How Fox Noticias could change American politics

For years, in the absence of a Spanish-speaking, right-leaning news channel, discussions about the need for Fox en Español have been prevalent. With the Hispanic electorate becoming the second-largest voting bloc in the country — one that is more swayable than the black voting bloc — politicos have been pitching the idea for a while. Investors, however, weren’t always convinced. Now though, things have changed.

Fox News Media announced last week that they will release a daily one-hour-long Spanish-language program entitled Fox Noticias on October 15. The show, which will air on Fox Deportes, the longest-running Spanish-language sports network, will air every weekday at 4 p.m. ET. It will be hosted by Fox & Friends Weekend co-anchor Rachel Campos-Duffy, an Arizona-raised television personality with a career including roles in an MTV reality TV show and on ABC’s The View. 

“As the leading cable news provider among Hispanic viewers with one of the most diverse audiences in cable news, we are proud to deliver new headline-driven content that focuses on the issues impacting the Hispanic community,” the network’s senior vice president John Sylvester said.

Though Fox Noticias starting within an already established sports-focused channel makes it feel like a test-run, the operation’s prospects are exciting. According to a recent New York Times/Siena College survey, Latino voters have gone from voting for the Democratic nominee by 68 percent in 2016 to 56 percent today. Republicans, on the other hand, have seen support for their candidate go from 28 percent among Hispanics in 2016 to 37 percent support today.

Consider that in key states such as Arizona, the Hispanic population is seven times larger than the black population, while in states such as Nevada, Hispanics account for three times the number of black people. In terms of electoral impact, when accounting for geography, with around 60 percent of black Americans living in the predominantly red South and another big chunk residing in states that aren’t going red anytime soon, there is a strong case that Republicans should strategically target the Hispanic vote more than the black vote.

And Hispanics have proven to be far open to changing their party affiliation. NYT/Siena recently found that almost 80 percent of likely black voters would choose Kamala Harris. And while there is a 6 percent shift of black voters toward Trump since the last presidential election, Harris performs four points better than Biden did prior to his withdrawal from the race. (It’s important to note that black voters’ participation rate is still around 10 percent higher than that of Hispanic voters.)

There have been tales of minorities exiting the Democratic Party for years now, and if Fox News is taking this risk now, it’s because there’s more than magical thinking involved here.

As a sixteen-year-old at a West Palm Beach conference, I asked now-congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna why conservatives didn’t take Spanish media seriously. It was at that conference that I met several Latino conservatives who have gone onto great things on the right — some rising to become congressional communications directors, others creating their own podcasts and a few becoming big-name talking heads. 

Before graduating from high school, I appeared on Telemundo and a number of other Spanish-speaking shows. The demand was very real, but the market was adjusting. A few years later, Univisión brought in conservatives like my friends Vianca Rodríguez, who is now Hispanic communications deputy director for the Trump campaign, and Franklin Camargo.

Franklin arrived to the US from Venezuela at the age of twenty-one without speaking any English and is now a main star in Univisión’s version of PBS’s Firing Line (“Línea de Fuego”). “I think this is great news,” he told me, regarding the launch of Fox Noticias. “Incredible news. Hispanics are the largest minority in this country, as well as the demographic group that is growing most rapidly — 36 million Latinos will be able to vote this year.

“It’s exciting to see new alternatives of communication that distance themselves — or potentially shatter — what has been for now the norm with Spanish-speaking shows in the United States,” he added. “Latinos are not a monolithic group; they are an incredibly diverse group not just ethnically and racially, but also in terms of thought. It’s about time this is reflected in the world of news.” 

The sentiment is widely shared. For Hispanics who consume media in Spanish, this is a win, and for Republicans, it could prove revolutionary. Yelling “just learn English” and letting the political left corner this market hasn’t worked well for the right. What Fox News is doing may be the start of something special.