This weekend at a Donald Trump Rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump spotted a sign we admittedly don’t see too often. The sign read “Latinas For Trump” and Mr. Trump actually stopped what he was saying to bring the woman with the sign up on the stage. The Latina woman, after stating that she was from Mexico, then started to speak about why she would be voting for Trump in November and it was because he is for law and order when it comes to legal immigration into the United States.
After a few se
conds of her overexcited babbling about how much money Trump claims illegal immigrants take away from our government, Trump embraces her and claims that she said it better than he could have.
Watch the video here.
From a rhetorical perspective, I think it was smart to point out the Latina woman and bring her up on stage because it provides a tangible anecdote. Rather than just saying “Oh Latinas for Trump, we are doing so well with the Latinos!” like Trump normally does, he got a short story from this woman and people were able to put a face to the claim.
I also found it very interesting that in the video, you could see that there were signs that said “Gays for Trump” and “Women for Trump” and that they all seemed to be placed near the front (or at least in front of the camera angle”. Could this be strategic? It seems like Trump is trying to win back the people he has marginalized in the past. This may not be an October surprise, but these signs in the front row of a Trump rally sure did astound me!
I agree that this is a good strategy to get surrogate speakers who represent different groups to speak and endorse his campaign. I feel that with the election date approaching so soon that this is almost too late to make an difference on undecided voters. I feel that some of the signs could be real and some could be supporters trying to make an illusion of various demographics that have been marginalized by the candidate to appear to be supporting him right before the election.