(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump largely treated Latino voters the same as other groups by highlighting his core emphasis on border security and the harms of inflation. At the same time, he threatened to deport millions of undocumented Latin American migrants, and late in the election one of his election rally warm-up acts called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
Yet a big swing toward the Republican by Latino voters, particularly men, helped Trump seal wins in several key states. Understanding why is likely to occupy election experts and sociologists for some time, but here’s what we know so far.
What happened with the Latino vote?
Most Latinos vote for the Democratic Party, and they did so again in 2024. But it was by a margin far smaller than in 2020, and this handed crucial votes to Trump. Some 45% of Latino voters picked Trump, up from 32% in 2020, according to exit polls from cable channel CNN. Whereas 65% voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, just 52% broke for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, the CNN polls suggest.
The polls indicate that 55% of Latino men voted for Trump in 2024, an improvement from 32% in 2016 and 36% in 2020. By comparison, Trump’s support among his traditional base of White men has hovered around 60% every time he was on the ballot, the surveys showed. Trump also made gains with Black men, the data indicated.
How influential is the Latino demographic?
Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the US, and their influence is growing. Around 36 million people — 15% of the electorate — identified as Latino, almost twice as many as two decades ago, according to the Pew Research Center. Latinos accounted for half of the growth in new voters in 2024.
How significant was the Latino vote in swing states?
The Latino vote in the swing states was a major force that helped Trump win but it was not the sole deciding factor. Pennsylvania was the biggest prize among the swing states. About 579,000 Latinos were eligible to vote there, according to the Latino Data Hub at the University of California, Los Angeles. The backlash against the Puerto Rico joke was expected to help Harris in the state. Yet Trump captured 42% of Latino votes there — 15 percentage points more than in 2020, the data showed. He won the state by about 133,000 votes in 2024, after losing it to Biden in 2020 by about 81,000 votes.
Trump flipped the big battleground state of Georgia, where about 6% of eligible voters are Latino, after losing it by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. One factor that helped was a five percentage point increase in votes from Latinos. He gained about two percentage points with Latinos in Wisconsin, another swing state he flipped.
How did the Latino turnout compare to past elections?
Latino turnout rose to a record 54% in 2020, and although figures are still being tabulated, it was likely higher in 2024, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, which studies Latino voting trends.
How have Latino voting patterns shifted?
For several decades, Latinos overwhelmingly voted Democrat and tended to view the party as generally more favorable to their interests, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s still the case today but to a lesser extent. Almost one in three Latinos now identifies with the Republicans, Pew said. The affiliation is especially strong among those who prioritize their identity as American over their ethnic identity. A key US Senate victory in Ohio went to Republican Bernie Moreno, who is of Colombian descent.
Another potential factor is that Latinos are more likely than other groups to be Catholic, and Harris’s strong support for abortion rights may have had an influence on the voters, Farnsworth of the Americas Society said. Trump captured 58% of Catholics this year, compared to 47% in 2020, exit polls suggested.
What were the top issues for Latino voters?
Concerns over the economy may have boosted the Latino vote for Trump, with 45% of Americans saying in exit polls that their families’ financial situation was worse than it was four years ago. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted before the election, 85% of Latino voters said the economy was important in deciding how to vote, followed by health care (71%) and violent crime (62%).
The Trump campaign ran Spanish-language ads blaming Harris for higher prices and saying Trump would improve the economy. On the campaign trail, the Republican nominee frequently said that cracking down on undocumented immigrants would help Latino and Black communities.
Immigration was another of the top five concerns for Latinos. There’s recent evidence that growing numbers of the group support the kind of harsh immigration policies pushed by the Trump campaign. A study this year by Public Opinion Quarterly found that some blame their fellow Latinos for devaluing the status of their community.
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