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We’re still trying to figure out why Latinos abandoned Kamala Harris

In the Atlantic, Rogé Karma says that Democrats have long believed they needed to take liberal positions on immigration in order to hold onto the Latino vote. But this year that turned out to be catastrophically wrong:

If that analysis were true, then the nomination of the most virulently anti-immigration presidential candidate in modern history for three straight elections should have devastated the GOP’s Latino support. Instead, the opposite happened. Latinos, who make up about a quarter of the electorate, still lean Democratic, but they appear to have shifted toward Republicans by up to 20 points since 2012.... Polling suggests that Trump’s restrictionist views on immigration may have actually helped him win some Latino voters, who, like the electorate overall, gave the Biden administration low marks for its handling of the issue.

It's plausible that Latinos aren't as gung-ho about loose borders as we thought. But even if that's the case, why did it produce a sudden electoral eruption only this year? That's no mystery either:

Perhaps Latinos, on average, have always been wary of illegal immigration but it only became salient after it surged to unbelievable heights in 2021-23? Maybe.

And yet, it's not so easy. Here's a Pew poll from 2024, after the chaos at the border had been going on for years:

On the question of increasing deportations, Latinos are 22 points less in favor than other voters. On toughening up asylum the gap is 11 points. On penalizing businesses it's 20 points. On building the wall it's 19 points. On every single topic that Trump campaigned on, Latinos are far more hostile than other voters.

So we're still left with a mystery. The issue is simple: Latinos deserted Kamala Harris in far greater numbers than any other demographic group. This means that whatever caused the vote swing must be something they cared unusually strongly about. And while they may care about reining in immigration, the evidence suggests they cared about it no more than anyone else. Maybe less.

So what was it? It seems like this shouldn't be too hard to answer. Some well-done focus groups could ferret it out, or even a poll specifically focused on vote switching. But so far nobody has done either of these things.

103 thoughts on “We’re still trying to figure out why Latinos abandoned Kamala Harris

  1. iamr4man

    I think Latinos voted for Trump for the same reason many others voted for him. They like him. When he talks about deportation they don’t think he is talking about them. They think he is talking about the criminals that other countries are letting out of jail and sending here. When they look at him they don’t see a whiney crybaby liar, they see a strong, straight talking billionaire. They like him because they believe he will be good for the economy. They were badly affected by inflation. They think it was caused by Biden and Trump will stop it. They see the enthusiasm of Trump supporters and are swept up in it.
    Trump has charisma that no one else has. We who aren’t affected by it are puzzled because we can’t see what they see. We see Chance the gardener. They see Chauncey Gardner.

    1. Crissa

      Charisma? How is spewing literal nonsense 'charisma'?

      There's no mechanism for 'other countries to send criminals' here.

      The bigger question is why centrists and so-called journalists let them get away with these lies.

      1. iamr4man

        “Charisma” is what allows him to spew lies and nonsense and have it believed or just not heard. People start out liking him and look for reasons/excuses for liking him. I don’t get it either but 77 million people voted for him.

        1. GrueBleen

          What percentage of the American voting population is 77 million people, and what percentage of the human race has an IQ at or below 100 ?

      2. jmjm

        it is Charisma in the sense that his nonsensical speeches are a Rorschach blot. everyone just sees what they expect to see, on the right and on the left.

        In truth, Trump doesn't have any consistent ideology other than self aggrandizement and grift.

    2. cmayo

      Yeah, there's no mystery here. It's not really any different from any other demographic.

      And looking at immigration as if that explains their votes is rather tokenistic.

      1. Laertes

        Except there IS a mystery: Latinos swung way more to Trump than other groups did, and it's worth trying to figure out why.

        And Drum has just shown that immigration does NOT explain their votes.

        1. SnowballsChanceinHell

          That's not true.

          The question was Pew asked was: Thinking about some proposed policies to address immigration and the situation at the U.S. border with Mexico, do you think each of the following proposals would make the situation better or worse?

