For a lot of observers of the 2024 US presidential election, Donald Trump’s potential to harness a lot of the Latino vote stays one of many extra puzzling points. Latino voters – men in particular – swung decisively in the direction of Trump final November: rising by 16 factors from 2016 to 42% of the bloc in 2024.
This regardless of Trump’s constant history of antagonistic remarks about Latino immigrants. It additionally seems to fly within the face of the truth that his insurance policies on tariffs, border militarisation and mass deportations will probably have an effect on Mexico, Panama and a number of other different Latin American nations.
Clearly, Latinos swung in the direction of Trump for a similar purpose many different voters did. Many had been unhappy with the economy (significantly inflation). There was additionally widespread anxiety a couple of marked improve in immigration on the southern border.
However there are extra profound causes driving the dramatic shift within the Latino vote. A more in-depth take a look at a number of the historic dynamics which have formed the Latino citizens provides a clue for the rationale behind this seeming paradox.
The Latino vote contains about 14.7% of all eligible US voters. But it’s removed from a monolith. It’s a heterogeneous group of people that hint their roots to Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the remainder of the 21 Spanish-speaking nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Every of those nations has a unique political panorama. They’re made up of vastly completely different individuals with a unique background and distinct cultures. And these variations form disparate Latino identities in the US. The time period “Latino” itself is a blanket time period. It could possibly embrace extraordinarily completely different populations: Afro-Dominicans within the Bronx, white Cubans in Miami, indigenous Mexicans in Los Angeles, mestizo Salvadorans in Washington DC and an enormous array of others.
Even inside these nationwide teams, there are additionally vital divisions. Partly, that is based mostly on an individual’s time of arrival within the US. Mexican-Individuals whose households immigrated to California from border cities like Chihuahua and Ciudad Juárez within the early Nineteen Forties as seasonal (and legal) agricultural workers could have completely different experiences and priorities than Mexicans who arrived extra not too long ago from the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and settled in New York Metropolis with none authorized pathway to citizenship. In the meantime, Nicaraguan-American households who arrived in Miami within the Nineteen Eighties fleeing the Sandinista revolution could have a unique financial outlook from these escaping Daniel Ortega’s present dictatorship.
There’s no such factor as a generic “Latino” voter. The Latino inhabitants within the US must be understood as a heterogeneous one, made up of individuals with completely different experiences, priorities and preferences.
Latino conservatism
For a lot of many years, Latinos had been dependable Democratic voters – and lots of pundits predicted that they might keep that method, tipping the political scales decisively away from the Republican Occasion. However there has all the time been a robust pressure of Latino conservatives voting Republican.
Faith performs a key function right here. The vast majority of individuals of Latino heritage are Catholic. However there’s a rising inhabitants of Evangelicals and different Christian denominations, reflecting a growth of those groups in some Latin American countries.
In El Salvador, for instance, the rise of Evangelical religions has produced an more and more culturally conservative inhabitants, who help the “mano dura” (robust hand) insurance policies of Nayib Bukele. The same development could be discovered amongst Latino communities within the US, the place Latino Evangelicals strongly supported Trump in 2024.
The political historical past of many Latin American nations is a clue to the make-up for migrants to the US. Mexico’s Cristero War within the Twenties prompted hundreds of Catholics to flee the nation’s anti-clerical authorities by migrating northwards. Three many years later, the Cuban revolution of 1959 produced massive refugee flows of conservative and anticommunist migrants. These exiled teams – most notably, Cubans in South Florida – would ally with Republicans based mostly on their punitive insurance policies in the direction of Cuba. This has helped flip Florida into a Republican stronghold.
Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA Press Wire
Extra not too long ago, 7 million Venezuelans fled the left-wing authorities of Nicolás Maduro. This has led to a extra common antipathy amongst many Latino voters in the direction of left-wing politics and politicians. Trump’s condemnation of Maduro and Venezuela has endeared him to politically conservative Latino voters of all nationwide backgrounds.
Race, class, and immigration
Apparently, it was additionally clear that some Latino voters are suspicious and resentful of newer waves of migrants, significantly latest asylum-seekers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
This dynamic between earlier arrivals and new immigrants is nothing new within the US. Earlier waves of immigrants and their descendants, similar to Irish or Italian immigrants, additionally adopted nativist attitudes in the direction of newer arrivals. In some methods, every era of immigrants has tried to “pull up the bridge” to the era that comes after them.
But these damaging reactions additionally relate to racial and sophistication hierarchies each inside and between Latin American nations. Just like the US, Latin American nations have a long history of racism and colour discrimination, in addition to deep class divides and really excessive charges of income inequality.
New immigrants who’ve arrived in recent times from locations similar to Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba and Nicaragua are poorer than earlier generations of immigrants – and sometimes have darker pores and skin. Consequently, cultural divides could impede a robust sense of solidarity between earlier generations of Latino immigrants and up to date arrivals.
This isn’t to counsel that racism and classism are the dominant drivers behind Latino help for Trump. However it could assist clarify why Trump’s marketing campaign feedback about latest Latino immigrants weren’t a dealbreaker for each Latino voter.
Finally, the Latino Trump supporter could not signify such a paradox in any case. The so-called “Latino voter” is known as a multiethnic, various bloc of individuals. Whereas they share frequent linguistic and cultural options, Latinos are additionally motivated by all kinds of spiritual, political and cultural components that may be traced again to their very own or their households’ experiences in Latin America.
The Latino vote is complicated. Politicians who need to win their help would do nicely to grasp how these difficult identities inform their political selections and allegiances. It seems in the intervening time the Republicans are doing this higher than their Democratic rivals.
