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Virus stalls Latinos’ political climb

GRAHAM, N.C. (AP) — Like many Americans, Ricky Hurtado had plans for his summer.

He formally launched his first bid for public office in March and expected to spend sweltering days knocking on doors, clenching glossy campaign literature and making his case directly to voters. This summer, he was going prove that a 31-year-old son of Salvadoran immigrants could give Latinos a say — even in North Carolina, even in part of Donald Trump’s America.

But this is a story about waiting — and about the detours on the path to power.

The coronavirus upended the Democrat’s campaign for statehouse. Hurtado stopped door-knocking. The closest he came to potential voters was standing 6 feet or more away while volunteering at food banks or a virus testing site. And, still, he contracted the virus himself.

Across the U.S., the coronavirus outbreak is disrupting Latinos’ difficult climb up the political ladder.

The disease has disproportionately sickened Latinos and impeded voter registration ahead of the November presidential election. In North Carolina, only 5,000 Latinos have been added to the voter rolls since mid-March, less than half the number added during the same period four years ago.

The state has 1 million Latino residents, but two-thirds are not eligible to vote because they are either under age 18 or not citizens — the second-highest rate in the nation.

In Alamance County amid the housing tracts and thick forests reaching between Raleigh and Greensboro, there are three Latinos who cannot vote for every one who can.

For decades, those numbers meant that Latinos’ growing population in the state didn’t translate into political power.

Now the children of immigrants are coming of age.

“It really all depends on me,” said John Paul Garcia, 20, the only member of his family of six who can vote. “I’m my sister’s voice, my brother’s voice, my parents’ voice.”

Trump won North Carolina by less than 4 percentage points. Hurtado’s Democrat predecessor lost the statehouse seat by 298 votes in 2018.

Hurtado knows it would easier to focus on white voters, still the majority in the district. But he wants his campaign to be about more than just winning the seat, flipping the legislature or even putting a Democrat in the White House.

“It’s actually engaging people,” he said this spring, as he drove to knock on doors in one of the many trailer parks across the county.

It would be the last time Hurtado door-knocked before the pandemic hit.

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