          Latinos were less supportive of the specific policies that Kevin called out. But that is not the same as saying that they supported how the Biden adminstration was handling immigration. They did not -- most Latinos said that the border situation was a crisis or major problem and most said that the government was doing a bad job of handling it.

        2. cmayo

          They only swung so far because they'd previously swung towards Democrats.

          What I'm saying is that they're people, just like all of the other people. There's nothing so inherently different about them, and it's especially insulting to try to boil it down to immigration.

          That's like saying white people only care about a party's stance on NIMBY/YIMBY, or black people only care about a party's stance on reparations, or whatever tokenized issue you want to select.

          News flash: voters have multiple (often competing) motivations. Voter behavior is not univariate.

    3. beardmaster

      This is it, for the most part. I'd only add that Latin culture can often tend toward 1) lauding machismo and 2) social conservatism. This is also true in many Latin American & Central American countries, so I don't think it is unique to American Hispanic people.
      Trump's bizarre, incomprehensible charisma combined with a Leopards Eating People's Faces Party understanding of politics, cultural conservatism, and favoring "manly" things, and here we are.

    4. bethby30

      Poll after poll of voters post-election show they wrongly thought our economy was bad and that Trump had managed it much better. The media’s downplaying of the fact that our economy has been doing far better than others and that our inflation was no worse than in other countries played a big role in that distorted view. A large percentage also told pollsters that they are doing well financially so they were not basing their negative view of personal experience as the media constantly claimed.

      The same media that kept obsessing over inflation, using the excuse that they were empathizing with the little people, never cared that United Heathcare has been using AI to deny claims, leading it to have the highest denial rate in the industry. That was a non story until the assassination, Clearly they think the fact that eggs are so expensive is a far bigger problem for people than having healthcare denied.

      1. Doctor Jay

        I think you are on the right track overall. I quibble with one thing, and maybe it's important.

        When you want to be president, you can't complain about media coverage. Your job is to drive media coverage. Gasoline has been cheaper for me during the last year than it was for maybe 10 years before that. So complaints about the price of gas, which spiked, were a bit odd.

        Biden (and consequently Harris) did not adequately drive a message about this. They never came up with a counter narrative. They never pushed that news. Meanwhile Trump is extremely effective at driving a narrative.

        Mind you, policy-wise, I think Biden/Harris did about as well as any president could ever do. I am complaining about political strategy, not actual policy.

        But my main bullet point is that presidential candidates need to drive their story into the media. If they aren't, they are losing.

  2. kenalovell

    What iamr4man said. So many people asking "How did Harris lose the election?", as if she surely would have won if only she/Democrats hadn't done X. The more informative question, for the purpose of understanding the election outcome and its implications for the future, is "How did Trump win the election?" It would be a tragic mistake to think all those voters who "ought to be Democratic supporters" will come back into the fold if only Democrats can stop doing whatever's upsetting them.

    For my part, I suspect his nauseating embrace of Christianity played a big part in Trump's win. He wore it like a badge of honor, whereas Biden tended to keep his well-hidden and Harris, AFAIK, has none.

    1. beardmaster

      In my limited experience (i.e. my life in the American South in a city & family with a large number of white evangelicals), the embrace of Trump among white and some Hispanic evangelicals has been gradual but never in doubt. They held their nose and voted for him in 2016, were less turned off and voted for him in 2020, then fully bought in to vote for him in 2024. But whether holding their nose or not, they have *always* voted for him in presidential elections. So, while it is true that evangelicals play a role in his victory, they have played the same role in every election with varying levels of buy-in. So, I don't really think this is the core of the matter for 2024.

  3. jdubs

    Harris didn't run on open borders. Historically she was quite restrictive on immigration, although obviously not to the degree that Trump was. This fact often seems completely lost when this type of psuedo- analysis comes up. Seems important though.

    1. Crissa

      Apparently open lying by Republicans is just acceptable now. Where is the truth, when one side lies barefaced, and so-called journalists just shrug?

