During the 2024 campaign, President Trump portrayed Hispanic immigrants as “rapists,” “bloodthirsty criminals,” “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people” and the “most violent people on earth.”
Myah Ward of Politico reported on Oct. 12, 2024 that “the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes.”
Trump’s language, Ward continued, “is a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.”
Less than a month later, Trump set a record for a Republican presidential candidate, winning 46 percent of the Hispanic vote, 18 points more than the 28 percent he received in 2016 and 14 points more than his 32 percent in 2020.
Trump didn’t just defy the liberal assumption that his demonization of immigrants would cost him Hispanic voters; he turned those expectations upside down.
How did this happen?
Efrén Pérez, a professor of political science and psychology at U.C.L.A., provided an explanation in an email responding to my queries:
Latinos, like other humans in the world, have a multiplicity of identities: religion, class, race, ethnicity, nation, etc. Which of those identities drives behavior depends on the immediate context — with political discourse playing an important role in raising the salience of in-groups and outgroups.
The more Trump/Republicans hammer home on “Americans” and “Making America Great Again,” the more salient American identity becomes for Latinos — especially for those who prioritize it more than their ethnic identity.
The fragility of their identity as Americans, Pérez argued, makes Hispanics particularly sensitive to any challenge to that identity:
What’s unique in this setup is that Latinos are American “pledges,” sort of like new fraternity brothers. They value their American identity, but also feel insecure about it. So, in order to prove their worth as Americans, they are motivated to brighten the line between “us” (Americans) and “them’” (non-Americans) such as undocumented immigrants and other racial minorities, including Black people.
These conflicting pressures, Pérez continued, show
why building political coalitions between people of color can be difficult. Latinos, specifically, sometimes express hostility toward Black people because they feel their own sense of Americanness is being questioned, so they lash out at an “un-American” group to sharpen the distinction between “us” and “them.”
It’s probable, in Pérez’s view — though not guaranteed — that the pro-Republican shift among Latino voters will continue:
We know this new trend toward Republicans is not election-specific. And, as the Latino population becomes increasingly native-born, their sense of American identity will get stronger. American identity is mentally associated for Latinos with the Republican Party.
The cross-pressures within the Latino electorate are evident in an analysis of survey data, “2024 Latino Voters Survey,” by Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy and journalism at U.S.C., and José E. Múzquiz, a Ph.D. candidate there.
“Latinos who voted for Harris and Trump,” they write, “differ markedly in how they see their own identity as Latinos and how that identity relates to their political convictions.”
Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris, Suro and Múzquiz found, “overwhelmingly (71 percent) said that the fate of Latinos in general had ‘a lot’ or some’ impact in their lives. In nearly equal measure, 63 percent of Trump voters said the impact was ‘not much’ or ‘not at all.’ ”
Asked “are Latinos and Blacks natural allies as people of color,” 42 percent of voters for Harris agreed that they are allies, and 30 percent disagreed. Among Trump voters, 20 percent agreed, and 43 percent disagreed. Strikingly, Latino Trump voters’ rejection of an alliance with Black voters is unequivocal: the 43 percent of Trump voters who disagreed that Latinos and Blacks are natural allies were made up of 38 percent who said they “completely disagree” and 5 percent who said they “disagree somewhat.”
In an email further elaborating on the issues raised by the survey, Suro wrote:
Latino attitudes toward their own racial identities are notoriously complex and variable, and any effort to address them politically via race — such as categorizing them as People of Color — is likely to fragment the Hispanic electorate rather than mobilize it. We saw that in 2024.
Suro was sharply critical of “the effort to impose ‘Latinx’ and more recently ‘Latine’ as a name for this population in an attempt to align Latinos with a wide range of progressive agendas in the area of gender.”
Extensive polling, Suro wrote,
shows that only a tiny fraction — 4 percent in the latest Pew survey — of all the people who identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino have adopted the self-consciously gender-neutral label, and as Pew put it, “about half the population that Latinx is meant to describe has never heard the term’ and 75 percent said it should not be used.”
Asked “Do immigrants bring economic benefits or competition?” Harris voters chose benefits over competition, 61 to 39 percent; Trump voters chose competition over benefits, 70 to 30 percent. Latino voters for Harris and Trump split along the same lines when asked to choose between “Immigrants are taking jobs that Americans don’t want and helping to keep down labor costs so everyone benefits” versus “Immigrants are competing with Americans for good jobs and will often accept lower pay.”
Starr County, Texas, directly across the Rio Grande from Mexico, with a population that is 97 percent Hispanic, provides an extreme example of the upheaval in Latino presidential voting.
