Latino Voters Swung the Electorate and Delivered Trump His Re-Election Victory, But Why?
In the 2024 presidential election, President-Elect Donald Trump secured victory with 277 electoral votes, clinching the must-win battleground state of Pennsylvania and beating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Exit polling has shown that the Republican Party was able to peel away enough votes from two formerly reliable Democratic voting blocs: Latino and Black voters. These voting blocs in swing and battleground states delivered President-Elect Trump his victory.
Latino men, found comfort in President-Elect Trump’s messaging
Despite a campaign filled with rhetoric that demonized and dehumanized the Latino community, exit polling shows that Latino men found comfort in Trump’s overall message. This has become the largest story out of the 2024 presidential election.
According to early exit polling from NBC News, Trump managed to pick up 45 percent of Latino voters compared to Vice President Harris’ 53 percent. In comparison, President Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters in 2020 compared to Trump’s 32 percent. This is a significant swing toward the Republican president-elect who campaigned on mass deportations and insulting Latino voters.
In total, Latino men supported Trump over Vice President Harris by 10 points. A majority of the Latino men who voted for Trump are non-college-educated voters, a demographic that Trump has often been able to motivate with his rhetoric across racial lines.
One of the biggest swings over the last three presidential elections has been in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Democrats have watched the majority Latino county slowly and reliably shift to the right politically. Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County in 2016 by 63 percent. In 2020, President Biden won Miami-Dade County by 53 percent. Yet, in 2024, Miami-Dade County voted for Trump at 54 percent, according to the Miami Herald.
Democracy, abortion, and healthcare are not major concerns for Trump-supporting Latino voters
According to the Pew Research Center, Latino voters who supported Trump voted on three key issues: the economy, violent crime, and immigration. Meanwhile, the Latino voters who supported Harris voted on the issues of the economy, healthcare, and gun policy. This information helps to extrapolate that Trump’s message about immigrants and immigration resonated with Latino voters, particularly Latino men.
Trump’s inroads with Latino voters switched voting patterns that had held for more than a century. Along the southern part of Texas, Starr County, which has voted Democratic since 1896, flipped for Trump.
Education plays a crucial role
According to the Pew Research Center, there is a link between the level of education and the way people vote. There has been a marked drop in college enrollment among Latino men, with just one in five Latino men enrolled in college since the 2020 pandemic. Meanwhile, 27 percent of Latinas are enrolled in higher education. According to the study, 79 percent of Latinos in the U.S. do not have a bachelor’s degree compared to 62 percent of American adults 25 and older.
Trump has been able to court non-college-educated voters. More affluent and educated voters tend to vote for Democrats and Democratic policies that expand and protect people’s rights.
It is clear that Democrats will have to do some work to turn Latino voters, particularly non-college-educated Latino men, back to the Democratic Party. How that will happen is yet to be seen.
The drastic swing in Latino voter behavior is something to study. Seeing a campaign malign and attack Latinos still make gains in the community is something many Latino voters are grappling with today.
How does this happen? Why have Latino voters swung so decisively to a party that has promised to cause harm to our community and families? What would it take for these same Latinos to vote with compassion for their fellow Latinos crying out for help?
