Latinos for Trump signs at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio (Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons)
During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan famously said that Latinos were natural Republicans — only "they just don't know it yet." And during the 1990s and 2000s, GOP strategist Karl Rove and members of the Bush family, including George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, believed it would be devastating for Democrats if enough Latinos went Republican. The Cuban-American community in Florida has long leaned Republican, but Rove and the Bushes saw Mexican-American Democrats in the Southwest as future Republicans.
In 2024, Democratic strategists sounded the alarm when Donald Trump performed much better than expected among Latinos — winning 48 percent of the Latino vote compared to 51 percent for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Although Harris received more Latino votes than Trump, that 51 percent was a disappointment for Democrats in light of the fact that Joe Biden won 65 percent of the Latino vote in 2020.
2024 was a close election, yet Trump's gains with Latinos, Generation Z, independents and swing voters were a major source of anxiety for Democrats — who spent months asking why Trump received as many Latino votes as he did.
According to Politico reporters Samuel Benson and Alec Hernandez, however, President Trump appears to be squandering the gains he made with Latinos in 2024.
In an article published on January 14, the Politico reporters explain, "In 2024, economic anxiety and immigration concerns drove Latino voters to President Donald Trump. Those same issues are beginning to push them away. Across the country, the cost-of-living woes and immigration enforcement overshadowing Trump's first year back in office are souring Hispanic businesspeople, a key constituency that helped propel him to the White House. In a recent survey of Hispanic business owners conducted by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared exclusively with Politico, 42 percent said their economic situation is getting worse, while only 24 said it was getting better."
Benson and Hernandez add, "Seventy percent of respondents ranked the cost of living as a top-three issue facing the country — more than double the number that selected any other issue. That's a particularly striking number from this group: nearly two-thirds of respondents in the organization's final survey before the 2024 election said they trusted Trump more than then-Vice President Kamala Harris to handle the economy."
Javier Palomarez, the U.S. Hispanic Business Council's president and CEO, told Politico that "the broader Hispanic community certainly feels let down" during Trump's second presidency.
"It would be different if immigration and the economy had not been principal talking points for (Trump)," Benson and Hernandez report. "On both fronts, we didn't get what we thought we were going to get."
Benson and Hernandez note that Trump's support among Latinos is now "catering," with an Economist/YouGov poll conducted January 9-12 showing his Hispanic approval at 28 percent.
"Latino voters have swung hard back toward Democrats in recent elections as well," according to the Politico reporters. "In Passaic County, New Jersey, Latinos voted narrowly for Trump in 2024 but in November, backed Democratic Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill by double digits. And in Miami, where over 70 percent of residents are Hispanic, a Democratic mayor was elected last month for the first time in 28 years last month."
Read the full Politico article at this link.