Why neither party can figure out Latino voters

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

What’s happening

Latinos are the fastest-growing racial and ethnic group in the United States, and their influence on American politics becomes greater with each election cycle.

With 34.5 million eligible voters, Latinos make up about 14% of the U.S. electorate in 2022, the largest share of any nonwhite group. But those raw numbers understate the outsized role they will play in determining which party controls Congress after next month’s midterms. Latinos are overrepresented in battleground states that will sway the Senate majority, particularly in Nevada and Arizona. They also make up a large share of voters in several tight races that could decide whether Democrats hold onto the House.

For years, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that the growing influence of Latino voters — who have historically favored Democrats by significant margins — would be a windfall for Democrats and a major problem for Republicans. But recent elections have given experts reason to doubt that assumption.

Although Democrats won the presidency and both Houses of Congress in 2020, nationwide results showed their advantage among Latinos had slipped significantly. President Biden won a strong majority of Latino voters nationwide, but his margin over Donald Trump was about eight percentage points smaller than Hillary Clinton’s four years earlier. Some key parts of the country, particularly in border regions of Florida and Texas, saw a dramatic rightward shift among Latinos.

Some conservative analysts at the time saw 2020 as the first step in a mass movement of Latino voters to the GOP. Recent polls suggest that hasn’t happened, at least for now. Democrats appear to have maintained a sizable advantage among Latino voters heading into midterms, although the gap is smaller than it had been in previous decades.

Why there’s debate

Figuring out where the loyalties of Latino voters lie today and will lie in the future is one of the most important questions in U.S. politics. So why does this crucial voting bloc keep defying the expectations of both parties?

The most frequent answer given by experts is that there is no such thing as “the Latino vote.” They argue that, although they are often discussed as a singular group, the political views of Latinos vary dramatically based on their age, their national heritage, income, where they live and how long they and their families have been in the U.S. Researchers say that these differences are so significant that it’s difficult for either party to appeal to certain Latinos without turning away others.

Another factor, many say, is that both parties make assumptions about Latinos that aren’t necessarily true. They argue that Democrats assume Latino voters prioritize things like immigation and racial justice, when surveys show that they are most concerned about kitchen-table issues like the economy, education and crime. Republicans, others say, can fall victim to the presumption that high rates of Chrisitanity among Latinos means they will side with religious conservatives on divisive cultural issues. Some evidence, in fact, suggests that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide abortion protections may have severely hurt the GOP’s standing with the group heading into the midterms.

Many activists from across the political spectrum say the main issue is lack of outreach on both sides. Latinos had the lowest turnout rate of any racial group in 2020, but polls indicate that neither party is putting in enough effort and resources to rally them to their side.

Perspectives

Democrats’ new appreciation for Latino voters has helped them hold off the GOP’s gains

“Arguably the biggest benefit of less coverage that paints Latinxs as a monolithic voting bloc is that it serves as a great wake-up call for both parties to stop taking us for granted. For too long, Latinxs were seen as reliable voters for the Democrats. Demographics are destiny, they would say. But the 2020 election challenged that notion.” — Fidel Martinez, San Diego Union-Tribune

The failures of both parties have left Latinos with no logical political home

“While the majority of Latinos still vote for Democrats, a large group of Latino voters are definitely still up for grabs. There’s not this deeply ingrained, deeply loyal, across the board affinity for either party. Latino voters have long felt like neither party really speaks to them. That Democrats have taken them for granted, and that Republicans have candidates who seem to have outright hostility toward them, and that nobody really quite values them as voters.” — Jennifer Medina, New York Times

The GOP’s opposition to abortion rights may have reversed Latinos’ rightward swing

“Historically, Latinos have focused on issues such as economics, jobs, education and immigration to determine their vote — areas in which the GOP believes it has an upper hand among more moderate voters. However, the quickly changing landscape of sexual and reproductive rights in the United States might influence what matters most to Latino voters.” — Salomé Gómez-Upegui, Guardian

Just because someone fits into the Latino category doesn’t mean they see themselves that way

“If you’re a Latino who identifies as ‘white’ or ‘American,’ it often doesn’t matter what country you’re from or where your ancestors came from. You can still have a strong white, American identity that makes you receptive to these messages because you want to be part of that community that’s ‘protecting’ the United States from these alleged threats. It’s nice to be on the winning team, and white people in America are still the winning team.” — Melissa Michelson, political scientist, to FiveThirtyEight

It can be confusing to make sense of conflicting trends among Latino voters

“Some change in Latino loyalties seems irreversible. In particular, the increased willingness of self-identified conservative Latinos to vote Republican has likely raised the share of the Latino vote the GOP can routinely expect. … [But] if Democrats can sustain even a roughly 3-to-2 split among Latino voters, that will pay increasing dividends going forward as more of them enter the electorate.” — Ronald Brownstein, Atlantic

Neither party fully grasps how deeply diverse American Latinos are

“As the second-largest group of voting-age Americans, with many not solidly aligned with either party, Latino voters can be a powerful and stabilizing force in American politics. But misconceptions about this diverse and multiracial voting community persist. … Attempts to put Latino voters in an ‘either/or’ box have consistently led to oversimplifications and mistaken assumptions about this community.” — Janet Murguía and Héctor Sánchez Barba, Los Angeles Times

Latino voters are ready to side with whichever party makes them a priority

“Latino voters are not apathetic, they are unconvinced. They are sending a wake-up call to both parties.” — Clarissa Martínez de Castro, vice president of the UnidosUS Latino Vote Initiative, to NBC News

Latinos are more socially conservative than most Democrats want to believe

“It seems clear that Democrats seriously erred in 2020 by lumping Hispanics in with other ‘people of color,’ assuming that they sympathized with the racial activism that dominated so much of the political scene that year. In reality, Hispanic voters are not a liberal voting bloc, especially on social issues.” — Ruy Teixeira, Wall Street Journal

American Latinos have been particularly affected by the chaos of the past few years

“As in many campaign years, volatility will tell the story. The lingering effects of the pandemic, the highest inflation in 40 years, and two-thirds of Latinos agreeing with the overall US majority that the country is on the wrong track make for an unquestionably difficult midterm season.” — Ray Suarez, Vox

Democrats are pushing Latinos away, but breaking down partisan loyalty takes time

“Latinos, at least in areas such as South Texas, are far more conservative than the national Democratic Party. … The challenge, for Republicans, is to break the traditional partisan loyalty to the Democratic Party in areas like these, which is often far more powerful than the relatively conservative ideological and religious tendencies that one sees in the polling data.” — Nate Hochman, National Review

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