Leslie
Murillo is a political rarity. She’s black, Latina, a millennial, and a
Republican. That combination of identities may seem incongruous given
voting trends, but Murillo insists they’re not. In fact, Murillo has
spent a great deal of time over the past few years explaining to family,
friends, and others why she, a young woman of color, feels at home in
the Grand Old Party. Those conversations are getting a lot harder this
year.
“In
the Trump days it’s been very difficult to say out loud that I’m a
Republican,” says Murillo, a 31-year-old nurse based in Minnesota. “It
has interfered with my identity as a black Republican, which was always
challenged, always questioned. I can’t even blame the people who are
making these insults [now]—I mean, look at who our candidate is."
Murillo
has an admixture of beliefs that come together to put her outside of
both major parties ideologically: She’s pro-choice, anti-welfare,
pro-Black Lives Matter, and against the Affordable Care Act. It’s a set
of positions she says she evolved into. Driven by a sense of duty and
possibility, Murillo says she voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and watched
his inauguration with so much gratitude that she wept. During Obama’s
first term, however, she began studying the principles of Democrats and
Republicans and thinking deeply about her own values. The more she
learned about the conservative tenets of small government, individual
freedom and personal responsibility, the more she realized that she was a
Republican.
“‘You’re black and you’re a Republican, what’s wrong with you?’”
“‘It doesn’t make any sense.’”
“‘Oh, you wish you were white.’”
Those
are the responses Murillo says she gets most often when people find out
she’s Republican. Beyond the judgment, though, Murillo is an anomaly as
a voter. In fact, she is at the intersection of four groups that lean
Democrat. According to a Pew report
released last year, young voters like her favor the Democratic Party by
16 percentage points, Latinos lean Democrat by 30 points and blacks by
69 points, and women favor the Democratic Party over the Republican
Party 52 percent to 36 percent. Pew also found that just 12 percent of millennial Latinas and only four percent of black millennial women identify as Republican.
But
for many of the young conservatives of color that do exist, Trump’s
ascent within the Republican Party has made their already challenged
political position feel indefensible. And, although many support the
candidate, admire him as a businessman and appreciate his candor, there
are others who are dismayed with the way issues of race have been placed
front and center in Trump’s campaign. Those most offended say they’ve
had their understanding of the Republican Party, and their own position
in it, shaken up by the nominee’s many questionable statements and
positions. They’re not sure if they’re ready for Trump’s America.
The
Trump campaign’s focus on voters of color and racially charged issues
has only intensified as Election Day nears. The candidate recently gave a
series of speeches that
address what he sees are the issues harming the black community, which
he says are living in "hell." Trump has also been visiting black churches around the country and, along with the Republican National Committee, his campaign put together a Hispanic advisory council to reach voters of color.
Leah Le’Vell,
21, is a part of Trump and the RNC's outreach to black voters. The
Georgia native, who is black, is taking time off from Georgia State
University to work as the committee's African-American initiatives and
urban media fellow, tasked with outreach to historically black colleges
and universities. Le’Vell cites Trump’s focus on the economy and
American exceptionalism as reasons she advocates for him.
“What
I like about Trump is his emphasis on jobs,” Le’Vell says. “Especially
with me being a millennial and my friends being millennial. When we
graduate from college, the first thing we are looking for is a job. We
don’t want to stay at our parents’ house after college and not have a
job. I think that Donald Trump’s focus is that all Americans get the
benefits from the American dream.”
Despite
the efforts of Le’Vell and the Trump campaign, the vast majority of
young voters aren't warming on the Republican Party’s controversial
nominee. In fact, a recent analysis of five surveys by FiveThirtyEight found
that only 20 percent of adults between 18 and 29 say they’ll vote for
Trump. If that polling holds true on Election Day, it would be the worst
performance by a major party nominee among young voters since 1952.
One
person whose vote Trump is certain to get on Election Day is Angelo
Gomez, an American-born 19-year-old of Nicaraguan and Puerto Rican
descent. The slender high school student has spent a good deal of his
free time interning at the makeshift Trump campaign office in Las Vegas
and says Trump is something of a personal hero to him.
“For
a long time, I prayed for God to give me a mentor that can really help
me grow,” Gomez says. “With [interning for the Trump campaign] I can see
that I’ve grown so much and kind of come out of my shell. I’ve realized
what I want to do with my life and I really owe that to Trump.”
Although Latinos like Gomez skew Democratic, Trump has higher support among them than other group of voters of color—which may seem surprising to some given Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants and attacks on a Latino judge, which even Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House and a Trump endorser, called “the textbook definition of racism.”
Gomez
says Trump’s words were taken out of context and insists that he’s
ultimately a candidate who wants to help all Americans. Gomez believes
so much in that message that he’s become a leading voice for the
candidate online. His social media profiles are dedicated to
the GOP nominee, and when a jubilant Trump took the stage at the South
Point Arena in Las Vegas to address cheering supporters in February,
Gomez was seated behind him, looking on in awe. He got to meet and talk
to his idol at the rally, and he'll never forget it.
“To
finally meet him, and for him to give me the respect that he did when I
looked him in the eye, to listen to every word that I was saying, that
was just a very magical experience,” Gomez says. “It was probably the
best moment of my life—I look up to him so much.”
Leslie Murillo sees
danger where Gomez sees a mentor, however, and as Trump’s vision for
America has become clearer in recent months, she says it’s become more
apparent to her that his dream for America would be her nightmare.
It
was the issue of policing that sent her over the edge. After hearing
Trump advocate for broken windows policing policies in neighborhoods
with high crime, Murillo says she finally decided there is no way she
can bring herself to vote for her party’s candidate.
“With
the stop-and-frisk, that is where I draw the line,” she says. “My
brother is black. When I have children I’m going to have a black child,
and if I have a black son I don’t want anybody frisking him because he’s black—and let’s face it, that’s what stop-and-frisk is.”
For
now, Murillo says she plans to write Ted Cruz’s name on her ballot as a
form of protest. And while many Trump supporters are looking forward to
November, she’s considering what the Republican Party will look like
when he’s gone.
“We
have to figure out a way to reach more than one type of
people,” Murillo says. “We can’t be the party of white men, and I
believe that’s really what it’s turned
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