Latino Rights Group Breaks With Its History to Endorse Harris-Walz Ticket

The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said on Friday that it supported Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the first formal endorsement of a presidential ticket in the group’s 95-year history.

Leaders of the group, known as LULAC, acknowledged that it had previously refrained from endorsing political candidates but said that members were stirred to action by concerns over the potential negative impact on Latinos if former President Donald J. Trump were elected again.

The endorsement was carried out through the group’s political action committee, the LULAC Adelante PAC, after internal conversations and a unanimous vote. Leaders said they decided to endorse Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz because they were better equipped to address the issues facing Latino communities.

“We can trust them to do what is right for our community and the country,” Domingo Garcia, the chairman of the PAC and a past LULAC president, said in a statement.

Latinos, a multiracial and multiethnic slice of the electorate that made up 10 percent of American voters in 2020, tend to vote Democratic.

But they have been at the center of a tug of war between Democrats and Republicans since Mr. Trump improved his standing with Latinos in 2020 compared with his 2016 campaign. As Mr. Trump and President Biden appeared to be headed for a rematch in the 2024 presidential election, a significant number of Latinos had been considering a third-party option.