Why Hispanics Are Becoming Less Reliably Democratic

Making sense of a long-emerging trend.

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(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Over the past few years, we at The Liberal Patriot have been tracking a phenomenon that could reshape American politics for years to come: Hispanic voters, long thought to be a loyal Democratic constituency, are showing an increased willingness to support Republicans. While there were early signs of this movement in the 2018 midterms, it became especially pronounced in the 2020 presidential election. That year, Hispanics backed Joe Biden for president by 26 points. Though it may sound like a wide margin, this represented a sharp decline from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point margin just four years prior.

Heading into next month’s presidential contest, there are fresh signs that the Democrats’ 2024 nominee, Kamala Harris, is facing an uphill battle to regain her party’s lost ground with Hispanic Americans. The latest presidential election polling from The New York Times shows Harris only winning Hispanic voters over Donald Trump by 19 points (56–37). This comes on the heels of an NBC News poll from late last month showing her lead with them down to just 14 points (54–40). Both polls found that her declining support was driven by younger, male, non-college-educated Hispanics.¹

If these margins materialized on Election Day, they would represent the second-smallest advantage for a Democratic nominee in the last 40 years (only John Kerry in 2004 did worse—at a nine-point margin—and he of course went on to lose). Trump’s roughly 39 percent of the vote would also be the second-highest level of support for a Republican nominee since at least 1972 (behind only George Bush’s 44 percent in 2004).

This shift has perplexed many observers. After all, it wasn’t long ago that Trump decried many Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” and his anti-immigration rhetoric and deportation threats have grown increasingly menacing in the final months of the campaign. So why could it be that so many Hispanics not only aren’t turned off by Trump but are considering voting for him?

First, the New York Times poll indicated that a majority of Hispanic Americans—especially those born in the United States—do not believe Trump is referring to them when he talks about the country’s immigration problems. What’s more, many agreed with Trump’s proposals, including 43 percent who say they support building a wall along America’s southern border and 45 percent who back deporting anyone living in the country illegally. This skepticism of migrants mirrors findings from a spring 2024 survey showing many American Hispanics believe the arrival of new immigrants from Latin American countries hurts the former group’s social status in the U.S.

This finding is particularly interesting because one issue that has long tied many Hispanics to the Democratic Party has been immigration. Barack Obama made explicit appeals during his campaigns—and, later, a strong legislative push as well—to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which was likely a major reason why he received historic backing from Hispanic Americans (roughly 65 percent in 2008 and 70 percent in 2012). In 2016, Hillary Clinton picked up that mantle while Trump drove a hard anti-immigrant message that alienated many Hispanics, allowing her to basically match Obama’s levels of support from 2008.

But in 2020, Biden’s margins with Hispanics were noticeably lower. According to a post-election report from Equis Research, this may have been at least in part because Trump turned down the “identity knob” and instead focused on the economy, where he had an advantage. Meanwhile, the salience of the immigration issue had decreased as many Hispanics grew jaded about Democrats’ past promises on the subject. All this created what Equis called a “permission structure” for more Hispanics to back Trump than had previously. Today, even as Trump has dialed that knob back up again, his gains with many of these voters may have already been cemented, making it hard for Harris to peel away some of that support.

Trump’s longstanding advantage on the economy is likely another reason he has made inroads with Hispanic Americans, many of whom care deeply about the issue and are very pessimistic about the current state of things—a troubling sign for the party in power. According to the New York Times poll, nearly 40 percent of Hispanics identified concerns over the economy as the most important issue informing their vote choice this November. When asked how they viewed the state of the economy, a majority (52 percent) called it “poor,” with another 31 percent saying it is “only fair.” Nate Cohn, the paper’s chief political analyst, pointed out that Hispanic voters who prioritize the economy over all other issues are breaking hard for Trump, 61–35.

Additionally, Hispanic Americans are more moderate than some Democrats might expect them to be. Using data from the Cooperative Election Study, Echelon Insights pollster Patrick Ruffini showed that the overwhelming majority of Hispanic voters are not ideologically extreme one way or the other, meaning more progressive immigration-related proposals like an open borders policy or abolishing ICE are unlikely to resonate with many of them and may even turn them off. Similarly, we know that very few Hispanics use identifiers adopted by social justice groups like “Latinx,” and some even find the term offensive. This cohort’s moderation is evident even among self-identified Democrats: multiple polls have found Hispanic Democrats are far less likely than white ones to call themselves “liberal.”

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It remains to be seen whether the actual election results this year reflect these rightward shifts in the polls. If they do, it could jeopardize Harris’s chances of winning crucial swing states such as Arizona and Nevada. But even if Harris matches Biden’s 2020 margins, it would still represent a decline from the Democrats’ higher levels of support under Obama and Clinton. Given Hispanic Americans’ continued growth as a share of the electorate, their influence will grow in future elections, too. If Democrats hope to rebound with these voters, it may behoove them to no longer think of Hispanics as a core part of their coalition but increasingly as a swing group—one that must be persuaded to vote for them and not taken for granted.

[Editor’s note: A version of this piece first appeared in UnHerd.]

1. A rolling average of demographic crosstabs from the Cook Political Report shows Harris’s lead at an even lower 12 points. However, another aggregator tracker from pollster Adam Carlson shows that she has more or less closed the gap with Biden’s 2020 margins.