Latinos helped Bernie's strong Iowa caucus performance (bodes well going into Nevada)
I reached out to Christian Ucles, a leader with the League of United Latin American Citizens. He worked tirelessly in Iowa, trying to spark Latino caucus participation.
Ucles is a Hillary Clinton supporter and he was a precinct captain for Hillary in one of the Des Moines suburbs.
He has sent me several voice mails and we have corresponded about the Latino community and its impact on the Iowa Caucuses.
He's analyzed the caucus data and the top two takeaways are:
1.) 62 percent of delegates in the top Latino Iowa precincts--were awarded to Bernie.
2.) 12,000 Latinos participated in the Iowa caucuses; an increase of more than 300 percent from 2008 numbers in which 3,500 participated.
Ucles further explained the data and his experiences with the campaigns:
Ucles said, "I looked at the top Latino precincts and so far, Bernie Sanders is leading with 72 delegates out of 115. There were a lot of precincts that were tied. There were only 4 precincts out of the 115 precincts that were considered college-town precincts. So, I do believe that the Latino voters did help Senator Bernie Sanders, and our experience was that a lot of Latinos were supportive of his candidacy."
This translates into 62 percent of delegates in the top Latino Iowa precincts--going for Bernie.
When asked about candidate outreach efforts to the Latino community Ucles responded, "I will say that Governor Jeb Bush, Senator Sanders and Martin O'Malley did an extremely amazing job in reaching out to people of color, specifically the Latino community in Iowa."
Ucles added, "I think the Sanders did a better job of reaching out to new voters including Latinos. And Senator Clinton did a good job of focusing on previous caucus goers. I don't think that bringing out new voters was part of their game. They didn't reach out to the Latino Community as much as they should have."
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