For Yuliana Rico Chavez, immigration fears are part of her family’s everyday reality.
“Both my family and I are scared and that has a lot to do with who I’m going to vote for and where I stand right now,” said the 19-year-old business major at American River College in Sacramento.
But immigration wasn’t one of the issues that mattered most to her when asked about the California governor’s race. She instead pointed to affordability issues including housing costs and gas prices.
“My mom and my brothers are the ones who are working, so there’s a lot of weight on their shoulders now that the prices have increased,” she said, noting that she doesn’t work because she’s a full-time student. “The only thing that matters is if they care about affordability for the people in California and how long they’ve helped the actual people of California.”
Chavez is part of Latinos Unidos and El Centro, student groups that support Latino students on campus. She said she’s leaning towards supporting Xavier Becerra because of his experience fighting the Trump administration when he was Health and Human Services Secretary under the Biden administration.
Immigration remains deeply personal for many young Latino Californians, particularly as the Trump administration ramps up enforcement operations. But interviews with young voters and political experts suggest economic pressures like housing costs, education and healthcare are increasingly important.
Democratic candidates are capitalizing on addressing these concerns as more Latino voters are seemingly drifting from the Republican party after a rightward shift seen during the 2024 presidential election. That shift, in which a larger share of Latinos voted for Republican candidates across California, was also largely attributed to cost-of-living issues .
But the continued focus on economics also raises questions about how much messages about immigration resonate with voters in the governor’s race.
Lilian Esbejel, 30, studies psychology at American River College and is also part of El Centro and Latinos Unidos. She became a naturalized citizen last year and will be casting her first ballot this June during the primaries.
Her top issues are similar to Chavez’s — affordability, education, housing and healthcare.
“I have to get more hours for work and it’s complicated because I need to make more money but at the same time I want to build a future and I want to get my studies,” she said.
Esbejel said the issue of immigration is still a big concern for her, particularly when she struggled to access financial aid while navigating the immigration process.
“I felt like I needed to get more resources,” she said. “It was scary because I was trying to get the money and the time.”
Yet she said immigration feels less like a political issue and more like a daily constant that she and her family have to grapple with.
Both of these students’ concerns are in line with national data on top concerns for Latino voters. A recent poll by UnidosUS found that economic stability — cost of living, inflation, affordable housing, healthcare and jobs — were the most important issues. Immigration was fifth, despite increased federal enforcement across the country.
A changing Latino electorate
Mariana Valdez Jimenez, a specialist at El Centro who works closely with Latino students at American River College, said she was not surprised students did not immediately bring up immigration as a top political concern.
“Immigration almost is transcending the political world,” she said. “That is an emotional conversation that is being had at home.”
Jimenez noted that many young Latinos she works with also feel politically disconnected.
“Right now young Latinos don’t feel like they have efficacy with politics,” she said. “They don’t feel like they have a chance.”
Political experts say previous generations of Latino voters included large numbers of newly naturalized immigrants who saw immigration policy as a key political issue. But younger Latino voters who grew up in California are increasingly focused on broader economic pressures affecting working-class families.
Matt Barreto, founder of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, said affordability now dominates concerns among all demographics, including young Latinos.
“There’s always that disconnect between Latinos being a huge part of the state economy, the state population, the public school system, but a relatively smaller part of the electorate,” Barreto said.
Barreto noted Latino voters generally make up about a quarter of the state’s electorate, but that percentage is expected to increase over time as more young Latinos become eligible to vote.
“At some point we will be 40% of the electorate,” he said.
Barreto also said Latino voters are becoming more politically diverse and less driven by identity politics. He attributes that to “great strides” the state has made in electing Latinos to powerful positions.
“That allows the average Latino voter to look deeper and more holistically at the issues because we’ve been able to get our members of Congress, our members of the state Legislature and these other offices finally elected after decades of struggle,” he stressed.
Baretto also noted that California has only had one Latino governor — Romualdo Pacheco — who was never elected. The then-lieutenant governor took the seat in 1875 when the previous governor resigned. The last Latino candidate to come close to becoming governor was then-Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante during the 2003 recall election won by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The recent rise in popularity of Becerra, who previously served as California attorney general, may be the closest a Latino has gotten to being elected to governor since then.
Affordability vs immigration enforcement
The leading Democratic candidates for governor are all addressing immigration enforcement in differing ways with some making them central to their campaigns.
Becerra has largely focused on affordability and health care while also pointing to his own background as the son of immigrants.
“I was born here, I’ve been here forever,” Becerra said during a recent interview following a campaign rally in Sacramento. “But I still am concerned about immigration not just as a policymaker, not just as the next governor, but as a son of immigrants who has family members who are recent immigrants.”
When asked how he plans to reach out to young Latino voters, he said he’s garnered support “organically” through online content creators and social media.
“Whether it’s because it’s the ‘Becerra era,’ or because I’m ‘Tio Xavi,’ all I know is that people are out there and they are helping us move this election in our direction,” he said referring to names that have become popular online among supporters.
In a recent interview with CapRadio during a No Kings Rally in Sacramento, Democratic candidate Tom Steyer acknowledged affordability as the biggest issue for young Latinos, but he’s also made immigration enforcement far more central to his message.
“I think the issue which is not specifically Latino, but much more significantly Latino, is about ICE, is about immigration, is about the attempt by the Trump administration to terrorize and pick on people of color and specifically Latinos,” he said. “I’m for abolishing ICE.”
Steyer, a billionaire who is self-funding his campaign, has been among the top polling Democrats in the race, though he’s trailed Becerra in recent weeks.
He said he also believes the threat of artificial intelligence taking jobs is a growing concern for younger voters, including Latinos.
“We cannot allow artificial intelligence to take away jobs from millions of Californians and do nothing about it,” he said. “We’ve got to be making sure that artificial intelligence is a tool for workers, not a replacement of workers.”
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — the other prominent Latino candidate in the race — argued that other candidates misunderstand Latino voters if they see immigration as their primary concern.
“The Latino agenda is the American agenda,” Villaraigosa said. “They care about a good job and an economy that’s working for more people. Yes they care about immigration, but the notion that that’s all they care about or the most important thing just isn’t true.”
If elected, Villaraigosa said he would implement his gas relief plan that would call for the state to provide relief payments to low-income families if prices stay above $5.50 per gallon for over a month.
Villaraigosa said young people have the most at stake when it comes to elections and he called on them to get involved.
“Look at the candidates,” he said. “I think you’ll see that only one of us have the wherewithal and the record of taking these issues on.”
Republican political consultant Mike Madrid said the candidates performing well with Latino voters right now are those leaning into the working-class identity and economic concerns.
“This is a community that does not feel politically engaged,” he added. “It doesn’t feel listened to. It doesn’t feel like it has a home in either party.”
Madrid attributes Becerra’s rise in popularity partially to a shift he’s seen among working-class Latinos looking for candidates they relate to personally.
“They’re stepping up and saying, maybe we need to look a little bit different in this Democratic Party not because of the complexion of our skin or the sound of our last name, but because of the affordability issues and working class concerns that I have,” he said.
Madrid argued Becerra fits that description better than other candidates pointing to his 24 years in Congress representing a blue collar and immigrant-dense district in East Los Angeles.
A new Emerson College poll shows Becerra leading with nearly 20% with Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton both at 17%.
Villaraigosa is still stuck in the single digits with only 4%. Madrid said that’s likely due to name recognition issues with voters who were too young to know who he was when he was mayor of Los Angeles.
