For a lot of observers of the 2024 US presidential election, Donald Trump’s skill to harness a lot of the Latino vote stays one of many extra puzzling points. Latino voters – males specifically – swung decisively in direction of Trump final November: growing by 16 factors from 2016 to 42% of the bloc in 2024.
This regardless of Trump’s constant historical past 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 seemingly have an effect on Mexico, Panama and several other different Latin American international locations.
Clearly, Latinos swung in direction of Trump for a similar cause many different voters did. Many have been sad with the economic system (notably inflation). There was additionally widespread nervousness a few 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 have a look at a few of the historic dynamics which have formed the Latino citizens offers a clue for the explanation 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 international locations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Every of those international locations has a special political panorama. They’re made up of vastly completely different folks with a special background and distinct cultures. And these variations form disparate Latino identities in the USA. The time period “Latino” itself is a blanket time period. It may embody 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 primarily based 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 authorized) agricultural staff could have completely different experiences and priorities than Mexicans who arrived extra lately 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 special 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 have been dependable Democratic voters – and plenty of pundits predicted that they might keep that method, tipping the political scales decisively away from the Republican Social gathering. However there has all the time been a powerful pressure of Latino conservatives voting Republican.
Faith performs a key function right here. The vast majority of folks of Latino heritage are Catholic. However there’s a rising inhabitants of Evangelicals and different Christian denominations, reflecting a development of these teams in some Latin American international locations.
In El Salvador, for instance, the rise of Evangelical religions has produced an more and more culturally conservative inhabitants, who assist the “mano dura” (robust hand) insurance policies of Nayib Bukele. An analogous pattern 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 international locations is a clue to the make-up for migrants to the US. Mexico’s Cristero Struggle within the Nineteen 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 giant refugee flows of conservative and anticommunist migrants. These exiled teams – most notably, Cubans in South Florida – would ally with Republicans primarily based on their punitive insurance policies in direction of Cuba. This has helped flip Florida into a Republican stronghold.
Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA Press Wire
Extra lately, 7 million Venezuelans fled the left-wing authorities of Nicolás Maduro. This has led to a extra common antipathy amongst many Latino voters in 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, notably 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 direction of newer arrivals. In some methods, every technology of immigrants has tried to “pull up the bridge” to the technology that comes after them.
But these unfavourable reactions additionally relate to racial and sophistication hierarchies each inside and between Latin American international locations. Just like the US, Latin American international locations have a lengthy historical past of racism and color discrimination, in addition to deep class divides and really excessive charges of earnings inequality.
New immigrants who’ve arrived lately from locations similar to Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba and Nicaragua are poorer than earlier generations of immigrants – and sometimes have darker pores and skin. In consequence, cultural divides might impede a powerful 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 assist 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 might not signify such a paradox in spite of everything. The so-called “Latino voter” is known as a multiethnic, numerous bloc of individuals. Whereas they share widespread linguistic and cultural options, Latinos are additionally motivated by all kinds of non secular, political and cultural elements that may be traced again to their very own or their households’ experiences in Latin America.
The Latino vote is advanced. Politicians who wish to win their assist would do nicely to know how these difficult identities inform their political choices and allegiances. It seems in the mean time the Republicans are doing this higher than their Democratic rivals.
