January 8, 2024 - 12:45pm
Last November, Donald Trump held a rally in the majority-Hispanic Florida suburb of Hialeah, near Miami. The event drew thousands of supporters and upstaged the nearby Republican debate — to the chagrin of Trump’s less popular primary opponents. “We’re so humbled that he picked Hialeah to do this rally, because Hialeah loves Donald Trump,” said Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo, hours before the former president took to the stage.
Cuban-Americans have long been regarded as fairly reliable Republican voters, but it appears as though Latinos more generally are following suit. A recent poll from USA Today found that Trump had a five-point lead over Biden among Latino voters ahead of this year’s elections. What explains the increasing appeal of the former president, who once called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals”, to this growing demographic?
Such have been the inroads made by Trump that he has significantly narrowed the margin in traditionally Democratic areas like South Texas, Maricopa County, Arizona and Peterson County, New Jersey. Among the reasons for GOP over-performance in these areas and beyond is the increased share of arrivals in recent years from nations ravaged by Leftist leaders, such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Trump’s hawkishness against this “troika of tyranny” has therefore won approval from Latin Americans who fear the radical Left. This is especially salient among Cuban-Americans, who have an expedited path to US citizenship under the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Some may argue that these examples as testament to the diversity of Hispanic communities, but this ignores the key commonalities among US Latinos. For instance, Hispanics of all stripes are generally more religious and socially conservative than their Caucasian counterparts. Rates of church attendance are appreciably higher than those among white Americans, and just 37% agree that same-sex marriage is somewhat or very good for society. The Christian zeal of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” played well with Latinos at the time; as only the second Catholic to ever occupy the White House, Biden would do well to play up his piety among Hispanics.
Even on immigration, Latinos are far more conservative than many Democrats care to recognise. The mostly Mexican-American communities of border regions in states such as Arizona and Texas have grown markedly — and understandably — wary of uncontrolled immigration. A poll from the LIBRE Institute found that 65% of Latinos backed entirely stopping the flow of illegal immigration at the southern border. At the same time, 82% supported providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and Daca recipients who came to the US as children — a figure in keeping with the broader population.
There is also an often overlooked element of Trump’s appeal to Latinos: he resembles a Latin American president. Whether on the Left or on the Right, Latin America is infamous for its outsiders and populists. Stylistically, Trump’s rhetoric against elites, lawfare, the media and globalists is not unlike that championed by Hugo Chávez or Cristina Kirchner. Indeed, the former president’s unlikely friendship with Mexico’s arch-populist President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has clearly raised his standing with Mexican-Americans. In turn, the Mexican leader has not been shy in his support for Trump in 2024, calling his counterpart’s ongoing legal troubles “political persecution”.
Though many of Trump’s views on trade and foreign policy are closer to the Latin American Left than the Right, his defining characteristic — as with most Latin American conservatives — is that he is a businessman. Of the 26 conservative leaders elected in the region since 2000, 15 have been professional businessmen. Appropriately, surveys of US Latinos consistently refer to Trump’s entrepreneurial background and credit his business acumen for his handling of the economy.
In short, there are both idiosyncratic and broader reasons for Trump’s relative success among Latinos. Yet, in the current climate, it’s quite possible that neither he nor Biden stand to win a majority of the American electorate in 2024 — let alone the Latino vote. In what is certain to be yet another close election, the Latino vote may just make the difference.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI bet most Latinos don’t even believe that women have pen1ses either. The Dems need to get more of them into universities, where they can be properly brainwashed.
The Democrats are the party who put Black people first, while the Latinos are more attracted by a party that wants to make abortion safe, legal and rare.
Perhaps you could itemise all the ways they have been put first.
If you feel that the Democrats are against affirmative action, you are entitled to your opinion.
Is there anything wrong with putting Black interests first , for a change?
Yes there is. A colorblind society isn’t wanted by the left. Faux racism is a campaign tactic beginning to wear thin.
Did he though? If the writer’s implication is that Mr Trump applied those nouns to the entire nation of Mexico then he is either being dishonest himself or is unwittingly trafficking in the dishonesty of others.
I believe Mr Trump’s exact words were:
And later he said:
Polemical as it may be, it seems plain that Mr Trump was quite clearly and specifically referring to an undesirable criminal minority from within the Mexican population, not the population as a whole.
The Charlottesville thing all over again.
This applies to almost everything for Trump has been criticised. You cannot trust the ‘middle-man’, go back and read/hear the original verbatim words.
I remember a very good article on this issue which was published by UnHerd in the run-up to the 2020 election. It pointed out that many Latinos had come to America to be American and be proud of it. So Trumps MAGA rhetoric hit the right notes with them. The left’s peculiar insistence on calling them “LatinX”, on the other hand, went down like a lead balloon.
On a general note, as an immigrant myself, I find the widespread assumption that all immigrants of whatever origin will automatically cleave to the political left in their new home countries, highly patronising. How your origins, your home culture and your life story translates into a political leaning in your new home country is so complex and individual, it’s impossible to draw broad conclusions about it.
The power of wishful thinking.
Help me out someone, please. Is a populist just anyone at all who doesn’t agree with the far left?
Pretty much.
I think Trump is clearly a populist. The problem is assuming populism is always bad.
For the left, any citizen who does not consider leftists to be angels in the flesh is a dangerous freethinker.
Yes, and it’s a danger to democracy to let voters freely elect them, apparently
Yes, because disagreeing with the far left is actually very popular.
What explains the increasing appeal of the former president, who once called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals”, to this growing demographic?
Maybe that he didn’t call every single Mexican or Latino a rapist or criminal. Maybe because Hispanic unemployment reached a historic low on his watch. Maybe because Americans of Spanish-speaking descent are not automatically pro-open borders.
as only the second Catholic to ever occupy the White House, Biden would do well to play up his piety among Hispanics.
Biden has no piety to play up, so there’s that. You can’t reject much of Catholic doctrine and proclaim yourself a faithful follower.
Here’s an idea: stop freaking out over Trump’s popularity and ask why it is that a candidate like him is possible.
The Bidens are quite religious. Joe say’s he’s a Catholic and son Hunter is a Crystal Methodist.
I’ll be laughing over this for a long time. Thanks!
It is the very opposite. Latinos are clinging to Trump because he represents exactly what they do not find in populist Latino politicians. Otherwise they would never have left for America.
I think many Latinos come to the United States for a better life and to work. They do not come here to complain about safe spaces, pronoun mistakes, misgendering or that the United States is systematically racist. They have faith at a higher level than many Americans. I think Trump relates to them.
(Author) Jesus Christ guys. At no point do I make a value judgment of Trump–or Biden for that matter. As for the rapists comments, whatever you think he meant, All I’m saying is that it’s superficially surprising that he said that and increased his support among Latinos. Yall need to be less sensitive. If anything, much of what I wrote are compliments.
The phenomonen is indeed interesting and I thank you for bringing it to our attention. However, the point is that your framing of it lacks internal consistency and therefore the plausible explanations drawn from it are, necessarily, as superficial as your surprise.
Personally, I think Trump is a boor and a charlatan but when I see a journalist misrepresenting the primary sources from which he draws his analysis in order to work some desired effect on me as a reader I, like Hamlet, am offended – “Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me, you would play upon me…”
It is the same with a lot of writing about Mr Trump. The embellishments and misrepresentations of what he has actually said are legion.