    2. Atticus

      Come on. Border crossings surged under Biden (see KD’s chart above.). Harris was appointed the border czar. It’s pretty easy to associate her with open borders.

      1. dfhoughton

        She wasn't appointed border czar by Biden; she was anointed border czar by right wing propagandists.

        It's pretty easy to associate anyone with anything through lies. The conservative super powers are shamelessness, cheating, and a mass of faith-based authoritarian followers who have as much independent thought and ethical judgment as orcs or stormtroopers.

        1. emjayay

          Most voters actually know little about current events and politcs. But they thought Harris was the border czar. But Biden giving her responsibility for dealing with countries who are the source of illegal/"asylum seeker" immigration was a giant unforced error.

          In terms of politics Biden should have pushed for the eleventh hour immigration bill on day one. Just funding way more asylum claim hearings and maybe figuring out how to get them down to an adminstrative level (change of laws probably necessary) should have been a day one priority. Judgements should happen in three weeks, not three years. This would have dramatically eased the visible problems of all those immigrants.

          Foreign policy is the responsibility of the President and his State Department in general anyway. I have no idea what Biden was thinking about, or why Harris didn't argue against it.

      2. Jim B 55

        Please note - border encounters + asylum claims != border crossings
        We do not know the real number of border crossings. And under Trump I'm sure more people just crossed the border rather than claiming asylum, for obvious reasons.

        1. Jim B 55

          As a general point, this is a curse of our time. I think it comes from the management credo "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it", which has led to using proxies (which tend to become increasingly unreliable) so we manage something, but not what we actually care about.
          So we manage only what we can measure, regardless of whether the measure is useful or not.

          1. Atticus

            I agree there's some of that. But do you really think there were less people that came to our border under Biden than under Trump? (Regardless of if they declared asylum, tried to sneak in, etc.)

      3. Atticus

        You're worrying about semantics to defend a position that defies common sense. Whatever words or terms you want to use, a lot more people crossed the border under Biden. Even democrats agreed there was a border crises. Biden, at the beginning of his term, tasked Harris with looking into and responding to the border crises. For the most part, this was ineffective and her efforts were invisible.

        You can use whatever thermology you want. But its perfectly logical to associate Harris with elevated border crossing (the border crises, open borders, etc). If you're denying that you're not being rational and are oblivious to the perspective of most voters.

        1. d34df4n

          FFS, how does this nonsense keep getting perpetuated? Biden did NOT task Harris with responding to the border crisis. He tasked her with addressing the root cause of immigration by working with the Latin American countries where most immigrants were originating. That was actually a smart thing to do, because just trying to stop people at the border doesn't do anything to slow the flow of people TO the border. It was a political loser because it doesn't look "tough", and apparently it's incomprehensible to most people anyway. So, another case of Democrats actually trying to address a problem, failing to make much of a dent, and getting punished for their efforts. They would have been better off just making a big show of being hard asses, cooking the numbers, and telling everyone that the media is lying.

          1. Atticus

            He asked her to address both the current border crises and the the root causes. I'm not sure what she did for either.

            "A senior administration official said Harris' role would focus on "two tracks": both curbing the current flow of migrants and implementing a long-term strategy that addresses the root causes of migration."

            https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-taps-harris-lead-coordination-efforts-southern-border-n1261952

            " President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem."

            https://apnews.com/general-news-3400f56255e000547d1ca3ce1aa6b8e9

            1. tdbach

              You'll notice that "border" isn't mentioned at all in the first quote and only tangentially in the second. They're both saying the same thing. She was tasked with working with countries from which the bulk of immigrants - legal an illegal - were escaping in the hopes of finding near-term solutions and root-cause solutions for the long term. Both were unlikely to produce measurable results within their first term, even with governments that were cooperative. The "border czar" label was a completely fallacious construct of the right, which you, of course, bought wholesale.

                1. Crissa

                  You're really doubling down on lying.

                  Atticus: the guy who supports policies which kill mothers, infants, and increases bigotry. And now straight up liar.

