“It’s actually quite simple” – why Latinos flocked to Trump

Donald Trump won a decisive election victory over Kamala Harris, backed by some of the voters Democrats once relied on.

The Republican president-elect showed strength among white, working-class voters who propelled him to the White House for the first time in 2016, while also garnering enormous support among Latino voters and performing better than expected among younger Americans, particularly men.

Among Latinos, a key part of the Democratic voter base for decades, Trump benefited from a huge 14 percentage point increase compared to the 2020 election, according to exit polls.

Nowhere is Trump's reshaping of the electorate more evident than in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the coveted “blue wall” states that helped Joe Biden win in 2020.

This time, Trump won all three states, dashing Democrats' hopes that Harris could find a path to victory despite early election night defeats in the southern states of North Carolina and Georgia.

In his victory speech in Florida, Trump, who will also win the popular vote, credited the outcome to the “largest, broadest and most unified coalition” in American history.

“They came from all directions. Unionists, non-unionists, African-Americans, Hispanics,” he told a cheering crowd. “We had them all and it was beautiful.”

In Pennsylvania, the coveted battleground state, Trump benefited from enormous support from the state's growing Latino population.

Exit polls showed Latinos made up about 5% of the total vote in Pennsylvania. Trump received 42% of those votes, compared to 27% when he ran against Joe Biden in 2020.

The polls will continue to change as votes are counted, but are broadly representative of election trends.

In the state's “Latino Belt” — an eastern industrial corridor that has shifted right in the last two elections — some voters said they were not surprised by the result.

“It’s actually quite simple. We liked the way things were four years ago,” said Samuel Negron, a Pennsylvania state trooper and member of the large Puerto Rican community in the city of Allentown.

Mr. Negron and other Trump supporters in the now majority Latino city cited other reasons for their community turning to Trump, including social issues and the perception that their family values ​​are now more aligned with the Republican Party.

However, the most common factor was the economy, particularly inflation.

“Out here you pay $5 for a dozen eggs. It used to cost $1 or even 99 cents,” