Donald Trump launched his campaign with language about Mexicans that still angers many Latinos.
“They are bringing drugs, they are bringing crime, they are rapists, and some I assume are good people,’ Trump said in June 2015.
But when Trump appeared in Everett last month, he met with Mill Creek resident Luis Valdes.
“Personable guy. Cool, calm and collected. Mild mannered,” he said of Trump.
The local Trump campaign suggested we meet with Valdes to show there are local Latinos supporting Mr. Trump. Valdes showed us a picture taken of him and his wife at a Trump fundraiser.
He said, "Absolutely not," when we asked whether he thought Trump was making a racist appeal.
Valdes is a retired Boeing aerospace engineer and lawyer who came to this country from Cuba when he was 5 years old.
“I don't understand the phenomenon of Latinos not supporting Mr. Trump. Here's a person that's trying to make sure that he brings jobs back.”
New poll numbers from The Hill political website show Hillary Clinton with a 38-point lead over Trump among Latinos. But Barack Obama had a 44 percent edge with Latinos in 2012.
“You can always usually find one or two people to support anything or anybody. That doesn't mean that as a whole, you can look at the polls and you can see that as a whole the Latino community understands that what he's saying is false,” said Marissa Chavez, a child welfare policy advocate and a supporter of Hillary Clinton.
She’s a native of Texas, and her grandparents were Mexican immigrants.
Chavez believes Clinton will hold a strong majority among Latinos in the election.
“I think that the rhetoric that the Trump campaign has put out is so hateful and racist against so many Latinos and Latino families that it's really turned them off from supporting him,” she said.
Latinos make up roughly 12 percent of Washington's population.