Virginia leaders court Latino community at inaugural gala

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares both appreciate a good party as they celebrate one election and look ahead to another – their own contests this fall.

The Latino Inaugural Ball Sunday night wasn’t just a chance for Earle-Sears and Miyares to celebrate the inauguration of President Donald Trump to his second term in the White House. They came to The Mayflower Hotel here on inauguration eve with a keen appreciation of the rising influence of Hispanic voters, as Virginia resumes its role as a political bellwether the year after voters awarded the presidency to Trump.

“It’s wonderful to see Latinos show up and show out,” said Earle-Sears, the presumptive GOP nominee for governor, after arriving from a previous appearance at the Conservative Inaugural Ball. “And say, ‘We’re here and you’re going to have to pay attention to us.’ “

Miyares, whose mother fled to the United States from Cuba after the revolution there, looked around and said, “Lots of Virginians. Lots of friends. And a lot of people who are not Latino or Hispanic.”

“They know Latinos know how to throw a party – and they vote,” said Miyares, who is seeking a second term as attorney general.

They were joined at the ball by an estimated 1,300 revelers, including former Virginia Gov. and U.S. Sen. George Allen, the presidents of Brazil and Paraguay, and the man whom the United States recognizes as the president of Venezuela, now in exile while disputing the outcome of the election last year.

“Anybody who’s anybody in the Hispanic community will be here tonight,” said Daniel Cortez, a Stafford County resident who is a member of the host committee for the ball, sponsored by the Hispanic 100 Foundation and the America First Policy Institute’s Hispanic Leadership Coalition.

Cortez, whose father immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, was a member of the former Hispanic Prosperity Commission under both Trump and President Joe Biden. He considers himself a political independent who has a good relationship with both Earle-Sears and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor. Spanberger represented Stafford and the rest of the Fredericksburg area in her third and final term in Congress before stepping down to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Spanberger, who lives in western Henrico County, is not attending Trump’s inauguration on Monday. She is instead speaking to the NAACP Fredericksburg Branch at its annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prayer breakfast on the national and state holiday in honor of the civil rights leader.

(Trump, citing the cold temperatures, will be sworn in Monday inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda rather than outside on the West Front of the Capitol.)

Latinos have reason to celebrate. They flexed their political muscle in Trump’s election over Vice President Kamala Harris in November, with an estimated 46% of Hispanic voters supporting the former president’s return to power, according to exit polling by CNN, up from 35% from his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Trump picked up 55% of the vote by Hispanic men, CNN estimated, while Latina women voted strongly for Harris.

The Associated Press said its exit polling showed Democrats with a larger share of the Latino vote, but Trump gained ground from the last election.

“It’s swinging their way,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Sabato said the presence of Earle-Sears and Miyares at the ball is no coincidence.

“They smell the possibility of snatching away a normally Democratic constituency, just like Trump did,” he said.

Allen, sporting Mexican boots he bought from LaGrange Leather in Bristol, said Hispanic leaders were a big part of his term as governor from 1994 to 1998. He appointed Robert Martinez as secretary of transportation, the first Latino to serve in a Virginia governor’s Cabinet. He and his wife, former Virginia first lady Susan Allen, are particularly close to Miyares, who served as his aide in his campaign for the U.S. Senate and represented their Virginia Beach district in the House of Delegates.

“They were part of our insurgence,” he said gleefully.

Now, Latino voters “are becoming a more independent voting bloc,” Allen said.

Miyares also has close ties to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s pick for secretary of state. Both are sons of Cuban immigrants; they have boosted each other’s campaigns. Miyares was a Virginia co-chair of Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, and Rubio headlined a Northern Virginia fundraiser for Miyares in December 2017.

Goya Foods President and CEO Bob Unanue, who was an honorary chairman for the ball, said, “The issue of the economy and the border really brought home a lot of those voters.”

Unanue doesn’t know Virginia politics, but he’s a native of New Jersey, which also has a race for governor this year. “I think New Jersey is ripe for a new direction,” he said.

Carlos Castro, a Hispanic leader and business owner in eastern Prince William County, originally was a member of the host committee for the Latino Inaugural Ball but wasn’t able to attend because of business travel. Like Cortez, he considers himself a political independent, but he hopes the Latino community will have “a seat at the table” in the new administration.

“I think President Trump has taken some steps toward the Hispanic community,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “I think we need to use the opportunity to bring people back to the center.”

Castro thinks more Latinos voted for Trump in 2024 than in 2020 because of disenchantment with Biden over inflation and his policies at the U.S. border with Mexico. He said that could change if Trump follows through on promises to deport millions of undocumented workers or hurts the Northern Virginia economy by slashing the federal work force and spending on which the region depends.

A former undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, he said, “I have a sense and a great hope that it’s not going to be as bad as it sounds.”

Matt Barreto, a UCLA political scientist and research director of its Latino Policy and Politics Institute, who served as an adviser for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, is less hopeful.

 “He may have this fancy inaugural party and the next day he’s going to start harassing immigrants,” Barreto said Sunday. “People aren’t going to like it.”

The first opportunity to test the reaction of voters will come in Virginia and New Jersey in November.

Castro, who owns two Todos Supermarkets in Prince William, expects the campaign for governor to be “a very tight race.”