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This is In Perfect Paradise, the show about the gap between the dream and reality.

I'm Antonia Ceregido.

We're continuing our conversations with notable Californians in the lead-up to the election.

Our final conversation is with Republican campaign strategist and author of the Latino century, Mike Madrid.

Every four years, the question of whether there is a Latino vote and what that means to

U.S. politics gets batted around across newsrooms.

Cobwebs are cleared off the phrase Latinos are not a monolith.

But in Mike Madrid's latest book, The Latino Century, he argues that there is, in fact,

a Latino vote and that neither party has been able to unlock it.

Mike grew up in Ventura County and is a third-generation Mexican-American. He identifies as a Republican

and served as the press secretary

for the California Assembly Republican leader

and as the political director for the California Republican Party.

But in 2020, he co-launched the Lincoln Project,

a political action committee of moderate conservatives

and former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump.

In Mike's book, he outlines how Latino men, specifically, are finding themselves more drawn

...