The economy, Democracy, immigration are concerns for these Black and Latino men in Minnesota

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Both major political parties believe they best represent the interests of Black and Latino men and are asking for their votes.

MPR News spoke with five Minnesota men and asked them to tell us what issues and policies are motivating them to vote this year.

Teto Wilson 51, is a business owner in north Minneapolis, Dudley Edmondson, 63, is a freelance media artist in Duluth, Jeremiah Fuller, 36, works at a St. Paul nonprofit, Edgar Hernandez, 44, is a pastor in Hopkins and Robbie Lopez-Mendez, 22, is a St. Paul resident and works at an immigration law firm. 

The barbershop is ‘a microcosm’

On some days, conversations in Teto Wilson’s north Minneapolis barber shop about the upcoming presidential election “are heated but respectful” among customers and barbers. About 80 percent of his clientele are Black with the rest a mix of Latino, Asian and white.

“There’s this idea now that’s being float(ed) around that a majority of Black men, or a whole population of Black men, are going towards Trump and the barber shop is really like a microcosm of what it actually is,” Wilson said. 

The majority of his customers, about 98 to 99 percent, he said, are voting for Vice President Kamala Harris. But there are one or two steady supporters of former President Donald Trump. 

“So people bring up all sorts of things to really just get the other to realize, like what you’re saying is foolishness,” Wilson said. 

Or one man will try to persuade another to his side, he said. There’s a lot of cross talk.

“They definitely chime in,” he said.

National polling focuses on how Black and Latino men vote

Outside of Wilson’s Images barbershop, a different narrative is forming.

National media outlets and some cable news pundits are positing that a new political alignment has emerged in this election cycle, particularly around the male African American and Latino voters.

The analysis  relies on recent data that indicate these voters favor Trump in increasing numbers than they have in the last two election cycles. Indeed, the AP’s exit poll showed that 12 percent of Black men voted for former President Trump in 2020, whereas a recent New York Times/Sienna College poll finds about 16 percent planning to vote for Trump.

Even more dramatically, the AP’s exit poll showed that 38 percent of Latino men voted for Trump in 2020, and the recent NYT poll shows 47 percent favor Trump — higher than the 42 percent who say they plan to vote for Harris.

It’s the economy…

Pastor Edgar Hernandez is a married father of five. The Mexican immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in the early 2010s said he’s already cast his vote for Trump.

“I saw how his term went, and personally, I’ve spoken to many Hispanics, and we liked how his term went,” said Hernandez who spoke in Spanish for the interview. The administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris, he said, “has been very bad.” 

Hernandez said the economy under Biden is worse than it was during the Trump administration. 

“I see that economically, buying things now is practically unaffordable. And I can see it in the prices because I’m the one who usually does the shopping,” Hernandez said. “When I come back from buying food, I tell my wife ‘have you noticed how much things cost now?’”

The Hernandez’s have never talked so much about politics in their marriage, he said. The pastor only talks openly about the election and issues with his wife. Not so much with his congregants.

“I talk constantly with people, but I never ask them to vote for a specific candidate. That’s not my job. My job is to talk about the Lord,” Hernandez said.

The state of the economy is also a top priority for north Minneapolis business owner Wilson. 

“It literally impacts what we’re able to do,” said Wilson, who is married with two kids. “How we’re able to live, where we’re able to live, you know how, how much ease we’re able to buy a car or feed our families or send our kids to college.”

The economy under Biden-Harris has been good for him, he said, but he attributes that to hiring good financial advisors and a good accountant. For others he knows, “it’s kind of all over the place,” Wilson said. 

It depends on that person’s financial goals and how secure their financial situation is, he added.

Democracy on the ballot

Edmondson, who is an author, filmmaker, photographer and public speaker said his number one issue is Democracy, which he wants to uphold.

“I just believe that it’s not perfect. It certainly hasn’t worked for everyone,” he said. “But if it stays in place, the potential for it to work for all Americans remains.” 

Edmonson said he’s concerned about the proposals in the Heritage Foundation’s proposed blueprint for the country under Trump, called Project 2025. Of particular concern, he said, is the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education and plans to politicize current civil servant positions which are outlined in the document.

“It just doesn’t feel like it is what America is supposed to be,” Edmondson said.

Reproductive rights are also a top concern for Edmonson.

“If I were a woman, I would not want anybody telling me what to do with my body,” Edmondson said. “It’s ridiculous that we even get to this point to where the federal government and state governments can tell you whether or not you can have a child or have an abortion. I mean, that’s just crazy.”

Black voters still want Democrats to deliver change

For Jeremiah Fuller, education is his top priority and he said he’s voting for Harris.

However, he does have complaints about the Democratic party. Specifically, that the African-American community is still facing decades-long problems.

“The same things that we were fighting for in the ‘60s, we’re still fighting for today,” Fuller said. “I’ve done things right and I didn’t see the change I wanted. I’ve had a lot of promises from both sides that weren’t kept.”

Fuller is the director of programming for Exodus Lending, a nonprofit that assists families to get out of predatory debt. 

He attributes any loosening of Black support for Democrats as a sign that the community is “exercising their right.”

“We haven’t voted yet, but we’re … putting everybody on notice that you don’t just get our vote anymore,” he said. “Gotta have some proof in the pudding.”

A second-generation immigrant can’t ignore what’s going on

Immigration is a main issue for Robbie Lopez-Mendez, who says he comes at it from a “slightly biased perspective.” His parents are immigrants from Mexico.

“I was born here. I’m privileged,” said Lopez-Mendez, who was born in Minnesota and now works for an immigration law firm. “I am very proud of my culture, my heritage, of my … ancestors.”

The story isn’t exclusive to his life, he said. It’s something that many people who live here share.

“A lot of us forget about that past. We are blinded by our privilege of having been able to been born here and be citizens of this country from birth” he said. “We ignore all the struggles and fights that our ancestors had to fight to gain, that citizenship, that ability to be called, I guess, American.”

Lopez-Mendez first exercised his right to vote in 2020.

“It’s been impossible, since I had the right to vote, to ignore the state of our country and our elections.” 

Lopez-Mendez plans to vote for Harris before Election Day. He opposed policies from Trump’s first administration: the Muslim Ban, child separation, building a wall that Mexico would pay for. 

“He tried his hardest to create these policies and these plans to push migrants and immigrants and undocumented folks out, and that’s not something I think we should be proud of when we look at it,” Lopez-Mendez said. “Some of these policies including the wall and the ban, fell short or failed.”

Polling voters of color can be challenging 

A local political academic believes the narrative that significant numbers of Latino and African American male voters are moving to Trump and the Republican Party may be “premature.” 

Michael Minta, professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, explained that most opinion polling has small samples of African Americans. When the sample numbers are small, it’s difficult to get a true representation of the opinions of those groups,” he said.

“But a lot of these bigger mainstream polls, they just just don’t have time to do that,” Minta said. “Those polls usually do a good job representing the vote preferences of say, whites because there’s a large enough sample. But with minorities, if you don’t do some type of oversampling, you’re just really guessing about how much support you’re getting.”

Smaller firms “that actually look at Black public opinion, Latino public opinion, Asian American public opinion” do oversample the different groups, he said.

Minta doesn’t think there’s enough data to say the increased support for Trump is there. He said he knows there is high-profile Black support for Trump, referring to the rapper and actor Ice Cube and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, recently released from prison. 

“I know it sounds good for the press and others to kind of talk about this drift, and then you go find some people that are some Black men that are voting for Trump, and there are some,” Minta said. But, he added, “I don’t know if he’s going to get a historic amount.”

APM Research Lab managing partner Craig Helmstetter contributed to this article.