New Mexico Senator Tom Udall visited Salt Lake City today to campaign for Hillary Clinton. He spent some of his time meeting leaders from Utah’s Latino community.
At Kimi’s Chop and Oyster House in Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood, Senator Udall joined around 30 activists, politicians, and business leaders from Utah’s Latino community to drum up support for Hillary Clinton this November.
Jim Gonzales is the CEO of The Target Group and was one of the event organizers. In historically Republican Utah, Gonzales told the group why he believes it’s important for Latinos to get out and vote this year.
“The six electoral votes at stake in the state of Utah are up for grabs. They are six electoral votes that Donald Trump should not get. And they are six electoral votes that Hillary Clinton can get,” Gonzales said.
For his part, Udall talked with the crowd about immigration reform, racially motivated hate-crimes, and what has to happen for Democrats to gain control of the U.S. Senate, and in particular, how local Latino community leaders can help preserve one seat in particular, that of Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada.
“In order to win the Senate and pull those additional seats in, we’ve got to hold that one Democratic seat this year,” Udall said.
Latinos have become an important voting group in Utah during this unpredictable election year. According to the most recent Census, Latinos represent about 13 percent of the population in Utah, and they’re the fastest growing group of voters in the country.