History matters as Bill Clinton stumps for Hillary in Laredo (video in link below) 

When it comes to winning the battle for the Latino vote in Texas, history matters.

“This county was the first county in Texas to endorse me when I ran for president,” Bill Clinton told a crowd assembled to hear him stump for his wife, Hillary, at Texas A&M International University on Monday. “It’s great to be back.”

Bill Clinton’s stop marked the first time a president had visited the university. But the couple’s footprint in South Texas is more than four decades old, dating to Hillary Clinton’s time spent registering Latino voters for presidential candidate George McGovern in the early 1970s. That history alone makes rival Bernie Sanders’ task of chipping away at Clinton’s “firewall” of support among this crucial voting bloc much more difficult, experts and pundits said.

The Vermont senator has the energy. He has the cash. But when it comes to time needed to win over Latinos, Bernie Sanders is running a deficit.

“There’s always a pathway to victory but it takes two things: time and money,” said Laura Barberena, a communications consultant based in San Antonio. “Bernie Sanders is being competitive on money, but he doesn’t necessarily have the time [to create] the relationships.”

Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa hasn’t made up his mind about whom to support but said it would be “an impossible task” for Sanders to make a significant impact in the state before the March 1 primary.

“I think the Bernie people are going to work their hearts out, but this is a really hard state to tackle,” said Hinojosa, who says he admires Sanders so much he has a poster of one of his quotes hanging above his fireplace. Referring to Hillary Clinton, Hinojosa said: “It’s an old, old relationship with her down here … She’s seen as part of a family.”

Winning the Texas primary on Super Tuesday will come down in large part to getting Latinos to the polls, and getting them to vote for you, said Jim Henson, head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin: “It’s very likely that the margin in the Clinton-Sanders primary is going to depend on Latino turnout.”

Survey results released last week by Public Policy Polling showed Clinton leading Sanders by 16 points among Hispanic respondents in the state, and by 23 points overall.

While Latinos are not expected to vote in the same numbers they did in the 2008 primary, the turnout is likely to top that of four years ago, when census data showed Latinos made up one-third of the state’s registered voters.

Eight years ago, Clinton beat then-Sen. Barack Obama across all age groups of Latino voters in Texas, and her goal this year is to retain and, if possible, expand that support. That’s why she has stopped in Texas seven times since launching her campaign, compared with Sanders’ two visits, and why Bill Clinton made his high-profile visit Monday to Laredo, which is 96 percent Hispanic.

“His speech was really inspirational,” said Eloni Wildenborg, a 34-year-old student studying to become a teacher. She said Hillary Clinton’s policy stances on student loan debt and immigration resonate more with her, but it’s her familiarity with both her and the former president’s involvement in Texas that tips her hand: “Just because their family has been a part of Texas, that makes it an easy vote for me.”

Nallely Alanis, 25, a psychology major, said it’s important to her that the Clintons are actively courting the Hispanic vote: “I just think her [campaign] is more motivated to get that Latino vote.”

It’s this very demographic, Latino 18- to 29-year-olds, in which the Sanders campaign hopes to make inroads here. Clinton won among these voters by the most narrow margin in the 2008 Texas primary against Obama, just 3 percentage points, and Sanders has already shown success this year with this demographic in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“Every day we’re doing better in the Latino and African-American communities,” said Sanders’ Texas campaign director, Jacob Limon. Four of the campaign’s seven campaign offices are in predominantly Hispanic areas — San Antonio, Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso — and the campaign has hired a Hispanic outreach staffer in Houston.

The campaign doesn’t have a unique strategy for targeting these communities, however, Limon said, and it isn’t undertaking detailed polling to find out which Senate districts might be more amenable to Sanders’ message. Instead, they are tackling the state using a “retail politics” approach more common in smaller states, reaching out to voters one-on-one to pitch Sanders’ platform of free college tuition, higher minimum wage and holding Wall Street accountable.

“It’s just about the Bernie message,” Limon said. “I can tell you, it’s resonating.”

The best-case scenario Sanders could hope for in Texas is for a repeat of 2008, when superdelegates supporting Clinton began to defect to Obama’s side once he gained significant momentum in early caucus states.

“The Sanders campaign is learning and using the Obama strategy,” said Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the SW Voter Registration Education Project. “Unless she fights for the Latino vote, some of the young voters are going to be voting for Sanders.”

 “There are people who want to build walls. Hillary wants to build ladders to opportunity and empowerment,” Clinton said with a quick swipe at Donald Trump. “I want you to look to the future with confidence and embrace change, not run from it.”

Between 1,200 and 1,500 people turned out to hear Clinton speak at Texas A&M International University, according to Director of the Office of Public Relations Steve K. Harmon.

The visit, requested by student leaders and facilitated by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, marks the first time a president has visited the predominantly Latino campus that boasts more than 7,000 students.

His speech lasted around 30 minutes and touched on a wide range of issues, including student loans, immigration and voter participation. But the former president spent the most time talking about job creation and opportunity for those just entering the job market.

Hillary Clinton’s pledge to create jobs in the clean energy sector and give students more options for paying off student debt will mean young workers will have more opportunity, the president added.

“My case for her is very simple. Her economic plans are more likely to create more jobs and raise incomes higher in an inclusive way that leaves nobody behind,” Clinton said.

“Her social plans are more likely to bring us together so we can move together, instead of be afraid of one another. Her idea of political inclusive is more likely a) to protect your fundamental constitutional rights by making sure the president appoints people to the Supreme Court who will expand voting rights, not restrict them, who will expand civil liberties, not restrict them.”

The former president’s visit will also include a stop later Monday in Dallas, and is meant to target Latino and black voters, as well as younger Texans who are increasingly drawn to Clinton opponent Bernie Sanders’ messages of free college tuition and higher minimum wages.