            2. Crissa

              Why is it your citations don't support what you said 'border czar'.

              https://www.americanprogress.org/article/vice-president-kamala-harris-and-migration-in-the-americas-setting-the-record-straight/

              Also, the trips she was sent did succeed:

              https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2024/10/26/kamala-harris-correct-that-border-immigration-has-been-cut-by-half/75851010007/

              But here you are, spouting literal Republican lies:

              https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-11-01%20Inside%20the%20Biden-Harris%20Administration%27s%20Open-Borders%20Alliance%20with%20United%20Nations%20Bureaucrats.pdf

      4. Crissa

        Again, Atticus comes here to lie.

        Why does he lie?

        Because he supports policies which encourage deaths of women and increased bigotry.

  4. raoul

    Everybody wasn’t an easy answer but Latinos contain multiples. I know for a fact that rightwing radio in South Florida is driving the discourse. By the border in Mexico and Texas, those most affected by the crossings aren’t happy, it could be the high number, or it could be that the crossings involve Non-Mexicans who are not viewed as sympathetic. Also, historically, polling Latinos has been involved errors. The exit polling had Bush at 46% in 2004 but mathematical analysis concluded the number was 40%. I also think some of the issues of the cultural wars (gay rights, etc.) probably affected some of the vote. I would like to see more numbers, but young men of all types appeared to have drifted to the right in part because of the economy. Also, if Latinos stayed home in higher numbers, that could inflate some numbers. Finally, not all Latinos population shifted, but there has been a noted statistical trend the last few election in some populations.

    1. Citizen99

      You many have nailed it, raoul. Most of the comments on this blog are just "feelings" or something that was said by a pundit on some TV show. We need to first look at the voter data.

      Those data show that the Hispanic surge toward Trump was not primarily voters switching from the Democrat to Trump, but it constituted Hispanic voters who *did not vote* in 2020.

      In the 6 swing states (PA, GA, WI, MI, AZ, NV), Hispanic turnout compared to 2020 was UP for both candidates, but Trump's turnout was up by 2% of eligible voters, while Harris's was only up by 1%. Also, remarkably, the increased turnout for Trump was more among Hispanic *women* than it was for Hispanic *men*.

      Meanwhile, the white vote was a mirror image of the Hispanic vote. That is, white turnout was *down* overall compared to 2020, but it was down twice as much for Harris than it was for Trump.

      Two factors that should be examined here are (a) Spanish-language media, and (b) abortion. There have been stories circulating that one of the two major Spanish networks (Univision) were captured by pro-Trump business interests over the last couple years. Naturally, this is not on the radar of most American pundits to whom Spanish-language media is all but invisible. And on the abortion issue, it's clear that the Democrats put a LOT of their eggs in this basket, and that may have backfired spectacularly with devout Catholic Hispanics. I'm not saying this is my conclusion, but it should be looked at, no matter how painful it is for the Democratic Party to admit to such a devastating error.

      1. Joseph Harbin

        Good points.

        My guess is the answer leans more toward (a) Spanish-language media than (b) abortion.

        I can't think of anyone I've read who has a good sense of what kind of coverage Spanish-speaking media provided its audience.

        On abortion, my anecdotal read (based on conversations where I get my hair cut) is that teen pregnancy is a bigger concern than conforming to the teachings of the Catholic church.

        1. emjayay

          A substantial number of Latinos are now also Christianists not Catholics, and we all know about how that works politically. Maybe the trans issues that the Trump campaign apparently blanketed swing states with was also a factor besides abortion.

          I mean, who wants their kid to come home from school with a different gender?

  5. Anandakos

    Kamala has the Double-X Hex, which is absolutely huge with the Narcorrido Culture that is sweeping through the Southwestern states. If the nominee had been Julian or Joaquin Castro Trump would have LOST Latino votes.

    1. Steve_OH

      This (plus some racism) is obviously the right answer, but one that isn't likely to come out of focus groups, etc. Most people know better than to admit their misogyny.

