One of the nation’s fastest-growing employee unions is launching a sizeable voter campaign effort Wednesday in six key battleground states, including Colorado.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will join forces with other organizations to target voters of color, primarily African Americans and Latinos. The get-out-the-vote campaign will involve a bus tour, rallies, precinct walking and voter registration drives.
Eliseo Medina is SEIU’s International Secretary Treasurer. He says the upcoming election is critical not only to Latinos, but to the entire state.
“The same issues that are impacting Latinos are certainly true for the community at large -- education, jobs, making sure everyone has access to healthcare,” he says.
An SEIU press release says the launch of this voter initiative follows a $4 million Spanish-language TV and radio advertising campaign in Colorado, Florida and Nevada.
Medina says the SEIU campaign, which is the largest in the organization's history, will likely swing through Colorado in mid- to late August.
Census data shows nearly 21% of Colorado’s population is Latino, compared to 17% nationally.