While much national attention is being paid to November’s Presidential Election, perhaps the fiercest political battleground this fall will be in the House of Representatives, where Newt Gingrich and the GOP hope to hang onto their new majority while Democrats fight to throw the Republican revolutionaries out. Both Democrats and Republicans are already saying they’ll conduct major voter registration drives in districts favorable to their candidates. For the Democrats, registering, and then motivating America’s black and latino communities to vote may be the key to success in 1996. But it may not be easy for Bill Clinton’s party to get votes from people of color this year, as employment statistics continue to show wide disparities in who’s working, who’s unemployed, and who is making a living in this economy.

Pacifica National Affairs Correspondent Larry Bensky spoke recently with Gary Delgado and Libero Della Piano of the Applied Research Center in Oakland, California about the issues of race, economics and the 1996 elections.