Days away from the Virginia gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger will host a Latino voter outreach event at a Mexican restaurant, a strategy that some Latino leaders in the state see as out of touch and far too late to resonate with this critical voting bloc.
Spanberger is scheduled to rally Latino voters Thursday afternoon at the Alexandria location of Los Tios Grill, a local Tex-Mex restaurant chain known for its large margaritas, according to event details obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The address for the “Latinos for Spanberger” event is listed as private, and those interested in attending must register online via Mobilize.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Latino Democrat representing Arizona, is slated to stump for Spanberger at the hour-and-a-half lunchtime event, which Spanberger’s campaign advertises as a rally.
After the Los Tios Grill get-together, Spanberger is rallying half an hour later at a Korean tea shop for an Asian American and Pacific Islander outreach event, the Washington Examiner has learned. Spanberger will visit Soricha Tea & Theater, a Korean cafe located in an Annandale-area strip mall, though those venue details are also private.
The back-to-back events are billed as stops in Spanberger’s statewide “Virginia Votes Blue” bus tour ahead of Election Day.
Some conservative Latino voices in Virginia view the Spanberger campaign’s choice of venue at a Mexican restaurant as tactlessly pandering to Latino voters.
“I love Mexican food, but I’m not Mexican,” said Astrid Gámez, the Venezuelan-born chairwoman of the Latino National Republican Coalition’s Virginia chapter. “Is there a presumption that everybody is? Do they feel like all of us are Mexican?”
Rev. Jonathan Avendaño, vice chairman of the Virginia Governor’s Latino Advisory Board, questioned why Spanberger’s campaign did not publicly list the location details.
“If this event is truly about connecting with the Latino community, why not make it open to all?” Avendaño told the Washington Examiner. “True engagement requires transparency and accessibility. Latinos deserve the opportunity to hear directly from every candidate seeking to represent them, not just a select few behind closed doors.”
Avendaño noted that Spanberger’s campaign event comes “immediately after” her competitor, Virginia’s GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, recently held her own Latino outreach gathering, “which was open to the public and welcomed everyone, regardless of political affiliation.”
“That’s what authentic outreach looks like: creating space for honest dialogue and inclusion, not carefully controlled appearances,” Avendaño countered.
In contrast, Avendaño continued, Spanberger’s get-out-the-vote event, occurring in the final week before the Nov. 4 election, comes off as hastily thrown together in the 11th hour of her campaign.
“[W]hat we’re seeing from Spanberger feels more like a last-minute effort than a genuine investment in Virginia’s Latino community,” Avendaño said. “Outreach shouldn’t be a political checkbox at the end of a campaign — it should be a consistent commitment.”
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Gámez said the Democratic Party at large has not properly addressed the issues that matter most to the Latino community, citing mass immigration; Virginia’s exorbitantly high vehicle tax, as 2024 exit polling found the economy to be the top issue for Latino voters; and ideological conflicts afflicting the public school system.
“It matters to us what is happening in these schools,” Gámez, the founder of Family Services Network, an abuse prevention advocacy organization actively involved in Northern Virginia’s schools, told the Washington Examiner.
On the campaign trail, Spanberger has faced scrutiny for her tepid stance on whether biological boys should be able to access girls-only facilities or play against girls in school sports, among other school transgender controversies, in what’s become a culture flashpoint, scrambling the governor’s race.
“They are not addressing anything,” Gámez said of Virginia Democrats, “because when I watch TV just to see what they are talking about, they don’t say what they are going to fix. The only thing that they do is attack the Republican candidates. Why don’t you say what are you going to do?”
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Gámez said she feels frustrated with “the games that the Democratic Party plays with the Latino community.”
“As a Latina living in this country for 31 years in Virginia, I can see how the Democrat Party has neglected the Latino community, always saying that they are going to fix the immigration problem, because the big, big problem for Latinos is immigration,” Gámez said.
Latino and Hispanic households are Alexandria’s fastest-growing demographic. In 2020, nearly 30,000 residents of Hispanic or Latino origin were counted in the U.S. Census, a 30% increase from 2010 that outpaced Alexandria’s overall growth. Today, according to Alexandria’s demographics database, Hispanic and Latino residents comprise 18% of the population.
Spanberger’s campaign was contacted for comment.