In 2008, 84.5 percent of the county’s voters supported Barack Obama and 15.2 percent cast ballots for John McCain. 16 years later, in 2024, Trump carried the county, beating Harris 57.7 percent to 41.8 percent.
Rodolfo Solis is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at U.C.L.A. who has been studying attitudes toward politics and immigration in South Texas as part of his dissertation. I asked him about the region’s movement to the Republican Party, and he replied by email:
Latino voters in South Texas have historically held conservative views on social and cultural issues — such as abortion, religion, and law enforcement — but these views did not always translate into Republican partisanship.
What we’re seeing now is the effect of increased national salience around culture war issues, which has reshaped partisan attachments by aligning personal values with party identities. The Republican Party is increasingly perceived as the party that affirms traditional values and a sense of moral order, while the Democratic Party is viewed as more progressive, urban, and culturally disconnected from everyday life in South Texas.
So far, Solis argued, the changing pattern of voting is a top-down process, “most visible in presidential and congressional races, where national issues dominate” while “the strength of Democratic local machines and personalistic politics in many areas still gives Democrats an edge at the local level. In short, the shift is not yet a complete realignment, but it reflects a growing ideological sorting that may deepen with time and continued G.O.P. investment.”
I asked Solis which was more important, animosity toward the Democratic Party or support of the Republican Party.
“It’s a combination of both,” he replied:
Many Latino Republicans express growing disillusionment with the Democratic Party, particularly around its perceived emphasis on racial identity politics and progressive social agendas. There is a sense that the party has moved away from the working-class, religious, and family-oriented values that resonate in South Texas.
At the same time, the Republican Party is increasingly viewed as a space where conservative Latinos feel culturally and ideologically at home. What’s happening is a process of partisan and ideological sorting: Democratic disaffection leads voters to reassess their identity, and the G.O.P. offers a clear, affirming alternative that aligns with their views on religion, personal responsibility, gender roles, and national identity.
Crucially, Solis wrote, many Hispanic voters
feel that Democrats treat Latinos as a monolithic, economically dependent group, rather than as individuals with diverse values and aspirations. There is a perception that Democratic messaging often centers on racial grievance or government aid, which some voters find patronizing. In contrast, the G.O.P.’s focus on self-reliance, hard work, and patriotism is seen as more empowering. For many, this is not just about policy — it’s about dignity, respect and being seen as full political actors rather than as a constituency to be managed.
For decades, Texas Democrats have been counting on Hispanic voters to help end Republican domination of the state. What do recent trends suggest?
Solis:
They reinforce the G.O.P.’s statewide strength by undercutting a key assumption in Democratic strategy — that demographic change would inevitably lead to political change. The Latino vote has been treated as a future Democratic firewall, but the South Texas case shows that demographic growth does not automatically translate into partisan advantage.
Without culturally resonant engagement, Democrats risk losing ground. Republican strength in Texas is now bolstered not just by structural factors like gerrymandering and turnout, but by genuine ideological and identity-based realignment in areas previously considered reliably Democratic.
Nancy Foner, a sociologist at Hunter College and author of the 2022 book “One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America,” elaborates on Solis’s analysis. Foner replied by email to my queries:
Many long-established Hispanics in border regions were concerned, sometimes angry about, the huge number of asylum seekers coming across the southern border.
In cities like New York, where the new arrivals were bused in large numbers, some Hispanics resented the added burdens on the city, as well as on institutions like schools in their own communities, to provide housing and other services to the newest arrivals.
Then too there is Trump’s appeal to many Hispanics on the basis of conservative cultural, religious, and social values as well as an ideology of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and a small business orientation that many Hispanic men in particular may identify with.
The shifting patterns of Hispanic voting — not just in South Texas but nationwide — raise the basic question: How secure are Republican gains?
Bernard L. Fraga, a political scientist at Emory University, argues that the movement toward the Republican Party shows signs of staying power.
In Fraga’s May 2024 paper “Reversion to the Mean, or Their Version of the Dream? Latino Voting in an Age of Populism” — written with Yamil R. Valez of Columbia University and Emily A. West of the University of Pittsburgh — the three authors make the case that their analyses of election results and poll data “point to a more durable Republican shift than currently assumed.”
Fraga and his colleagues focused on the 8-point gain in Hispanic support for Trump from 2016 to 2020, seeking to answer two questions: “First, which Latinos increased their support for Trump in 2020? Second, will this increased support transfer to other Republican candidates in the future?”
They found that “shifts in votes for Trump from 2016 to 2020” were strongest among Latinos who support tough anti-crime policies and restrictions on immigration, describe themselves as ideologically conservative and have not attended college — all demographic characteristics similar to working-class whites who have become Republican stalwarts.
