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Trump Ends Democrats’ 120-Year Grip on Hispanic County in Texas

(Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- There’s no place that better illustrates the groundswell of support for Donald Trump among Hispanic voters than Starr County, Texas.

Trump won by 16 percentage points in the most Latino county in the US — more than 97% of residents are Hispanic — marking the first time since 1892 that a Republican presidential candidate took a majority. 

Similar shifts were evident throughout South Texas, with support for Trump up 19 points relative to the 2020 election in Cameron County, up 20 points in Hidalgo County and up 17 points in Zapata County, according to unofficial tallies compiled by the Associated Press.

The increase in Hispanic support was seen in heavily Latino areas throughout the country, from working class Fresno County in California, which flipped from backing Joe Biden in the 2020 race to Trump in 2024, to more cosmopolitan Miami-Dade in Florida, which voted for a Republican for the first time since 1988.

Exit polls showed that Latino voters responded favorably to Trump’s economic message, which promised to clamp down on inflation, lower taxes and bolster the oil industry, as well as his pledge to stop undocumented immigrants from coming into the country. The campaign ran Spanish-language ads blaming Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for higher prices and saying that Trump will improve the economy. The Republican candidate said frequently that cracking down on undocumented immigrants would help Latino and Black communities.

Harris has sought to emphasize a string of remarks from Trump and his supporters that she portrayed as racist, including a comedian at a Trump event referring to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” But her message ultimately fell flat with voters who were more in tune with Trump’s positions.

“The vast majority of us were living so much better under the Trump administration,” said Toni Trevino, the Republican Party chair in Starr County. “A lot of people are under the impression that Hispanic voters support uncontrolled immigration. That is simply not true. People here in South Texas want laws enforced.”

Nationwide, Hispanics now make up a record 14.7% of the electorate, according to a Pew Research Center study. Harris got about 53% of the vote from that group, according to exit polls by CNN, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 66% support in 2016 and Biden’s 65% in 2020. There was a growing gender divide, with Latino men favoring Trump even as support for the Democratic candidate stayed stronger among women.

In Florida, Trump captured 58% of the Hispanic vote, including a majority of both men and women, according to the CNN exit poll.

Latino men were focused on the economy and immigration, and clearly Trump’s message broke through, according to Juan Proaño, the chief executive officer of advocacy group League of United Latin American Citizens, whose political action committee endorsed Harris.

“Latinos are now the new swing vote, and no candidate or campaign can take it for granted,” he said. 

Trump also did well with people who are faring poorly in the economy, according to William Frey, a senior fellow with Brookings Metro at the Brookings Institution and a research professor at the University of Michigan.

“This is a big shift for the Hispanic vote, but not one that’s uniformly monolithic,” he said.

Starr County’s economy is shaped by its position along the US-Mexico border, with a key bridge linking the two nations. Still, the county of about 65,000 people struggles with one the highest poverty rates in the state, with nearly a third of residents living below the poverty line. The median household income of $41,566 is roughly half the national level.

Vinny Minchillo, a longtime Republican strategist in Texas, said that Democrats have been misunderstanding Hispanic voters for a decade or more at this point.

“There’s an old saying that demography is destiny,” Minchillo said in an interview. “Democrats have misread the tea leaves in South Texas.”

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.