino Men for Kamala.”

Former President Donald Trump has made some inroads with Latino voters, specifically with men, according to a recent poll by the New York Times.?

“This is the first time that a presidential campaign in the United States has ever had a WhatsApp channel,” Villegas said. “It’s huge. It’s super exciting and super important, because we know that Latinos are communicating on WhatsApp.”

The app, which is a dominant source of communication, has also been rife with misinformation, something that Longoria noted Democrats needed to stay on top of, especially when that misinformation and disinformation is in Spanish.

“Our Spanish language brothers and sisters are being targeted with misinformation, and we have to help them,” she said.

Longoria, who has close ties to the Biden administration, said that she will also be doing Latino voter outreach on WhatsApp.

Last year, the White House hosted a screening of the film “Flamin Hot,” which was Longoria’s directorial debut. The movie tells the legendary origin story of “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos,” a popular snack in the Latino community. The Los Angeles Times has debunked the tale, but it’s still a popular rags-to-riches story.

Longoria added that Democrats need to talk about issues important to the Latino community, such as the economy and inflation.

“We have so much work to do,” Longoria said. “I think one of the big issues for Latinos, people think it’s always immigration, and that’s important, but the argument of the economy is something that I think we’re not articulating well enough to our Latino brothers and sisters.”

The deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to Harris, Sergio Gonzales, said that Latino voters are critical.

“We will not take any Latino vote for granted,” he said, adding that Harris also hails from a state with a high Latino population — California.

Polling on Latino voters

Equis Research, which conducts research and polling specifically about Latino voters, found in a recent poll that Harris is ahead of Trump when it comes to registered Hispanic voters, 56% to 37%.

The poll found that Harris has also gained support from Latina women compared to when Biden was still in the race before he dropped out last month. For example, Biden was polling at 50% among Latina women and Harris is polling with about 59% support from Latinas.

“With the entrance of Kamala Harris, we are seeing results that are back in a historically normal range,” according to an analysis of the poll. “Relative to Biden, she sees rebounds across Latino subgroups, with the largest among young people.”

However, the report noted that Harris “remains a few points shy of what Biden received in 2020” across battleground states such as Arizona.

The CEO of the political organization Voto Latino, María Teresa Kumar, said that the states where the group is doing Latino voter registration include Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

No congressional action

U.S. Democratic Reps. Greg Casar of Texas and Delia Ramirez of Illinois said the Biden administration has continued to have an impact on immigration reform without Congress, such as with the recent implementation of deportation protections for undocumented spouses.

Immigration reform is virtually dead in a divided Congress. A bipartisan border security measure that was crafted in the Senate collapsed after Trump raised objections to it, wanting to campaign on the issue of immigration.

Instead, most immigration reform has come from the White House through rulemaking, like expanding health care access to uninsured people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the most recent executive action for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

The deportation protection for those married to a U.S. citizen is a one-time action that is expected to allow roughly 500,000 undocumented spouses and their children to apply for lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements.

Ramirez, whose husband is a DACA recipient, said immigrants and Latinos are “tired of waiting” for immigration reform. She said it’s an issue Harris should campaign on, because of the economic benefit that immigrants provide.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated an economic boost over the next year due to the contributions of immigrants, lowering the deficits by $990 billion over the 2024-2034 period and raising federal revenues by $1.2 trillion.

“We have a daughter of immigrants running to be our president,” Ramirez said of Harris’ parents — her father is a Jamaican immigrant and her late mother was an Indian immigrant. “This is our moment to lean in on the contributions of immigrants.”