“I don’t think he’s racist, he’s just fed up with illegal immigrants. » In Phoenix, Jimmy Archuleta said on Wednesday he was “very happy” with Donald Trump’s victory. Like a growing number of Americans of Hispanic origin, he took up the Republican cause.
In the aftermath of a historic defeat for their candidate Kamala Harris, Democrats find themselves faced with the difficult task of introspection to explain this defeat. If the reasons are multiple, the erosion of support from the Latino electorate, which in 2024 represented a little more than one in 10 voters, is high on the list.
A gradual crumbling
According to an exit poll published by NBC News, 53% of Hispanic voters voted for Kamala Harris compared to 45% for Donald Trump. A figure to highlight with 2020, when Joe Biden won 59% of their votes and Donald Trump 38%, according to the Pew Research Center.
But this loss of momentum by the Democrats does not start today. “It’s clear that this is a progressive movement. We observed a trend that started in 2016, reasserted itself in 2020 and took a step forward in 2024,” explains Roberto Suro, professor at the University of Southern California.
Support for xenophobic immigration policies
To explain this movement towards Donald Trump, he cites several elements. “The idea that Latinos would react negatively to promises of stricter immigration policies has proven to be false,” explains Roberto Suro, because some “Latino voters – American citizens – will vote for tough immigration policies, or even xenophobic”.
For him, “these people really make a distinction between two types of immigration”, the one which dates back several decades, and the more recent. “They say: 'I am for a regularization program for people who have been here a long time, have children here, have worked here, have no criminal record and are part of the fabric of society' and 'I want to send back those who arrived recently, I want a wall, I want border security”, underlines the researcher.
Latino men increasingly attracted to Trump
Religious, gender and socio-economic aspects are also behind this rallying, according to him. “It has truly been observed – among Mexican American men, [chrétiens] evangelicals, non-college graduates, and working class people – a steady move toward Trump, election after election,” especially because they are traditionally conservative on social issues.
According to the firm Edison Research, 54% of Latino male voters voted for the Republican this year, compared to 36% in 2020. This “very clear” movement towards Donald Trump is also observed “along the border, in the most directly affected by this new immigration,” says Roberto Suro.
The myth of the “business genius”
Met on Wednesday in the streets of Phoenix, a large city in Arizona, a state bordering Mexico, Jimmy Archuleta explains that inflation is one of the main reasons which pushed him to support the billionaire.
“He's really a business genius, so I hope he will improve the economy,” confides this American of Mexican origin, while Donald Trump nevertheless collects professional setbacks. “I just hope it makes food and gas prices more reasonable,” he adds. For this 47-year-old bodybuilder, the Republican is not racist and will especially attack illegal immigrants.
“I know that if someone sees me in the street, they don't know what my status is here,” continues the worker, whose mother arrived legally from Mexico in the 1970s. “But for me, it's It's different, I don't worry: I know I'm in order. » As for some of his undocumented friends, he replies that “if they come here and get caught, that's part of the rules, they've always known the risks. »
