Donald Trump's has made of anti-immigration rhetoric a centerpiece of his campaign. He has referred to immigrants as "drug-lords" and "rapists," repeatedly claiming that they are "poisoning the blood" of the United States. Yet, since he made it to the presidential ticket, the former president's share of the Latino vote has grown by eight percentage points, a swing that looks set to increase in next week's election.
Though many may have forgotten, Latinos have not always been as steadfastly Democratic in their voting throughout history. Back in 1980, Ronald Reagan reportedly quipped, "Latinos are Republican. They just don't know it yet." Reagan's 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted amnesty to nearly 3 million immigrants, predominantly Latino.
Now, as the Latino vote has grown to represent 14.7% of the national electorate, the GOP is once again making a push to garner support across the demographic. In a pitch to Latino voters in Miami, Trump called Kamala Harris "a radical left lunatic" who will turn the country into "Venezuela." The former President is on track to become the first Republican in two decades to beat his Democratic counterpart among Hispanic voters in Florida.
Delmer Sorto, a Honduran-American business owner living in Miami, will be supporting Trump in the elections. His father obtained legal status in the U.S. through Reagan's amnesty and now he sees Trump as a misunderstood candidate. "I feel that he has the country's best interests at heart," he told The Latin Times, noting that his vote is motivated more by economic concerns than identity politics.
While the hugely diverse Latino vote still leans Democrat in most states, there is evidence of further Republican gains. So, what is drawing Latinos towards the GOP, and how does history help contextualize these shifting concerns?
Economic Concerns Take Center Stage
Coupling Trump's xenophobia towards Latinos with the statistical shift in support for the former president has raised questions among many. However, this seemingly puzzling inconsistency may open the way for a greater understanding of the population's priorities.
For many Latino voters, the economy has always been a defining issue. Sorto said that "the country's been headed in a bad direction," adding that "inflation is on the rise tremendously." He trusts that Trump's administration will "improve inflation" and "take back control of the housing market."
Historically, though, the Democratic Party held sway on economic issues for Latino voters, particularly during crises like the 2008 financial recession. Marcel Román, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University and an expert in Latino political behavior, explained how the Democratic Party was "understood as a more economically redistributive party" -- a fact he believes may have contributed to Barack Obama's 2008 election victory.
Now, economic pressures such as inflation and rising housing prices have redefined which party is trusted on financial matters. Sorto believes Republican fiscal policies "are to [his] advantage," citing lower taxes as beneficial to him as an independent contractor.
"We're in a moment where Trump appears to have ownership over these issues," Román told The Latin Times, noting that, during COVID-19, Trump's opposition to lockdowns favored that which Latinos value most: their ability to keep working.
"Latinos, mostly working class, mostly essential or service sector workers, [had] two considerations in mind. One, I don't want to get sick," Román said. "But the other, and I think the dominant one, was I need to put food on the table."
The consequence was that those prioritizing their finances were more likely to support Trump, a trend that seems to have stuck heading into the 2024 election.
Immigration: A Defining Issue?
Along with the economy, immigration enforcement is at the forefront of the Republican campaign. However, the Biden administration has also taken a harder line on the issue over the past year, reaching a record numbers of deportations.
In the 12 months after the end of Title 42 in May 2023, 775,000 unauthorized migrants were removed from the country, more than any fiscal year dating back to 2010, according to the think tank Migration Policy Institute. Trump, though, claims he will take it a step further and carry out the "largest mass-deportation" the U.S. has ever seen.
Still, many Latino voters are willing to support strong immigration controls. According to a June 2024 poll conducted by UNIDOSUS, a Hispanic advocacy group, 58% of Latino voters prioritize the expansion of funding for additional border security.
"I think that we should definitely protect our borders," said Sorto, adding that "If there's no control on immigration, it can get insanely out of hand." "There wouldn't be enough housing to go around, there would be an influx of criminals from other countries."
Sorto views immigration control through a lens of personal responsibility, prioritizing lawful entry and orderly processes. He explained that his parents "did it the right way," adding that immigrants must "do the whole nine yards to be able to come into the country."
Román, meanwhile, perceives this line of thinking as part of "a process of selective disassociation." This phenomenon sees Latinos view anti-immigrant rhetoric as directed at newer arrivals, not at their own families, allowing some voters to align with Trump's platform even if his immigration policies might seem at odds with their own experiences.
