AILSA CHANG, HOST:
We've heard a lot on this show about the potential power of Latino voters, but getting Latino people out to the polls in representative numbers has been challenging. One concert promoter thinks that he has an answer which harnesses the growing popularity of regional Mexican music. Reporter Aisha Wallace-Palomares brings us a story about this get-out-the-vote campaign.
AISHA WALLACE-PALOMARES: The campaign is called Grita Canta Vota. And it has its own theme song by the super-popular norteno band Grupo Control.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GRITA CANTA VOTA")
GRUPO CONTROL: (Singing in Spanish).
WALLACE-PALOMARES: They're singing, shout. Sing. Vote. The future is in your hands. I caught up with the campaign's co-founder, concert promoter Esau Torres, at an election event in northern California.
ESAU TORRES: Today everyone who checks their voter registration is going to...
WALLACE-PALOMARES: Esau says the future is in the hands of Latinos because they're the second-largest racial demographic in the United States at a little over 63 million people, but they also have the lowest voter turnout.
TORRES: If you really want to move the needle, you really need to target that 43 out of that 63 million, which are those of Mexican descent, which is why you hear us talking about, you know, the Tucanes, the Javis, the Banda MS, the Grupo Control.
WALLACE-PALOMARES: He's name-dropping the Mexican regional artists involved in a free concert series he helped organize to register voters in battleground states like North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
TORRES: So October is like our Super Bowl. We have events all over the United States.
WALLACE-PALOMARES: Esau adds that if you want to encourage Mexican Americans to vote, you have to speak directly to them and do it authentically. No shade to Bad Bunny or Karol G - they're world-renowned Latino artists, but they're not Mexican.
So can this Mexican regional music Super Bowl of voter registration efforts really move the needle? I asked Mike Madrid that question. He's a political strategist who wrote "The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy." He says it's a cool way to reach out to younger voters, but he's skeptical.
MIKE MADRID: They're not looking to entertainers to change their lives. They're looking to entertainers to escape from their lives. That's what entertainment often is. I'm not convinced that without a message as to why and how this is going to actually change your life - that it will work.
WALLACE-PALOMARES: The free get-out-the-vote concert series ends on November 1, in Laveen, Arizona, with Eslabon Armado...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ELLA BAILA SOLA")
ESLABON ARMADO: (Singing in Spanish).
WALLACE-PALOMARES: ...Probably best known for "Ella Baila Sola," the first Mexican regional song to reach a billion streams on Spotify. For NPR News, I'm Aisha Wallace-Palomares. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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