An Equis Lab Report, published late last week, attempts to explain why, in the 2020 elections, President Donald Trump and other Republicans performed better among Hispanic voters than in previous elections. In the end, the report was unable to definitively say why Hispanic voters supported Trump and other Republicans last year more so than in the past — but it is undeniable that they did.
It is believed that half of the 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives that Republicans gained in the 2020 election were from districts that have high Hispanic populations, such as the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas and Miami-Dade County in Florida. The swing was more than 20 points in those two areas.
While Democrats continued to garner a larger percentage of the Hispanic vote in the past election, the strong swing to Republicans, including Trump, indicates that the votes of this segment of the population are potentially up for grabs.
Naturally, the left-wing New York Times attributed part of the increase in the Hispanic vote for Trump and other Republicans a result of “a network of influencers who spread disinformation.” Such brazenly biased reporting by the Times and the rest of the mainstream media is not new, but it continues to be amazing that such biased journalism is so pervasive.
The Equis Labs Report is a contradiction to much of the narrative pushed by the mainstream media — that Hispanics are in lock-step with not only the Democratic Party, but also the party’s progressive goals. As the Equis Labs Report explained, “The 2020 elections were a reminder of the diversity — including ideological diversity — of Latino voters.” And this “ideological diversity” could spell bad news for Democrats. To Democrats and others in the liberal establishment, “diversity” means a liberal white guy, a liberal black guy, a liberal woman of whatever color, a liberal Hispanic, a liberal LGBTQ person, and so on, while ideological diversity it not allowed. Hispanics, like blacks, women, and the LGBTQ community, are expected to know their place — the Democratic Party. Any person in one of those groups who dares to venture out of the Democratic Party coalition can be expected to be castigated roundly.
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It is not surprising that Cuban support for Trump increased in the past election, but as the Equis Labs Report noted, while opposition to socialism can somewhat explain the increased Cuban support, it “doesn’t explain movement in Milwaukee” among Hispanics. It also does not explain the significant swing of 15 percent of Cubans who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then voted for Donald Trump in 2020. According to the report, Trump gained support among Hispanics via defections from the Democratic Party and from new voters.
In Nevada, a state Trump almost won — and, many continue to argue, did win in the absence of voting irregularities — Trump’s support among Hispanics who identify as conservative increased from 50 percent to 72 percent! Trump also gained among moderate Hispanics (24 to 40 percent), and most amazingly, among self-identified liberal Hispanics — from four percent to ten percent. Trump’s support among Hispanics under 50 years old also increased.
Whether these votes indicate a permanent shift to Republicans in general, or just to Trump, is still uncertain, but it does seem as if the Hispanic population in the United States is a group that shows interest in conservative principles. This is probably because of their interest in business enterprises and less government regulation, and fear that the government, under Democrats, would hinder their business endeavors.
Hispanics were not the only minority demographic that Trump improved upon — he gained six percentage points among black men.
But some issues that enabled Trump to increase his support among Hispanics are probably surprising to the political experts. For example, Mateo Mokarzel, who is of mixed Lebanese and Mexican ancestry, said he was a liberal growing up but was attracted to Trump due to his non-interventionist foreign policy.
The BBC quoted Mokarzel: “He [Trump] really delivered on his anti-globalization policy. Neoliberal expansion has really hurt both Mexico and the U.S., and when you have family that live there, and you can see how it hurts people living, their jobs, their wages, it really has increased the narco-war, and this is one of the things Trump came in saying — ‘hey, we’re going to tear apart these trade deals’ — and then he actually did it. That was for me the first sign that he actually meant some of the things he was saying.”
Other issues cited by Hispanics in the BBC story were Trump’s pro-life views, particularly his nomination of pro-life judges to the federal courts. Even on the issue of immigration, Hispanics are not monolithic, and if anything, are more opposed to an open-border policy than the general population. In a 2017 Gallup Poll, 67 percent of Hispanics said they worried a great deal or a fair amount about immigration, which is actually higher than the percentage expressing that view than among the non-Hispanic population.
All of this indicates that Hispanics need to be approached not primarily as some static demographic, but simply as voters — voters who want a more conservative government.
