Organizations are targeting Latino voters through campaigns featuring YouTube influencers

SEATTLE - Organizations and lawmakers are turning to social media in order to lure more voters. A new campaign seeking to connect with Latino voters is using YouTube to reach Latinos, who spend roughly twice the amount of time on YouTube than any other racial and demographic group does.

Priorities USA and Somos Votantes launched this week a new campaign featuring four YouTube influencers sending political and get-out-to-vote messages as a way of connecting with Latinos. Emmanuelle Leal-Santillan, a spokesperson for Somos Votantes said that using YouTube is "a new frontier" for messaging Latinos.

According to data from the Pew Research Center, an estimated 36.2 million U.S. Latinos are eligible to vote this year, accounting for 14.7% of all eligible voters in November.

A majority of Latino voters (59%) voted for Biden in 2020 and helped swing key races in stakes like Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. According to the Pew Research Center, that number of Latino voters has grown by nearly 4 million people since the last presidential election, making Latinos a key demographic ahead of November 5.

The influencers participating in the campaign were selected in part because they do not typically post political messages and the organizations are trying to build trust with what they call low-propensity Latino voters, in other words, those Latinos who do not vote consistently.

In one of the videos, Daniela Legarda, a YouTuber with 1.6 million followers talked about abortion rights while making patacones, a traditional Latin American recipe. Comedian Christian Maldonado, with 1.8 million followers, focused his video on making plans to take the time to vote.

Danielle Butterfield, executive director of Priorities USA, one of the groups involved in the campaign, said the organization's top goal is for the influencers to deliver "an authentic message that is going to be relevant and powerful for their audience," she said. Butterfield added that the messenger — and not just message — matters a lot.

Republicans also used YouTube as a way of convincing Latino voters to support Donald Trump during the 2020 elections. Research from firm Equis found that 64% of registered Latino voters — and 74% of Hispanic voters in Florida — got election information from YouTube.

Last Election Day, the Trump campaign took over the YouTube homepage to promote an ad with mixed-martial artist Jorge Masvidal advocating for Trump. The ad garnered more than 34 million views and was Trump's second-most-watched video of all time.

"Having these content creators who have a very authentic and an intentional relationship with their followers being the ones that deliver a political message can be really powerful," Butterfield said. "We see that corporate brands are using content creators and influencers to get their message across, and there's no reason why we can't deploy that same tactic in politics."