DONALD TRUMP has claimed victory in America’s election, and may even win the popular vote, something he failed to do in 2016. Political pundits are now trawling through results to figure out how he did it. Among counties that have counted almost all of their votes, some of Kamala Harris’s most disappointing results came from Texas, in particular on the border with Mexico. In Webb County her vote share was 13 percentage points lower than Joe Biden’s in 2020. It was ten points lower in Dimmit and Starr, and nine points lower in Zapata. In each of these counties, more than five in six residents are Hispanic—a group that has historically been at the core of the Democratic coalition.
Pre-election polling suggested that Donald Trump had made substantial inroads with Hispanic voters across the country. Partial results suggest this swing has materialised, helping to push the former president over the line in battleground states. And while Hispanic voters as a whole have swung away from Democrats—along with voters of all ethnicities—his gains were particularly concentrated among Hispanic men.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton won Hispanic voters by a margin of 38 percentage points, according to exit polls. By 2020 Joe Biden’s margin had shrunk to 33 points. This year early exit polling conducted by CNN suggests that Ms Harris’s margin of victory among Hispanic voters is just eight percentage points—a remarkable collapse if right. This is reflected in county-level analysis, which shows her winning a substantially lower share of the vote than Mr Biden in heavily Hispanic counties, especially those in Florida (see chart). There are a number of possible explanations for the shift.
One is a long-term trend of racial depolarisation. American politics has realigned along social and cultural lines, making religion and education crucial demographic variables. These characteristics divide Hispanic voters just as they do the rest of the country. Another explanation is that Hispanic voters are more likely than other groups to say the economy is their most important issue, favourable territory for Mr Trump.
These explanations can also account for the fact that Hispanic voters are not moving towards the Republican Party at one pace. CNN’s exit poll finds a dramatic widening of the gender gap among Hispanic voters. Hispanic men have swung from voting for Mr Biden by 23 percentage points in 2020 to voting for Mr Trump by ten points this year. Hispanic women, by contrast, voted for Ms Harris by 24 points. While men of all ethnicities were more likely to vote for Mr Trump, the widening gender gap among Hispanic voters may indicate divides over issues such as abortion.
There is also substantial variation within the Hispanic population based on heritage or country of origin. Mexican voters, especially those in south west Texas, swung dramatically towards Mr Trump in 2020, for example. This year early evidence suggests that counties with large Dominican and Cuban populations swung the furthest away from Democrats, while Puerto Rican and Mexican communities shifted by a smaller margin. This could be the result of the feisty and divisive election campaign—marked by episodes such as a comedian insulting Puerto Rico at one of Mr Trump’s rallies—or of structural differences such as geography, language and generation.
As votes continue to be counted in the west, we will see further data from states, such as Arizona, California, and Nevada, that have large Hispanic populations. In Arizona and Nevada—important battlegrounds in this year’s election—a shift among Hispanic voters could be the difference between Mr Trump or Ms Harris winning the state. But the result of the presidential election is not in doubt. This year has cemented Hispanic voters’ position as a crucial swing constituency. For Democrats looking to what comes next, rebuilding their Hispanic coalition will be a difficult task.■
