Republican GA-07 nominee Mark Gonsalves spoke with The Georgia Star News at length on Thursday about the ever-increasing influence Spanish-speaking voters have on the Republican Party.
“What the Hispanic communities have come to realize is that what they work so hard for, here, is really being squandered in Washington D.C., that their hard work is not being treated with a level of respect,” Gonsalves said.
The congressional upstart, who faces Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA-06) in November, spoke on taxpayer fund misuses.
“A big piece of that is financial respect. In other words, they’re paying taxes and watching the money literally be misallocated, spent frivolously, and so forth. They’re paying very close attention to this and now for the first time as a party, the Republican party realizes we’ve got great common ground with our Hispanic communities.”
Gonsalves shared what he saw as commonalities between Spanish-speaking communities and traditional Republican principles.
“Number one, pro-family. They’re very family oriented and so are we as a party. They’re pro-small business and obviously we are pro-small business as well, so it’s a great alignment,” he said.
According to GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a record 102 Hispanic-Americans ran for Republican office this year.
“They want safety in their neighborhood and communities as well. They want small government,” he added.
“We used to be the party of small government and we need to return to those principles, and they are very much pro-life. We have great, great unifiers but what the Democrat Party has done, is they’ve painted us a particular way. That particular way is that we’re not looking out for them and that we want them all to, in essence, disappear over the border. That’s not the case,” Gonsalves said.
He clarified what he sees as a clear demand for secure borders from legal, Spanish-speaking Americans.
“The fact of the matter is the vast majority of members of our Hispanic community, they also want secure borders for our country and they want immigration laws to be followed.”
Gonsalves asserted that hard-working Hispanic-Americans just want to be able to create a life for themselves without interference from Uncle Sam.
“They want to be treated with dignity. We need to be able to give them a path to be able to fulfill their American dream without undue burdens from the government,” Gonsalves said. “Less regulation, more access to capital, free-market enterprise, not crony capitalism.”
“Our Hispanic communities have created a lot of jobs. A lot,” he added.
Gonsalves asserted that historically the Democrats have dictated the relationship narrative between the parties and the populace.
“We’ve let the Democrat Party control the narrative to our Hispanic communities, and I do use the plural on purpose because it’s made up of a number of communities,” he said.
The GA-07 congressional hopeful brought up the recently opened community center in Suwanee, Georgia, as an example of growth.
“The RNC, of course, opened up the Hispanic Community Center in Suwanee so that’s a very good sign. That’s to me, a stake in the ground,” Gonsalves said.
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Addison Basurto is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Follow Addy on Twitter and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Mark Gonsalves” by Mark Gonsalves.
