Latino Americans have long supported the Democratic Party, but in recent years things have begun to shift. The main reason for this historic swing is because Hispanics perceive Democrats as being far more progressive, or woke (choose your own word) than they themselves are.
For example, in 2020, President Biden won 65% of the Latino vote, compared to Trump’s 32%. But four years previously, in 2016, Hispanics supported Hillary Clinton over Trump by 66% to 28%. And in 2012, Hispanics favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 71% to 27%. Clearly the numbers show eroding Latino support for the Democratic nominee for President: from 71% in 2012 to 66% in 2016 to 65% in 2020.
Specific issues aside (immigration, the border, jobs, terrorism), Latino voters increasingly are drawn to a Republican conservatism they perceive as more aligned to their values. Partly this is due to the fact that nearly half of American Latinos are Roman Catholic, with another 19% identifying as evangelical. Another, related reason is because Latinos are patriotic and working class, believers in the American dream. They hated the “defund the police” rhetoric of progressives; rising crime rates in primarily Latino areas have been harmful to their communities. They want more cops, not fewer. It may also be true that Latinos do not identify with the “Black Lives Matter” movement; the acronym BIPOC, in particular, offends some of them. For instance, in this op-ed piece in the Seattle Times, Professor Carlos B. Gil argues that the use of the term “BIPOC casually dismisses Latinos because we are lumped into the POC part of the acronym [but] too often I cringe when I see or read reports on crucial minority issues only to see examples relating to Black people.” This view was confirmed by an analysis in the Virginia Law Review (June 6, 2021). “Because BIPOC purposefully and by definition centers two particular groups (Black and Indigenous),” the analysis found, “all of the other non-white groups within the fold are marginalized by design, grouped together in the leftover people of color section of BIPOC…Black and Indigenous people are not at the center of every contemporary racial issue,” and Latinos in particular may feel that the term “does more harm than good…”.
Yet Latinos also have the impression that Democrats wholeheartedly embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, and this too has contributed to the ongoing switch from Democratic to Republican among Latinos. The peril this presents to the Democratic Party “has been underestimated in Democratic circles,” writes Rui Texeira, of the Center for American Progress. Democrats “don’t realize how big the shift is; and they don’t realize how thoroughly it undermines the most influential Democratic theory of the case for building their coalition.” Since “The idea of a permanent Democratic majority is based totally on Hispanic voters,” if Dems lose Latinos, the party’s future is in doubt.
Steve Heimoff