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Despite Donald Trump’s use of anti-immigrant rhetoric, which could potentially turn off some Latino voters, the former president is seeing a rise in support within this demographic. According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, Latino voters, now constituting nearly 15% of eligible voters, show President Biden with 40% support compared to Trump’s 46%.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ruben Navarrette asserts that Latino voters, previously a dependable Democratic constituency, are increasingly leaning toward the former president. Navarrette argues that this trend is evident in key battleground states like Arizona and Nevada, primarily due to their disenchantment with the current administration.
Trump was the most anti-Latino president since Dwight D. Eisenhower loaded Mexican immigrants and some Mexican Americans onto railroad cars in 1953 and shipped them back to Mexico as part of Operation Wetback.
If reelected, Trump promises to remove as many as 10 million people through mass deportations. Most of those removed would be Latino. No surprise there. Trump has never met a Latino that he didn’t insult, mistreat or scapegoat. During his first campaign for the presidency, he slandered Mexican migrants like my grandfather by calling them rapists, criminals and drug traffickers. How could Latinos support a guy like that?
On second thought, maybe some of this makes sense.
Trump keeps doing better and better with Latinos, especially Latino men, every time his name is on the ballot. In 2016, Trump got about 28% of the Latino vote, the same amount of support that Republican nominee Mitt Romney got four years earlier. In 2020, he got as much as 36%, which was a little better than GOP nominee John McCain did in 2008. And this year, in 2024, well, it would not be terribly surprising to most if Trump got a solid 40%, which would have him breathing rarefied air with former President Ronald Reagan, who got the same percentage of the Latino vote in his 1984 reelection. And Latinos loved Reagan. The main reason Trump is doing well with Latinos is that Biden is doing poorly.
