Democrat Deborah Adoff thinks she can flip a Hazleton state House district that has been Republican-represented for the last 14 years.
Adoff thinks that partly because of the 116th House District’s large Hispanic population.
Adoff aims to knock off first-term incumbent Republican Rep. Dane Watro.
The 65-year-old retired court stenographer from Schuylkill County thinks she can win if she can convince Latino voters to cast ballots.
“Well, the makeup of our district is it's pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans,” Adoff said in an interview. “But a lot of the Democrats are Latinos.”
The 116th consists of Hazleton, Hazle Township and West Hazleton in Luzerne County; as well as East Union, Kline, Mahanoy, North Union and Union townships and Mahanoy City, McAdoo, Ringtown and Shenandoah and boroughs in Schuylkill County. Adoff lives in East Union. Watro lives in Kline.
As of Sept. 30, the district had 13,372 Republicans and 12,481 Democrats, but more than a third of the district’s voting-age population (36.8%) is Hispanic.
That’s the largest voting-age Hispanic population of any House district in Northeast Pennsylvania and sixth largest in Pennsylvania, according to the 2020 census and Dave’s Redistricting, a website that tracks voting trends nationwide.
That large Hispanic population didn’t help Yesenia Rodriguez. In 2022, the first election with the current district boundary lines, Watro easily dispatched Rodriguez by a more than 2 to 1 margin (9,811 votes, or 68.2% to 4,571, or 34.8%).
Turnout for the 2022 election in the 116th district was just below half of registered voters (47%).
By comparison, turnout statewide was more than three in five voters (60.5%).
“Most of the Democratic base in the 116th is in downtown Hazleton,” Adoff said after a July rally in McAdoo. “And they are Spanish-speaking. Unfortunately, they didn't come out to vote in 2022. And that's why Ms. Rodriguez lost. But we really do believe if we can get out the vote in the Latino community that we can really make this a race.”
Even worse for the Democrats this year: the district had about 900 more Democrats than Republicans in 2022, which means the district has flipped in registration. The district also overwhelmingly prefers Republicans.
In the major statewide races between 2016 and 2020 — president, U.S. Senate, governor and attorney general — almost three in five voters (58.1%) backed Republicans, but only two in five (40.2%) backed Democrats, according to Dave’s Redistricting.
The House Democratic Campaign Committee, which helps Democratic candidates, does not consider the race worth spending money on.
“I mean, we try to keep an eye on everybody as much as we can. But in a tight year like this, it's been harder to spread out, especially in a district where (President Joe) Biden got 35%. And even in 2022, (Gov. Josh) Shapiro only got 42%,” said Madeline Zann, the Democratic committee’s executive director. “I think that growing Latino population is definitely interesting.”
Adoff is counting on it.
“We've got to make them understand how important it is,” she said. “This election is critical, not just at the top, but all the way down. You know, we've got decisions being made in Pennsylvania that are not being made for the worker. And, you know, if we want to work for the worker, we've got to vote in Democrats.”
She and Democrats hope the presidential election will boost Latino turnout.
Marilyn Calderon Cruz, the first Hispanic elected to public office in the Hazleton area, knows about getting out the vote. She’s a Freeland councilwoman who won election by knocking on a lot of doors, many of them home to Puerto Ricans like her.
Freeland Councilwoman Marilyn Calderon Cruz, right, speaks to a small rally of voters July 25, 2024, at LaBella Luna Italian Restaurant in McAdoo. Cruz hopes to motivate Hispanic voters to turn out for Democrat Deb Adoff, a retired court stenographer. Adoff wants to represent the state 116th House District and give Democrats the seat for the first time in more than a decade. Her opponent is Republican first-term incumbent Dane Watro
Cruz won one of four available Freeland council seats last year, but only three others ran so she was guaranteed to win. The top three all received at least 22.6% of the vote. She received 17.5%.
As much as she’s a sign of Latino electoral progress locally, the difference in votes between her and the top three signals candidates from a similar background must still make more headway to win local elections.
Cruz said Latinos sometimes get discouraged if an election doesn’t go their way the first time.
“We have to teach them,” Cruz said. “That is politics. If you lost, you try again. But they have to understand the vote is a right, and we have to do it because this is a right.”
As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans, she points out, are already eligible to vote. Many other Latinos -- Dominicans, Central Americans and Cubans -- have yet to attain citizenship.
That may be Adoff’s chief problem. The large Hispanic voting-age population might not translate into votes for anyone because many Latinos haven’t earned citizenship.
Republicans may stoke fears of widespread non-citizen voting, but Cruz disputes that. Non-citizens fear the consequences of trying to vote, she said.
“Not (just) any immigrant can come in here and say, ‘Oh, let me, let me show my ID, and then I can vote.’” she said. “That is not happening.”
For his part, Watro, 48, isn’t worried.
“And I don't even know my opponent. What's her name? I always forget,” he said.
He thinks Latinos and others will vote for him and points to his large victory in 2022. He’s done a good job because he has a good relationship with district constituents, including Latinos, he said.
“It's not a Latino, it's not a white, it's not a Puerto Rican, Dominican, it's a district,” he said. “I voted my district. I was there for them, meaning the entire district … And I wouldn’t say Latinos are going to be voting Democrat, because I don't think that's true.”
