In the months leading up to Election Day on November 8th, The Texas Newsroom wanted to hear from Latino voters about the issues that are driving them to the polls.
Reporters from across the state have been asking voters what they hope candidates know about them and their community, along with what they think elected officials should prioritize.
Listen to the latest installment above. We talked to voters from El Paso to Houston and several points in between. Like other groups, gun rights, the economy and immigration are just some of the topics voters want lawmakers to address.
In El Paso we spoke with Mike Rosales, who recently graduated from the University of Texas – El Paso and is in search of a job. He said he’s seen firsthand how inflation is affecting his entire family and marks the economy as his top concern.
“I do the grocery [shopping] for my family so whenever I go to the store, I notice that each week the prices change,” he said. “I’m just hoping that candidates see that people are struggling.”
Rosales added that he’d like to see a candidate that is more moderate and doesn’t adopt the extreme positions of either party.
Lydia Zamaripa is a student in the school of social work and the University of Houston who said immigration is among her top concerns.
“I have a very close, personal connection to immigration law that is happening now in Congress and in the state of Texas,” she said. She added that she wants the public to realize how much power the state government has over Texans’ daily lives.
“We see more change happening in the [state legislative] session every two years than we do in Congress,” she said.
Dolores Hedger, 73, lives in the Denver Harbor neighborhood in Houston and said her concern is whether her vote will be counted. She said there is more uncertainty now over whether ballots are accurately tallied than in the past.
“What’s going to happen when I vote? Is it going to be miscounted?” she said. “The counting process, it was just black and white before. Now I am just afraid that my vote is not going to count. The doubt is always there.”
Andrew Schneider, Cathy Edwards, Lon Gonzalez and Pablo Arauz Pena contributed to this story, with additional reporting from Ariel Castillo and Alan Carmona, student journalists for Borderzine.com at The University of Texas at El Paso.