Democrats are continuing to lose ground among Hispanic voters, which could end up hurting Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
The Cook Political Report’s database of crosstabs from polls shows that Harris currently leads Trump among Hispanic voters by an average of 12 points – a significant drop from President Joe Biden’s 23-point lead among Hispanics in 2020. Biden’s lead was also a drop from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point lead in 2016.
Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist and commentator, wrote in his Liberal Patriot newsletter this week that Democrats underestimate the “seriousness” of the problem for three reasons.
“(1) they don’t realize how big the shift is; (2) they don’t realize how thoroughly it undermines the most influential Democratic theory of the case for building their coalition; and (3) they believe that any Hispanic flirtation with the GOP is merely temporary—they will “come back home” to the Democrats,” he wrote.
Teixeira also noted that the U.S. Census shows that Hispanics are the largest nonwhite population in the nation – and growing. Hispanics currently account for roughly 19% of the U.S. population, with African Americans making up about 14%.
Harris is likely to still win Hispanics overall, just as Biden did in 2020, but Republicans’ continued gains among this voting bloc mean Democrats will have to make up the votes elsewhere, which may explain why so many Harris ads are focused on abortion.
Even though Biden won Hispanics in 2020, then-President Donald Trump improved his vote share in 78 of America’s 100 majority-Hispanic counties, The Daily Wire reported at the time. In writing about the phenomenon, POLITICO’s Marc Caputo noted that Trump also did better with Hispanics “in exit polls of each of the top 10 battleground states.”
“Joe Biden still won Latino voters overall. But as post-election data trickles in, Democrats are growing concerned. Trump’s notable gains weren’t limited to Miami’s Cuban Americans or border-region Tejanos. Although Florida and Texas stood out for the notable shift, Puerto Ricans as far away as Philadelphia and Mexican Americans in Milwaukee drifted Trump-ward,” Caputo wrote.
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The trend has continued nearly four years into the Biden administration, with Hispanic support in New Mexico dropping due to their disapproval of the president, The Daily Wire reported earlier this year. Polls in April also showed Biden’s support for Hispanics eroding, leading to speculation Democrats could lose Nevada and Arizona – two critical swing states.
So, why are Hispanics leaving the Democrat party? This was explained following the 2020 election by Josh Zaragoza, a top Democratic data specialist in Arizona, who told POLITICO, “Most Latinos identify first as working-class Americans, and Trump spoke to that.” He also said that Hispanic men “are very entrepreneurial. Their economic language is more aligned with the way Republicans speak: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, owning your own business.”
Further, Democrats’ embrace of socialism can turn off Hispanic voters, who often escaped socialist dictatorships.
After the 2020 election, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) said during a Democrat conference call that “Defund police, open borders, socialism — it’s killing us,” according to The New York Times. Gonzalez added during that call that the “average white person” may think of Nordic countries when they hear the word “socialism,” but Asians and Hispanics associate the word with despotic “left-wing regimes.”
It appears Democrats have not learned from that call.
