Democratic National Committee Reaches Out to Latino, Hispanic Voters to Blast Republicans for Government Shutdown

The Democratic National Committee is reaching out to Latino voters in an advertising offensive against Republicans, the DNC announced Thursday. The DNC is launching Spanish-language online ads and robocalls to denounce the Republicans' actions regarding the government shutdown, Politico confirms. 

The effort to reach out to Latino voters is the third phase of a larger campaign to lambaste Republicans in their home states. The states targeted include the home states of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), as well as early voting states New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. 

The campaign, which launched Thursday, includes Spanish-language calls as well as Twitter, Facebook and Google ads that target Latino voters in Texas, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. The phone calls to Latino voters in Florida and Texas will focus on attacking Sens. Rubio and Cruz in their home states and the campaign in Nevada and Arizona will focus on criticizing the Republican party in its entirety. The calls specifically touch upon the shutdown's impact on Latino communities. 

In the Florida script, the message says that "Rubio's shutdown" costs the economy up to $10 billion a week.

"Sen. Marco Rubio was an architect of the GOP's government shutdown and it's hurting the Latino community in Florida," the script reads.

The sample script of the Arizona call mentions Sens. Rubio, Paul and Cruz as the Republicans who were instrumental in shutting down the government. 

Both calls provide a phone number to implore voters to call their Republican representatives to voice their grievances. A DNC aide said that campaign will reach "hundreds of thousands" of voters. 

"We'll continue to hold Republicans like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz accountable for shutting down the government and risking the full faith and credit of the United States," DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. "The GOP's shutdown is hurting Latino communities nationwide and the DNC is going to make sure voters in every community know that Republicans are siding with the tea party over working families."

Latino voters have become increasingly important in Democratic elections, and were instrumental in helping reelect President Obama in 2012 against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. They are also a constituency that Republicans want to attract to the GOP. 

In a defensive move, the Republican National Committee announced Monday that it has hired Hispanic engagement directors in seven states for a campaign to engage voters year-round in predominantly Latino communities. 

Despite the shutdown, Democrats have reintroduced efforts to pass immigration reform in the House. In June, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill, which Sen. Rubio helped design.