Washington D.C.- Though the 2020 Presidential Election is still undecided, one thing has been acknowledged, even by the Democrats. President Trump’s message on the 2020 presidential campaign trail resonated massively with the nation’s growing Hispanic American population.
This is, in large part, due to the fact that the President focused on the defense of law enforcement , the working class, and against globalization.
— Latinos for Trump (@OfficialLFT2020) November 19, 2020
Election data reviewed by Politico revealed that in 78 of the nation’s 100 majority-Hispanic counties across the United States, Trump improved his margins compared to the 2016 presidential election.
President Trump also improved his margins with Hispanic Americans “in exit polls of each of the top 10 battleground states,” Politico reports.
Data indicates the improvement is a result of Trump’s anti-globalism message which resonates with large groups of working-class Hispanic Americans who largely support police officers.
Key focuses of Trump’s campaign included slamming Democrats for their attacks on police, defending the interests of American workers against foreign competition in the labor market, attacking China for their domination in the world economy and the economic elites who have aided their rise for decades.
Politico reports:
In interviews with more than a dozen experts on Hispanic voters in six states, no factor was as salient as Trump’s blue-collar appeal for Latinos. President Trump’s message included defending police officers, nearly all of which come from working- and middle-class backgrounds, and supporting American industries and American workers over global interests.
Josh Zaragoza, a top Democratic data specialist in Arizona, said:
“Most Latinos identify first as working-class Americans, and Trump spoke to that. Hispanic men in particular are very entrepreneurial. Their economic language is more aligned with the way Republicans speak: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, owning your own business.”
Most prominently, the data indicates that many Hispanic Americans were turned off by Democrats’ strong embrace of Black Lives Matter, an anti-police movement, and the use of so-called “woke” terminology such as the gender-neutral “Latinx” lingo that is often spewed by white liberals.
One Democrat strategist noted to Politico that about 97 percent of Hispanic Americans do not use the term “Latinx.” On the Black Lives Matter movement, the data found that Hispanic Americans were “as receptive as non-Hispanic whites to a pro-police and pro-jobs message.”
It seems that while Democrats were busy spreading their message to the “woke” society about the need to defund the police, they failed to consider the millions of legal immigrants who fled a corrupt country.
These are people who have witnessed and lived with true police corruption. These are people who welcome honest policing and understand that while there are some bad apples in the bunch, on the whole, America’s police do an outstanding job of defending and protecting its citizens.
It was noted that most Latinos in this country are working class. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that this identity of being working class is more important than this identity of being Latino.
A Hispanic Democrat activist who spoke to Politico said for third-generation Hispanic Americans, putting the interests of illegal aliens and foreign nationals over that of American citizens is baffling.
Robert Gonzalez is a Mexican American living in Texas and a Trump supporter. He is just one example of why Trump’s grassroots campaign resonated so strongly and Latino support for Trump increased.
“He’s not a career politician,” Gonzalez said of Trump. He was saddened that businesses in Riverwalk downtown — a heavy tourist area — had been boarded up because of the pandemic. Gonzalez says he believes that Trump will bring economic recovery.
Exit polling conducted by Zogby Analytics for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found that Hispanic voters — including those who voted for Democrat Joe Biden — are overwhelmingly supportive of reducing overall legal immigration to the U.S., nearly as much as white Americans.
For instance, nearly 73 percent of Hispanic voters said they support reducing immigration while tens of millions of Americans are jobless or underemployed. This is just a five percent difference between white Americans who support reducing immigration.
Similarly, 6-in-10 Hispanic voters said overall legal immigration should be reduced even after the U.S. recovers from its unemployment crisis to “protect American jobs” for Americans. This is only a six percent difference between white Americans who support the policy.
Hispanic Americans were also very supportive, 80 percent, of shutting down the nation’s borders to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Even 8-in-10 Democrats supported the actions Trump took to close the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders.
Democrats attempted to counter the President’s messaging, slamming Trump as a “caudillo”, or strongman, for his attacks on the media and government institutions. But what they failed to see was that through their heavy-handed efforts, they actually lost Latino support.
The diverse Latino electorate has a record of backing Republicans in parts of the country, with some segments commonly identifying with Republican messages about the economy and social and political issues.
Daniel Garza, president of The LIBRE Initiative, a Hispanic center-right organization offered his opinion:
“I think Latinos understand Trump can be coarse sometimes and can be uncouth, but then they take a look at his policies that a lot of Latinos embrace — pro-growth, entrepreneurial — these are all policies Latinos can embrace.
Trump’s performance in Texas was noteworthy because the Latino outreach in the Rio Grande Valley on his behalf was very organic. This was communication spread from one person to the next.”
Garza, who lives in the region, noted that car caravans for Trump became commonplace and heavily attended. They “took off all the way up to Laredo,” he said.
2 months ago interviewed our Asst S Tx Director Rolando Rodriguez on how he started the #TrumpTrain #RGV #LatinosForTrump
Must watchhttps://t.co/SKRh8AFAMt— Latinos for Trump (@OfficialLFT2020) November 21, 2020
Beyond the economy, Mexican American voters in the Rio Grande Valley tend to be more conservative on the issues. An effective tool used by the Trump campaign was the law-and-order rhetoric, which resonated with an already predisposed population to question things like Black Lives Matter and youth protests.
The pandemic did little to help Democratic outreach, with the party suspending door-to-door canvassing, events and rallies that had been crucial to gaining votes. Republicans chose to continue work in the field. The Trump campaign was doing in-person events that the Biden campaign never did.
Early in his presidency, Trump and members of his administration focused on different groups within South Florida’s Latino electorate, holding periodic rallies in the state to share the administration’s specific measures toward different countries, including Cuba and Venezuela.
At the same time, Trump and his supporters’ linked Democrats’ healthcare or tax policies as a slippery slope to socialism.
The president also cultivated conservative Hispanics. He visited the largest Latino evangelical congregation in the country at a Florida megachurch and spoke at length about abortion, matter which is often a deal breaker for many Christian voters.
In South Florida, Colombian American voter Olga Berrio, 78, said she voted for Trump because Democrats are too far to the left. She said:
“After Obama and then Clinton, I felt this country was heading towards the left, rather than the right.”
Miami’s Manuel Montes de Oca, 45, owner of a chain of Cuban pizza restaurants, was one of the Latino Trump voters. The reason he gave?
“I like to keep most of the money I make and not give it away in taxes.”
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