Can We PLEASE Stop Talking About the ‘Latino Vote’
There is no such thing. For the sake of democracy, let’s be more specific.
The barrage of misguided post-election analysis shows all too clearly why “the Latino vote” is a term that must be abolished. Starting on Tuesday evening, there was collective freakout among liberals over the fact that Donald Trump had been able to score about 32% of “the Latino vote” — a four-point increase from 2016, when he secured about 28% of the vote. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did because, for most of the nation, Latinos all look and vote the same.
Republican Latinos have existed since the Eisenhower years and have been a key constituency for the GOP since Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972. Since then, GOP presidential candidates have reliably secured about one-third of “the Latino vote.” This is something the Trump campaign understood early on. The Latinos for Trump coalition was the first the campaign launched, all the way back in March 2019, with a particular focus in mobilizing Floridians. Though 59% of Latinos went for Biden in the Sunshine State, according to the polling firm Latino Decisions, the 38% who didn’t helped Trump take the state when added to white voters.
