The Conservative Political Action Conference and Latino Wall Street are partnering to host the inaugural CPAC Latino Summit this weekend in Miami. The event comes during a massive rightward shift among Hispanic voters, who helped get President Donald Trump elected in November.

CPAC regularly leads summits for conservatives to gather, organize, and hear from leading voices in their movement, but it will be the organization’s first time hosting an event targeted toward the Latino community in the United States.

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Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), who represents part of Miami in Congress, told the Washington Examiner, “Like President Ronald Reagan said, Hispanics are Republicans; they just don’t know it — but guess what, Hispanic voters have woken up, smelled the coffee, and are becoming an essential part of the Republican coalition.”

He largely attributed Miami-Dade County’s swing from “a solidly Democrat county to a Republican county” to the Democratic Party’s embrace of “socialist extremism” and Trump’s “tough-on-crime, law-&-order message” resonating with the Hispanic community.

Latino Wall Street founder Tony Delgado, whom Trump calls the “King of Puerto Rico,” told the Washington Examiner that the event’s mission is to encourage both financial and political freedom for Latinos.

CPAC Latino Summit

The CPAC Latino Summit will be hosted in Miami, where 70% of the population is Latino, this Saturday and Sunday. Gimenez, who was Miami-Dade County’s mayor and Miami’s fire chief, told the Washington Examiner, “We are so proud to be hosting events like this in South Florida and welcoming Hispanic conservatives from across the country to a community like ours that values freedom and democracy.”

The event will combine the elements of a conventional CPAC conference with the format of Latino Wall Street’s large annual conference. Economic growth, national security, faith-based values, and liberty will be the focus of the CPAC sections of the summit. There will also be discussions on wealth creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership during the Latino Wall Street part of the event.

Hispanic politicians and entrepreneurs will speak to attendees through main stage speeches, panels, and VIP events. The event will be the first bilingual CPAC in the U.S., with live translation in English and Spanish. There have been CPACs in Latin America before, including Argentina and Mexico. Delgado told the Washington Examiner that future CPACs are planned for Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia.

The summit has its origins in the 2024 election campaign, in which Delgado invited now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak at Latino Wall Street’s annual conference. Kennedy’s appearance made the event a success, and their partnership continued when Delgado joined the Kennedy campaign to lead its Hispanic outreach efforts.

Eventually, Kennedy endorsed Trump for the presidential election, and Delgado met the president at Mar-a-Lago. While there, Delgado met CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, who is of Cuban descent, and the three planned the CPAC Latino Summit together.

Hispanics shift to the right

The CPAC Latino Summit is hoping to ride the wave of a recent shift among Latinos toward the Republican Party. In 2016, Trump only received 28% of the Hispanic vote. In 2024, Latino voters proved to be a crucial force in his victory, with 48% voting for the president.

Many Hispanic voters swung toward Trump in the last election due to frustrations with Democrats over inflation and mass illegal immigration. However, many Latinos also worry about how Trump’s mass deportation program might affect their communities.

Delgado explained the voting dynamics for Latinos, saying former President Joe Biden encouraged illegal immigration by failing to create a legal pathway for the asylum-seekers he welcomed. He said some of those who entered the country illegally, including criminals and people living in poverty, have settled in Latino communities. For that reason, Delgado said he understands the Trump administration’s push for wide-scale deportations, though he also supports immigration reform and the eventual legalization of some illegal immigrants.

Gimenez shared his experience fleeing the communist regime in Cuba with the Washington Examiner and said that many Latinos are conservative because they have similar personal experiences with escaping socialist countries in Latin America. Pointing to the recent nomination of socialist Zohran Mamdani as the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, Gimenez explained that many Latinos “are absolutely terrified of the far-left direction the Democrat Party has moved in.”

Delgado echoed Gimenez’s emphasis on economic and social freedom for Latino voters during his conversation with the Washington Examiner. He raised the example of the response to COVID-19, when many businesses were closed, as an example of recent government overreach by the Democratic Party.

Meet Tony Delgado, the ‘King of Puerto Rico’

Delgado got his nickname, the “King of Puerto Rico,” from Trump during his visit to Mar-a-Lago during the 2024 election cycle. But even before he entered politics, Delgado had been seeking to serve the Latino community.

Delgado told the Washington Examiner that before 2020, he was not very political. After helping with the cleanup following Hurricane Maria in 2017, he saw the difference in how wealthy and poor Puerto Ricans could respond to the damage. This encouraged him to found Latino Wall Street in 2019 with his wife, Gabriela Berrospi. The company aims to provide financial and business coaching to a Latino audience in both English and Spanish.

It was the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns that led Delgado to become more politically active. He became involved with Kennedy’s presidential campaign, attracted by his message of medical freedom. Eventually, he met Trump.

To Delgado, Trump represented a new kind of Republican. When he thought about the Republican identity before Trump, he thought about former Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, or former President George W. Bush. In his view, the MAGA movement represented the kind of disruption that he valued as an entrepreneur.

But Delgado’s loyalty to Trump runs much deeper than a flattering title or a different style. In 2018, Trump signed the First Step Act, allowing courts to give sentence reductions to inmates sentenced under older, harsher guidelines for nonviolent drug offenses. Delgado’s father, who had been serving multiple life sentences for a nonviolent drug offense, was released after being imprisoned for 33 years.

During the 2024 election, when Trump came under fire for a joke about Puerto Rico by a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally, Delgado and his wife came out publicly to defend him.

Delgado explained to the Washington Examiner, “The media starts running with the story and saying, ‘Well, Trump hates Hispanics. Trump, he hates Puerto Ricans.’ I’m like, well, my Puerto Rican dad is sitting right next to me, and he was gonna die in jail if it wasn’t for Trump’s legislation.” 

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Since then, Delgado has continued his efforts with Latino Wall Street while also working to give Latinos a voice in politics.

“The fact of the matter is, I think we need a seat at the table, regardless of who’s in power,” he said.