      1. Citizen99

        Not so obvious. If you look at the actual voter data, Trump's gains compared to 2020 were more among Latinas than among Latinos. That doesn't necessarily mean misogyny wasn't a factor, but you would have to accept the odd conclusion that misogyny was more potent among Hispanic women than Hispanic men.

        1. jmjm

          Misogyny absolutely infects both genders equally. Just as racism infects threatened minorities as a form of self loathing and complicity in their own oppression.

          this is an unfortunate but very real aspect of human psychology.

      1. Narsham

        That's a non-sequitur. Maybe you could argue third-party candidates who were women didn't underperform with Hispanics and have a case. But when the only two women ever to run for president as one of the two main party candidates bombed with Hispanics, being able to point to a male candidate who bombed isn't useful, because that's a decision between two men and a voter who decides based on the gender of the candidate wouldn't make a decision on that basis in a race where both candidates were the same gender.

        If both parties ran a woman for president and turnout dropped among Hispanic voters or they broke for a third-party male candidate, that's evidence in favor of misogyny as a factor. Kerry's performance doesn't bear on the question at all.

        1. Citizen99

          But Hispanic turnout in the swing states did NOT drop in 2024. It actually went UP substantially! The problem is that it went up more for Trump than it did for Harris.

          1. ScentOfViolets

            Um. You're making some assumptions about relative distributions that may or may not be warranted. Take, for example, let's the white women demographic instead: How many white women turned out to vote for legal abortion (legal abortion has not, and never has been a 'liberal' issue) then, since they were there at the polls already, reflexively voted the Republican ticket?

            I'm not saying what seems to be your assumptions are incorrect, I'm saying that at this point there's still not enough detailed crosstab data to come to any sort of conclusion. Humans do have a tendency to theorize in the absence of data, IMHO. That's the nicest way to say that a lot of people are perfectly eager to give their opinions on matters they know nothing about.

        2. reino2

          Hillary Clinton did not bomb with Hispanics. John Kerry did. I am saying it again in the hope that you understand it this time.

          Let me try again. Hillary Clinton did not bomb with Hispanics. John Kerry did.

    2. Scott_F

      I am having trouble finding numbers for Latino votes in the Presidential vs. Congressional/State/Local races. If there are signs of increased ticket-splitting it would be a sign that there was a reaction against Harris and leave open the question of racism and misogyny.

  6. Justin

    They are really just republicans… kinda religious. Otherwise unremarkable people who have no particular reason to be tolerant or open minded about anything.

  7. chello

    Latinos who can vote do not want to trouble the waters, endanger their status, endanger their their kids - so they want the border crossing hysteria to die down. Trump promised to do that by venting anti-immigrant feeling into action. So: they may have believed T's policies will make legal Latinos safer than Kamala's more nuanced ones might have done. I'm sure there are other factors. Religious anti-abortion. Simplistic promises of cheaper "groceries" and gas. An end to foreign wars that many don't understand. Etc. Put them all together and the picture is painted.

  8. Murc

    Or we're still in the middle of a massive anti-incumbent wave worldwide where if you were in power for the COVID aftermath, regardless of ideology, people loathe you and want you gone.

  9. mcbrie

    There's a simple explanation. Latinos just weren't comfortable with a black woman POTUS. Harris ran a spectacular campaign on the merits but she lost men in key demos, especially young, rural, and non-college. The Latino vote is just a pronounced example of the larger trend, exacerbated by Spanish language media, which tends to have even more sexist attitudes than our increasingly sexist English language media (the podcast bros, etc.). Sexism is a thing. Why wouldn't we expect it to have an effect for an office that has never once had a woman? And Latinos do not necessarily identify with blacks as "POC." There are tensions between black and Latino communities, and many Latinos identify as "white." This isn't universal, but it's enough to shift the vote for several %. I don't think there was a better candidate for us in 2024 than Harris. But I do think being a black woman was an electoral handicap, and I'm a little dumbfounded that everyone just runs around waving their hands in the air acting confused about this.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      And that is _exactly_ what I think as well. But I due tend give my opinions a public airing when really I shouldn't 😜

  10. Salamander

    VP Harris adopted basically the Republican position on immigration, less the mass deportations and excessive demonizing. Her message was consistently "immigrants BAD! Must be stopped!"

