It’s a turnaround from a couple of months ago when President Joe Biden saw his lead with Hispanic and Latino voters over former President Donald Trump dwindling.

Charles Rodriguez, the chairman of the Puerto Rico Democrats, said after Biden’s June 27 debate against Trump that many Puerto Ricans located in the mainland United States, particularly Florida, “lost enthusiasm” for Biden’s candidacy.

“​​They were slipping. And when I say slipping, not necessarily to vote for Trump but just not turn out and vote,” Rodriguez told the Washington Examiner. “But once she announced, because I maintain a lot of contact with the Puerto Ricans in central Florida, everyone got excited.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) echoed a similar sentiment as Rodriguez while speaking to reporters last week at the Democratic National Convention, saying, “I think what we’re seeing is Latino vote has consolidated around the vice president. In every state, she’s doing better.”

He continued, “I was just in Nevada and Arizona, talking to Latino groups, and the energy is, like, real. I think she’s someone that knows the community, understands the community, and people are fired up. You’re gonna see more and more Latinos, especially those that were undecided, all moving towards Kamala Harris. And that, I think will continue.”

A memo put out by Equis research earlier this month shows that the excitement Rodriguez and Garcia have felt is being seen in polling as well, with Harris leading Trump 56% to 37% among registered Hispanic voters in all seven swing states.

For comparison, the research organization’s previous polling only showed Biden leading Trump by a 5-point margin, a significant decline from his 2020 numbers when he won with 65% support from Hispanic and Latino voters.

Harris’s ability to clinch the White House may hinge on how successful her campaign is in identifying the issues that matter to Latino voters, especially in key swing states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Juan Acosta, a first-generation Mexican immigrant who attended the DNC as a credentialed content creator, told the Washington Examiner he believed immigration is a “huge issue” for Latino voters.

“I think a lot of people … have felt let down by lack of inaction for immigration policies giving Dreamers a pathway to citizenship,” said Acosta, who lives in California. “And as someone who’s really passionate about that myself, who’s a big advocate for it, I think sometimes people forget how government works and that it’s not as easy to have a president who’s in support of these things in office but that we need votes from the Senate, from the House, and we tend to zoom out a lot when it comes to some of these issues that are very complex.”

Rosana Arteaga-Lopenza, the sole Hispanic delegate from the Vermont delegation, told the Washington Examiner that foreign policy is a top issue for her as a Venezuelan American, noting the humanitarian crisis the region is undergoing, but she also recognized the economy as a priority.

“Although President Biden and VP Harris have done an incredible job, there are still families around the nation that don’t feel that progress, and we need to make sure that there is a Democrat in the White House for the next term so we can view those policies, celebrate the policies that they have spent so many years working on,” said Arteaga-Lopenza.

While speaking to reporters outside the DNC’s Aug. 19 labor council meeting, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), a top surrogate for Harris who was on her short list for a running mate, said that as he talks to Latino voters in his own state, particularly areas with growing Latino populations such as Allentown, Redding, and Philadelphia, voters “basically want the same things that most other Pennsylvanians want.”

He continued, “They want good schools for their kids. They want safe communities. They want economic opportunity, and they want government to protect their freedoms, not restrict them.”

Harris’s campaign has already started making overtures to the key voting demographic, launching a Whatsapp group called “Latinos con Harris-Walz” during the DNC designed to target Latino voters, with over 50% of Hispanic adults reporting using the app.

Harris’s campaign also launched a new ad in battleground states that targets Latino voters. The ad, which is in Spanish and is part of a part of a seven-figure media blitz, highlights Harris’s work on the border throughout her political career.

“When it comes to fixing our border, no one will fight harder than Vice President Harris. As attorney general of a border state, she took on the cartels, human traffickers, international gangs, and won,” Harris-Walz Coalitions Media Director Maca Casado said in a statement announcing the ad. “And as Vice President she has kept families together, supported immigration reform and worked with Republicans and Democrats to create the strongest border security bill in decades, but Trump tanked it because he thought it would help him politically.”

While Harris has sought to make her work on the border a strength for her campaign, Republicans have argued that she is responsible for the record increase in immigration throughout the Biden administration. A website paid for by the Republican National Committee says Harris is “complicit” in the border crisis and “helped create the worst border crisis in U.S. history by unleashing open-border policies.” 

Trump and his allies have particularly targeted Harris for her work under the Biden administration to address the surge of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Despite Republican attacks, Arteaga-Lopenza said she doesn’t think that Republicans and the MAGA movement have taken “immigration seriously at all,” stating that Harris has “done an incredible job” in her role as vice president.

“​​She is the legacy that if you work hard — she’s a first-generation immigrant,” said Arteaga-Lopenza. “She understands the pain that every immigrant has to go through, and she is the perfect person, and she has done an incredible job to connect with a community that has been forgotten and not seen for so many administrations.”

Acosta similarly applauded Harris’s ability to connect with communities, saying he believes “Harris being at the top of the ticket energized the community a lot, and I do believe that there’s this message of joy and hope that this campaign is bringing.”