Latino Votership in a Donald Trump era of Demographic Changes and the Growing Gender Gap in the U.S.
Latinos have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in each of the last four presidential elections by at least a 2-to-1 margin. Republicans were close to victory in 2004, when Bush was up for reelection.
The opposite direction was taken by Trump. His nativist and nationalist message was similar to what has worked for right-wing strongmen on the other side of the world.
“[W]e must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform,” the RNC’s “Growth & Opportunity Project” stated in 2013. Our Party appeal will shrink to it’s core constituency only if we do not.
The former Texas governor embraced comprehensive immigration overhauls, but was blocked by members of Congress in his own party. It’s been a similar story with every immigration push since.
In Arizona and Nevada they were influential, making up 1 in 5 voters in 2020. They are notable areas of voting in other swing states. In North Carolina, for example, they are nearly 8% of the eligible-voter population, up four-fold since 2008. Since 2008, they have doubled in Georgia.
Latinos are the largest-growing group in the country. They have increased as a share of the electorate in each of the last seven presidential elections and have increased substantially as a share of the electorate in each of the seven swing states.
As a result of demographic changes, Barack Obama was the candidate with less than 40% of white vote in the 2012 presidential election. Clinton lost in 2016 due to 2 points lower. Biden won four years later and was above 40%.
There has been a lot made in this election of Trump trying to siphon off young, Black men from the Democratic Party. It’s tough to tell how real that is from pre-election polling because of how large the margins of error are with subgroups in national polls.
In 2008, Obama won 95% of Black voters, and they were 23% of the electorate. Biden received the same share of the electorate as he did in 2020, according to exit polls. That isn’t a huge difference.
Pair that with Trump’s apparent depth of support with men this year, the gender gap could be the widest in any presidential election ever. The 2016 and 2020 elections had very wide gaps. The latest NPR poll put it at 34 points.
The Democrats are hopeful that this will be the year in which they go even higher because they have an intense focus on women’s reproductive rights.
In the swing states, Trump won them by a small margin. It will be a tall task for Harris to duplicate Bidens success, but she has made that a critical part of her strategy, losing by less.
Roughly 1 in 5 voters have said they live in a union household over the last two election cycles in those three states, and Biden significantly improved over Clinton’s margins. Clinton lost all three Blue Wall states to Trump in 2016. Trump is trying to cut into the margins because of his popularity with white voters without degrees.
Source: 10 key demographic groups that could decide the presidential election
The Story of Barack Obama and Vice President Harris: The Early Democrat Confrontation with Latino Voters in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico
Some groups may be able to tell the story of how President Donald Trump or Vice President Harris wins on election night by reading this guide.
If the polls are correct, this presidential election will likely be close. There have been important shifts in American politics beneath the head-to-head numbers.
Obama was close enough in 2012 to win a second term. Clinton, though, fell off in those areas in 2016, and Trump won the election. Polls show that Harris is doing better than Biden in the suburbs. It will likely have to be held by her to give her a chance of winning.
The suburbs have shifted toward Democrats, and Trump has increased Republicans’ advantage in rural areas. Biden won the suburbs narrowly in 2020, and he won the election, as did Obama in 2008.
Something else to keep an eye on, though: Union voters are changing. They are becoming more white-collar despite being stereotyped of male, working-class voters of the 1960s.
Democrats have dominated with union voters over the years. That helped insulate them in the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin and Michigan, which have high concentrations of white, working-class voters.
Drilling down into the states, one place to spotlight is North Carolina. If Harris is going to win there, she will need a big margin with young voters. Consider the shift in Democratic support over time for young voters vs. Black voters, for example.
The voters 18-32 years old broke for Obama by a margin of more than 50 points. The electorate turned out at a higher rate in 2008 than they did in 2020.
Harris has been behind in pre- election polling. The group that turns out at lower rates than other people is less likely to vote in this election, according to polls.
But incendiary comments by a comedian at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” threaten to hurt Trump in places like Pennsylvania. The Harris campaign pointed to this and other statements in an effort to convince Latinos to vote for them.
The Trump and Harris Campaigns Crisscross Campaign Trail Days Out From Election Day: What’s Happening in your State of the Art?
In a bunch of swing states, the presidential election is likely to be decided by tens of thousands of votes.
Hillary Clinton is in Pennsylvania with 19 electoral votes, a key swing state. The commonwealth is widely seen as a must win for both the Trump and Harris campaigns.
The Lancaster Airport speech where Trump said that this election was being stolen was very different than the one he made before the election.
Trump pointed to the press and said we are fighting like a son of a gun. “We’re fighting. They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing. Take a look at what’s happening. Look at what’s going on in your state every day. They’re talking about extending hours and stuff.”
The former president said that he did not have any evidence of election being stolen, but cast doubt on voting machines because of Musk, who is campaigning for Trump and has used his stake in the online platform X to spread misinformation.
“The polls are just as corrupt as some of the writers back there,” Trump said. They can make those polls sing. They talk about it. In Iowa I’m 10 points up. One of my enemies put out a poll, and I was three down.
The president was late for his event but said that he would fix it quickly. “America will be better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before.”
Source: Trump and Harris crisscross campaign trail days out from Election Day
She is the only black candidate running the Michigan Black-polynomial in a state where black voters are key: the case for a winning coalition the Harris campaign needs
Harris attended a service at a Black church for the fourth Sunday in a row. She was going to campaign at a barbershop in the neighborhood that has a lot of Black-owned small businesses, then stop by a restaurant in the Livernois district. On Sunday night, she will have a rally in East Lansing, home of Michigan State University.
Black voters and college students are key to the coalition the Harris campaign needs to get her across the finish line in states like Michigan, where the race is tight.