Trump’s growing support among Latino voters in recent election

Donald Trump gained more Latino and Black voters this time around than in 2020. While Vice President Kamala Harris secured more Latino and Black voters overall, President-elect Trump outperformed that margin.

Edward Vargas, Ph.D., Professor at the School of Transborder Studies at ASU, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss more about this shift.

“Some (voters) are going to Trump. But it’s important to note that they aren’t necessarily going for Trump, they are voting for the economy,” Dr. Vargas said.

Dr. Vargas emphasized while there are numerous amounts of switch voters among Latinos, an estimated 1/3 of these votes are coming from new Latino voters.

When looking at the polls, Dr. Vargas explained that many Latino’s top issues included inflation, affordability and housing.

“It’s not just that they care about the economy,” Dr. Vargas said, “it’s also about the sacrifices that their parents had to make, for example crossing dangerous places, risking their lives to come here to work.”

Dr. Vargas’s research showed that many young voters were concerned with immigration reform and were not content with the decisions the Democratic party had been making.

“They are not seeing results when it came to immigration reform, which is different than border security,” Dr. Vargas said. “Being pro-border security doesn’t mean you’re anti-immigrant. I think these are two mutually exclusive responses.”

Dr. Vargas believes the direction Latino voters tend to go to is very candidate-specific. Due to Harris entering the race so late, many voters were not aware of who she was and what her policies were.

“I think the Trump administration did a really good job at contacting independent voters,” Dr. Vargas said. “They went to places they have never gone in the past. Trump went to New Mexico; this is unheard of for a Republican party.”