Democrats looking to Latinos at midterms

LAS VEGAS» Patricia Lugo rattled off a string of fierce adjectives describing life under the Trump administration — “ugly,” ‘‘bad,” ‘‘terrible.”

She joined a cluster of other Latinos in a Las Vegas shopping center in listing grievances against the president that included referring to Mexican immigrants as rapists and separating parents from children at the border.

Lugo is determined to support Democrats as they fight back, but she’s alarmed that a handful of friends and family have given up on voting.

“They say it doesn’t do anything,” said Lugo, 56, a promoter for a footwear chain. “And it doesn’t matter who votes because (politicians) do whatever they want anyway.”

Trump rode to his improbable victory in 2016 by winning a troika of Rust Belt states where there are relatively few Latinos. This was supposed to be the election Latinos struck back.

Latinos had been poised to play a prominent role in several House races in California and Senate races in Florida and the southwest.

But as Election Day nears, polling shows it’s more affluent and predominantly white collegeeducated women with whom Democrats have made the most inroads, while Latinos haven’t fully turned against Trump and his Republican Party.

“Donald Trump is the most hostile president to Hispanics in American history, yet Donald Trump has between a 25 percent and 35 percent approval rating among some Hispanics — higher than 40 percent in Florida,” said Fernand Amadi, a Floridabased Latino pollster.