    So I fail to see how any laxity or support for mythical "open borders" would have any effect on the Hispanic / Latino / Latin Ex vote.

    1. Batchman

      That may have been her intended campaign message, but basically she wasn't believed, because of her past statements/stances and Trump's "why didn't she do anything about it for the past 3-1/2 years?" line.

      1. Crissa

        What past statements?

        And she did do something about it. What little a VP could do.

        Trump literally blocked resources to deal with the border.

  11. cld

    The answer seems obvious, it's misogyny, and social conservatism.

    And when your answer to everything is punching a guy in the face that simply appeals to a certain manly personality.

    1. Martin Stett

      "¿Quien es Mas Macho?"

      That, and a decade or so of "The Apprentice" which paraded a serial bankrupt as the greatest businessman on earth.

    2. ScentOfViolets

      Throw in a helping of racism and I'll agree with you 100%. I've never understood the animus (some) Hispanics have against Black people ... but there you have it.

    3. emjayay

      The misogyny (or adherence to traditional macho gender roles) also applies to trans people and drag queens who both challenge those roles. Republicans made a big deal about drag queens for several years, portraying them as dangerous and preying on children (and Hispanic culture is very "pro-family") and the Trump campaign apparently blanketed a lot of the country with trans scare commercials.

      These things were largely absent in previous Presidential campaigns, I think.

  12. Narsham

    It's premature to comment on this question without first looking for overlap/overrepresentation between this one group and the other groups who we know swung toward Trump this last election. For example, younger men swung toward Trump: was the Hispanic electorate in 2024 including more young men? Were a higher percentage of them in the "low information" category of voter who wasn't following the news until the week before the election? In other words, was this big swing produced by a "Hispanic-specific issue" (if we assume such a thing statistically) or was it produced by a disproportionate share of the Hispanic vote this election being in a different category that broke for Trump, whether that's blue-collar workers or those without a college degree.

    If lots of voters in category Y swung toward Trump in 2024, we shouldn't ignore that when examining a swing toward Trump in category X voters, when category X voters might be have high representation/overlap in category Y.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      More detailed crosstab data before committing to an opinion is entirely correct. Crying shame that more people don't.

  13. KazooGuy

    Not to forget that the Latino community is overwhelmingly actively Christian - Roman Catholicism and American Christianism. That means they have been trained since birth to believe what they are told just like their equivalent Nortenos. Pro-authority. Anti-abortion. Pro Charisma.

  14. raoul

    Based on what I have seen, I would not call Latinos more anti-choice than other groups. Puerto Rico was an abortion mill in the sixties (pre-Roe) and most Latin countries have recently legalized abortion. Obviously, the are some Opus Dei types and also some fundamental Protestants who are strongly (and loudly) against abortion but they are a minority.

  15. Laertes

    Whatever the issue is, a primary would have revealed it. It's a tough break that we didn't get to do one of those this time. If we could have, we'd probably have landed on a nominee that Latinos could live with.

        1. Joseph Harbin

          Four years ago she was a first-term senator running a campaign chaired by her sister. In 2024, she was the sitting vice-president with a better team behind her.

      1. Laertes

        I'd have thought so, a few months ago? But now that we know that Latino voters really didn't like her, it's hard to imagine her winning the nomination. That seems like something one of her opponents would be able to capitalize on.

        1. Joseph Harbin

          We know she ran relatively weaker against Trump. Would other Dem candidates in a primary have done better with Latinos than Harris? It's hard to say that. I wouldn't say that Latinos are the most critical members of the Dem coalition anyway (though they will get more attention going forward).

          One thing a primary would have done is pull all candidates toward the left. Whoever was the nominee would likely have needed to pivot for the fall campaign after spending months courting the left and other Dem groups. Skipping the primaries this year may have been an advantage for Dems this cycle.