This suggests, they argue, “that shifts are sustainable and not necessarily specific to Trump or 2020.” And that was before the 2024 results came in.
Another Latino constituency that markedly shifted to Trump, according to Fraga, Valez and West, can be found “in places with more immigrants and a larger share of potential immigrant voters,” suggesting that naturalized citizens “were a source of Trump gains.”
Fraga and his co-authors suggest that their analysis documents the emergence of “an influential set of Latino voters who could vote for restrictionist candidates despite being the population of eligible voters most impacted by increased immigration enforcement and punitive policies: working-class Latinos and those closer to the immigration experience.”
In addition to the inherent tensions straining, if not fracturing, the liberal coalition, there is a related problem facing the Democratic Party.
Michael Jones-Correa, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed out in an email that
Overall, the United States has moved into a post-Civil Rights era, by which I mean that the majority of voters having no direct experience with the civil rights mobilizations of the 1960s.
That shared experience across racial and ethnic groups was part of the glue for the Democratic coalition over the last several decades. The Republican Party has been more cognizant of this than have Democrats, allowing them an opportunity to try to build their own multiethnic coalition.
I asked Paul Starr — a professor of sociology and public policy at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book “American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now” — what forces he believes are driving partisan trends among Latinos.
Starr, who coauthored a 2023 paper, “‘People of Color’ as a Category and Identity in the United States,” with Edward P. Freeland, executive director of Princeton’s Survey Research Center, replied by email:
Hispanics are part of the swing vote of the American racial order, not just electorally but in their identification with the white mainstream. The People of Color illusion was to think of them, along with Blacks, Asians, and Indigenous people, as a fixed part of a permanently racialized minority. Clearly, many Hispanics, probably a majority, don’t think of themselves that way, and their descendants are even less likely to.
Starr and Freeland conducted a survey asking respondents: “Do you consider yourself a person of color?” Starr reported that “only about 45 percent of Hispanics said ‘yes’ compared to 95 percent of Blacks and 61 percent of Asian Americans.”
Biden’s pro-immigration policies, in Starr’s view, “had a boomerang effect where Democrats least expected it. Naturalized immigrants resented benefits given the newcomers, many of whom ended up in their neighborhoods and aggravated local housing shortages and other problems.”
At the same time, Starr continued, “The shift toward Trump in 2024 was also tied up with gender politics. Trump’s machismo — there’s a reason we use that Spanish word — was a cultural fit for many Hispanic voters.”
For Democrats and liberals seeking to strengthen the alliance between minority voters and progressive whites, a 2022 paper by Efrén Pérez, Crystal Robertson and Bianca Vicuña, “Prejudiced When Climbing Up or When Falling Down? Why Some People of Color Express Anti-Black Racism,” suggests they face a challenging ascent.
“Across four separate studies,” Pérez, Robertson and Vicuna write, “Latinos, a stigmatized ethnic group, are highly sensitive to downshifts in their position as marginal Americans, as losses are more psychologically painful than gains.”
The sense of diminished status as Americans, Pérez and his co-authors found, in four separate studies,
packed a more potent punch, especially when Latinos’ status was compared explicitly to that of African Americans. We also found evidence that it is not all Latinos who react this way. Rather, it is liberal Latinos — the individuals who are politically most similar to their African American counterparts.
Why?
We theorized that conservative Latinos already believe and endorse the negative views and feelings manifesting in prejudice toward Black people. As a result, it is harder for conservative Latinos to become even more hostile toward African Americans. In turn, although liberal Latinos generally express less prejudice than their conservative peers, they also have wider berth to become that way.
We are left, then, with a basic insight we did not have before. Namely, in light of insecure status as American, liberal Latinos become more racially resentful toward Blacks, thus narrowing the gap in expressed prejudice between conservative and liberal Latinos.
While “effective coalitions between these groups are grounded in, and sustained by, a clear sense of commonality between these groups,” Pérez and his co-authors argue,
such cohesiveness between minorities is not a constant in U.S. politics. Alas, our paper isolates one important circumstance when perceived similarity between Latinos and African Americans can generate invidious comparisons that undermine interminority coalition building.
In conclusion, Pérez, Robertson and Vicuna write:
Our findings suggest that independent of economic factors, any sense of solidarity between minority groups can be split asunder by status-based concerns that are steeped in perceptions about the position of one’s group relative to that of others.
Although perceptions can also be corrected and leveled out, the pathways to do so are not always direct or obvious, which lends itself to more protracted — and sometimes intractable — conflict between minority groups.
And who is the beneficiary of “protracted — and sometimes intractable — conflict between minority groups”? Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Tuesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. @edsall
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