Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has rebranded and launched its new Hispanic outreach organization during a political rally in Las Vegas on Sunday. The organization, which waited until five months before election day to launch, has changed its name from Latinos for Trump to Latino Americans for Trump. This rebranding was announced by Jaime Florez, the Hispanic Communications Director for both the campaign and the Republican National Committee.
“It’s very important that we all understand that no matter where we’re coming from, we’re already American,” Florez said, according to a report published by NBC Latino ahead of the well-attended Sunday rally. “Whether you’re African American, Latino American, Asian American, European American, wherever you come from, we are all American.” The new name came about as a result of discussions during conference calls and meetings, he clarified.
“We as Latinos want to be treated as what we are. We are already American. This is our country,” Florez said. “We came here to stay, we came here to pursue our American dream, we have our families here, and we have our future in the United States … Trump gave us the opportunity to feel more united with the idea of working together to make America great again.”
In addition to hosting rallies like the Sunday kickoff in Las Vegas, the campaign plans to launch digital, TV, and radio ads in both Spanish and English. Campaign officials have stated that they were waiting for the conclusion of Trump’s criminal trial in New York before expanding some of their minority outreach efforts, ADN America reported.
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The new launch also comes in the wake of the Republican Party closing several community and minority outreach offices, according to an April 27 report published by the Associated Press. Trump reportedly closed his Hispanic outreach office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after the 2022 midterm elections and in Allentown, Pennsylvania in January 2023. Other minority offices, such as an Asian American outreach location was shuttered in Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The campaign also suffered a loss after it lost its national coalitions director, Derek Silver, in March. Silver had been hired in October after Trump expressed the importance of focusing on the defection of minority voters from the Democratic Party.
“Traditionally, Republicans have not been effective in their efforts to persuade Black and Hispanic voters to vote for our party,” said Lynne Patton, a senior adviser on the Trump campaign who spoke to the AP in late April. “But this is yet another reason why President Trump was adamant that his hand-picked leadership team assume control at the RNC and spearhead a unified effort to embrace the historic defection being witnessed within Black & Hispanic communities from the Democrat party and ensure it’s permanent.”