  16. skeptonomist

    Machismo is not a simple answer since Harris's share of the Latino or Hispanic vote was well down from Hillary's. Harris's share was also well down from Obama's, so anti-black racism seems unlikely (most US Latinos are not considered black).

    As others say, "Hispanic" and "Latino" are hardly uniform groups - there are many subgroups with different "racial" makeup and regional origins and also economic status. These need to be dis-aggregated to approach the problem. This would probably require more extensive sampling than has been done. A few focus groups won't do it.

    And as always, questions in polls and interviews often don't reveal what people are really thinking. Few people will admit to being motivated by racism. Attitudes may have to be approached indirectly.

    1. Crissa

      'An answer' it is.

      Because
      A) the group isn't the same (some did or didn't or could or couldn't vote for various reasons
      B) the campaign isn't the same
      C) it doesn't need to explain all of the shift to be 'an answer' only to be 'the answer'. And even then it could be the campaigning shifted it with anti-queer and trans bigotry.

  17. middleoftheroaddem

    This is a repost from an earlier Kevin article on the same topic

    I am mixed race, half Hispanic: my father immigrated from Spain. Despite a couple of degrees, from so called elite schools, I have a broad friend group. In particular, I play cards with a group of Hispanic guys: about half of the men are working class or small business owners (house painter, one owns a small lawn care business, contractor, retired military) with the remainder work/worked in white collar professions.

    I certainty do not claim to speak for all Hispanics, but I have a few insights based on my friend group. Note, this is about a dozen guys and thus, clearly, not a valid sample.

    - The idea that broad, low skilled, immigration would be popular, because the new folks are Hispanic, is clearly wrong and some see it as offensive.
    - Abortion is a right they generally respect, but its not a voting issue.
    - LatinX and similar academic language is off putting.
    - BLM spoke to Black challenges, and a couple of the guys felt excluded from that movement.
    - Several see most politicians, of both parties, as dishonest and the Government as inefficient.
    - A couple of the guys feel that Trump is really funny.
    - Several loved the fight like attitude of Trump, after the attempted assassination.

    I would guess, about half of these guys voted for Trump. Note, this is from suburban San Francisco.

    Final point, the Hispanic community is broad and diverse: one needs to be very careful in putting Hispanics into a single bucket...

    1. Crissa

      No one said A, that low skilled etc.
      B none of those guys are working class. They're all middle or higher.
      C seems to be it: they are anti-queer bigots.

      It's off-putting to them that kids born here, in the US, might have identities different from theirs. They are bigots.

  18. name99

    It's simple. Latinos, like most people, don't want to be forced into particular "identity groups". They want to be thought as as fathers, scientists, MCU-fans, cat-people, or whatever. They are not JUST "latino" or "gay latino" or "disabled gay latino", and they very much resent other people forcing them to be such. Latinx is hardly the only version of this, it's simply the most visible.

    The Dem vision for them is "you can become part of the intersectionality borg, your caste is somewhere in the middle, above white but definitely below black, now wait for your government-assigned life".
    The GOP vision for them is "You're Americans, go out and be American. Maybe that's getting married, having two kids, and being a plumber. Maybe that's working on rockets to go to Mars. Either way, live the life you want, and make it glorious".

    Turns out people (esp men) respond to one of these visions more than the other...

    But you're never going to see this if your STARTING POINT is that all people belong to a caste, which will determine their entire lives.

    1. Crissa

      Ahh, yes, the guy who cam here to spout anti-queer bigotry earlier, is here to tell us that we'e putting people (who self-identified) into categories.

      Also nameX's comment then goes into anti-queer bigotry! Far be it for queer latinx to self-identify here, eh?

  19. spatrick

    I would beg KD and others to stop "figuring". Because none of this shit is going to matter in four years and y'all are trying yourselves up in knots citing this poll or that poll or this study, that study and election results from years ago irrelevant to today.

