There's No Such Thing as “the Latino Vote”

Why can't America see that?

- By Geraldo L. Cadava

Latinos and their ancestors have lived in the Americas for 500 years, yet it feels like many Americans are perpetually in the act of discovering us—especially when elections are looming. We are instrumental to the emerging Democratic majority that Blue America longs for, that Red America fears, and that never quite seems to arrive.

The 2020 census showed that Latinos accounted for more than half of the country's population growth over the previous decade; as a matter of math, we are indeed a large part of the country's future. What this means for the country's politics is less clear.

The conventional wisdom that Latinos are reliable members of a liberal coalition of people of color has never been exactly right: Between a quarter and a third of Latinos have voted Republican in almost every presidential election for the past half-century. Donald Trump grew his share of the Latino vote in 2020 compared with 2016, and he may be growing his share still. A November Wall Street Journal poll found that Hispanic voters would be evenly split if Trump ran against Joe Biden in 2024. They were also evenly split when asked whether they would vote for Democrats or Republicans if the midterm elections were held that day. The survey pool was admittedly a small one, but the possibility of a continued rightward shift is shaking Democrats' confidence.

How, I am often asked, can so many Latinos be willing to vote for Trump or his acolytes after he spent four office maligning them?