As tried-and true-partners collaborating over the course of two federal election cycles, New Deal Strategies worked with one of the country’s largest labor organizations, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to develop a robust National Latino Civic Engagement program.

For too long, Latino voters have been courted every four years with empty talking points and unfulfilled promises. Identifying a need for long-term investment and state-by-state organizing, New Deal Strategies worked with SEIU to develop a plan for Latino civic engagement – then got to work executing it.

We embedded ourselves into the program: managing large-scale strategic planning, establishing political and messaging goals, and coordinating strategy for the resulting Latino engagement coalition. Our team also identified target states, created lasting new political partnerships, and helped manage SEIU’s multi-million dollar independent expenditure program. In seamlessly operationalizing the big-picture ideas developed in the initial stages of the work, New Deal Strategies gained real trust with SEIU staff and with the grassroots organizations needed to activate real power on the ground. Using our expertise in organizing, communications, and campaigning, we worked with groups on the ground in states like Arizona, Colorado, and Florida to institutionalize Latino and civic engagement at SEIU.

Ultimately, these community-group partnerships and investments proved to be crucial to getting Democratic candidates across the finish line in 2020, with a record number of Latino voters and a huge increase in Latino voter participation. Latino voters, specifically Latina women who made up 55% of the Latino vote, won the Biden/Harris ticket several key battleground states across the country, and Democrats now represent both Senate seats in five states with large blocs of Latino voters: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. The program we helped SEIU build has allowed the Latino collective to continue organizing year-round, and has underscored the importance – and impact – of investing in the Latino community outside of election cycles.