I’m feeling pretty clueless because I had never heard of Julian Castro when I learned that he will be delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Law who is serving his second term as mayor of San Antonio, Texas. An interesting biographical note is that he has an identical twin brother who went to Stanford and Harvard, too. In his last election, Mayor Castro was reelected with 83% of the vote. He’s also young. He was born in 1974.
We all remember that Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Convention, and we know how that turned out.
Regardless of what this means for the political future of Julian Castro, his selection is an honor for the Latino community. The Republicans will almost certainly highlight Florida Senator Marco Rubio at their convention. However, that seems to be the extent of their Latino outreach. And it is showing in the polls:
New polling data out from the firm Latino Decisions today finds that President Obama still has a huge advantage among Hispanic voters around the country.
Across five swing states with large Hispanic populations — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia — Obama leads Mitt Romney 63-27 among Hispanic voters. The gap is even more pronounced in a handful of those states: Obama’s ahead by 52 points in Arizona, for example, and by 48 points in Colorado. It’s a closer race in Florida, though, with Obama taking 53 percent of Hispanic voters compared with Romney’s 37 percent.
If anything, Mayor Castro is going to help make those numbers grow. I’m excited to see him perform.
Does anyone know more about Mayor Castro?