    The bottom line is Hispanic, Latino, Mestizo, Mexican, et. al. voters who voted for Trump did so for the same reasons other voters did. There was nothing in their race, culture, ethnicity, religion whatever that made them vote for Trump specifically and until another Republican runs for President if their votes are for Republicans permanently. So it's a waste of time to worry about. Hispanics as a group in this day and age, like white voters, are too diverse in their backgrounds, religion, class, culture to be categorized the old fashioned way as single mass and we need to stop thinking about them in that way. Obviously as a campaign you talk about topics in Spanish but what you emphasize are the same concerns as voters everywhere.

    Yglesias tweeted yesterday Trump was a point away from the discussion being about why their campaign targeted unlikely voters. Sometimes the margins are that small and to freak-out about them or conversely claim a great mandate despite the closeness of your victory is the wrong way to react.

  20. scf

    While I generally agree with those who say Hispanics and Latinos really just voted the way most Americans did, there were several issues, combined, where it should not be surprising they gave Republicans more votes than usual. First, it has long been the case that newer immigrant populations become at least as hostile to even newer immigrants as those whose roots in the USA go back much further. Because they are still just starting to climb up the economic ladder, they see newer immigrants as a threat to their ascension. My family has intermarried with several Hispanic/Latino families and it seems clear to me that they are more culturally conservative than a typical Democrat. Most are Catholic or evangelicals who are not particularly supportive of LGBTQ rights or abortion rights, which was, of course, central to the Harris campaign message. Hispanics and Latinos are also more heavily employed in industries like construction where something like gasoline prices are extremely critical to their ability to make a living. Given all that, how surprised should we be that Democrats lost a big share of the Hispanic/Latino vote this year, though I also do not believe it is permanent -- especially after the Trump recession starts within the next 12-18 months.

    1. bouncing_b

      One anecdata point.

      I'm good friends with an immigrant-citizen woman who grew up in Mexico. Relatively apolitical and not much for following news. Her husband is undocumented and runs a landscaping business. They have three born-here kids.

      She voted for trump, and told me "All these Guatemalans come here and work for less. They're undercutting [her husband's] business and it's harder for us to make a living."

      And she remembers the trump years as good times.

      She's not worried about her husband getting deported because nothing has happened to them or anyone she knows for more than a decade. Plus she sees these Guatemalans living and working openly. She keeps her head down and thinks everything will turn out ok.

      Authoritarian strongman leadership, crony capitalism, and lack of institutional accountability are normal conditions to her. Nothing trump did last time seems out of line. It's just how things are. Always have been and always will be. She thinks there's no point getting all upset about something that's not going to change.

      What could I say?

  21. D_Ohrk_E1

    I think we need to know how many Latinos stayed at home compared to 2020, and the breakdown of Latino votes by age groups, before we can identify the cause of the large movement.

    If it turns out that large swaths of younger Latinos who would have otherwise voted D sat 2024 out, it could be because Harris' move towards a centrist position of stronger/tighter immigration rules turned them off, skewing the Latino vote towards Trump.

  22. Eric London

    Many good viewpoints here. I would like to add the DEI angle.

    Kamala was a DEI choice for 2020. The Democrats wanted a woman, and a woman of color. Whether that color was black or brown did not matter, they just wanted a woman of color. They chose a Black woman. As some of the smarter conservatives said at the time, what, you're telling me the best person to be the backup to the President is a DEI choice? There's no white male with better qualifications?

    Remember the week Biden resigned? There were a few tense days when everybody was wondering what would happen. An open convention, perhaps? No. The party elders decided that Kamala would be the chosen one, because IT WOULD LOOK BAD IF A WHITE MALE WON AN OPEN CONVENTION.

    It's that stupid signaling that our team does: it's more important to look right than choose the best candidate.

    Hispanics are well aware of DEI set-asides, and they're embarrassed when they themselves profit, and pissed when they some other 'minority' gets chosen.

    The insistence by the Left that everybody be separated into competing groups goes against the American Spirit. Democrats are going to have to exterminate that before they can win much again. I expect to see potential candidates for 2028 have their Sister Souljah moments.

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