This election, Donald Trump won over an unprecedented number of Latino voters, setting a GOP record. 55% of Latino men said they voted for him as well as 38% of Latinas, according to Edison Research’s exit polls.
Now having lost this crucial election, a significant coalition of progressives have started to play the blame game, and they have begun to target Latino voters.
They claim this population voted against their own interest and singlehandedly turned the tide of this election for Trump.
The fact of the matter is, Latino voters were not the only population voting Republican is massive numbers, so they are far from the ones to blame for a Trump presidency.
White men voted in massive numbers for Trump, with 3 in 5 voters from this group supporting him this election.
Harris also lost headway compared to Biden from typically Democrat-supporting populations. Black support for Harris dropped by 2% compared to Biden in 2020, and Asian support by a massive 7%.
One of the only groups she made a marginal gain with was white women, who increased their support by only 1% compared to Biden in 2020. This was also a group Harris made an intentional effort to build support with, gathering endorsements from key figures like Taylor Swift and appearing on platforms popular with white women such as the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
However, with other voter bases, the Democrats failed to present an argument that a Harris presidency would be superior to the nostalgic perception they had of Trump’s America.
To claim that Latinos are to blame for Harris’s loss is a gross mischaracterization of the results of this election.
Furthermore, for progressives to assert that Latinos voted against their own interest is unfair and inadvertently pretty racist.
In his 2024 campaign, Trump has toned down his more wildly racist remarks against this base of voters, so many Latinos are understandably less put off by his platform. However, Trump has maintained his attacks on undocumented migrants from South American countries.
While this may come as a surprise to a lot of progressives, this rhetoric is not a deal breaker for Latino voters.
To assert that they should be personally offended by this language is accidentally the same as making the assertion that most voting Latinos in this country are undocumented. Many voting Latinos have no problem with increased border security and massive deportations, because they or their families have already immigrated to this country legally.
If the Latino voter base supports conservative policies, it is not progressives’ place to argue that they are traitors or voting outside of their own interests. This is not the way you gain support from this group of voters.
This rhetoric is alienating and elitist, and it completely goes against what progressives in the Democratic party are supposed to be fighting for.
If the party wants to make gains with Latino voters in future elections, they need to drop this horrible messaging and begin to treat this base with the respect they deserve.
This story was written by Joey Schamber. He can be reached at [email protected]