Ethnic Attrition and a Changing Political Landscape
Demographic shifts among Latino voters may help explain this political realignment. Today, Latino population growth in the U.S. is largely driven by U.S.-born children rather than immigration, resulting in a demographic less tied to the immigrant experience and more assimilated into broader American culture.
Román described how in the past, in canonical Latino neighborhoods "you had this influx of cohorts of immigrant origin, [...] reminding you of that experience of societal rejection, marginalization, the sort of anti-immigrant discrimination that your parents or your grandparents may have experienced."
Birth-driven population increase leads to more "second, third, fourth, generation [Latinos,] more and more distant from the immigrant experience," Román detailed. This change, the Assistant Professor's research suggests, contributes to a phenomenon known as ethnic attrition, where descendants of Latino immigrants increasingly fail to self-identify as Latino.
"Latinas in the U.S. are somewhat assimilating to the reproductive standards of, for instance, Anglo white women -- having fewer children than they did before," Roman added. Successive generations of Latinos are becoming more "acculturated," gradually shifting their political interests to reflect those of white Americans.
At the same time, Latino voters are moving out of traditional urban enclaves and into suburban and rural America, where they encounter white, often conservative, neighbors.
A 2022 poll showed that less than 50% of Latino voters in rural and suburban areas were likely to say they'd vote for a Democrat, compared to 58% in urban areas. Similarly, they were more likely to support the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade than those in urban settings.
Román explained that "distance from the immigrant experience leads to less concern towards anti-immigrant discrimination," something he feels could have "reverberating political consequences."
With a November 2023 poll projecting that 22% of Latinos will be first-time voters, the process of ethnic attrition could indeed prove pivotal in swaying the result of the election.
The Volatility of Latino Voting: Then and Now
This wouldn't be the first time the Latino vote has shifted. While George W. Bush won 40% of the Latino vote in 2004, Obama won 71% in 2012. It is essential to note, though, the immense social and political diversity of the Latino population in the U.S. An August Noticias Univision/YouGov survey has 44% male Latinos supporting the Republican Party, with Latinas at just 33%.
Meanwhile, Cuban Americans are at 46% Republican (compared to 45% Democrat), and those of Puerto Rican origin are at just 37% Republican (to 58% Democrat). At Trump's Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" – a moment that could prove costly for Trump.
As Democratic strategist Carlos Odio has stated, these comments "were so incendiary, they were almost designed to be amplified at scale." Odio points out that they were addressed by "major players who had [until then] been on the sidelines in this election," namely Puerto Rican artists Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin.
The GOP may have been playing with fire. Of the roughly 600,000 eligible Latino voters in Pennsylvania, a swing-state tipped by some to be the deciding state in Tuesday's election, more than 470,000 (nearly 80%) are Puerto Rican. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by just over 80,000 votes.
Generally speaking, Latino voting patterns have tended to shift in response to the changing stances of political parties on immigration and other socio-economic issues. Román said that Reagan's 1986 amnesty generated goodwill within some Latino communities.
"There was a moment in which it was somewhat unclear where Latino partisanship was headed, particularly in the 1980s [...] in places like California. You had a lot of Latinos that were identifying with the Republican Party during the Reagan administration," he said.
But as Román noted, this goodwill "was decimated by the Republican Party pushing anti-immigrant policies like Proposition 187," a California initiative that sought to bar undocumented immigrants from public services.
Both parties have a turbulent past on this issue. Bill Clinton's 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act paved the way for the government to increase annual deportations twenty-fold from 1980 (18,013) to 2012 (419,384), and Obama was famously dubbed the "deporter-in-chief," thanks to high deportation rates in his first term.
"I think what this illustrates is that both parties cannot take the Latinx electorate for granted," Román said. "The commitments that they make will profoundly shape who Latinos decide to support."
Sorto appreciates Reagan's amnesty policy, which allowed his father to come to the U.S. legally and bring with him the rest of his family. "He was the last U.S. president to do it," he stressed.
Román, on his end, suggested that "if Trump comes into power and does something particularly egregious on immigration, he might face political backlash by Latinos who may have even supported him in 2024."
Whether Republican gains represent a lasting realignment or a momentary swing remains uncertain. But with Latino voices forming a growing portion of the electorate, attending to their concerns is as crucial as ever.
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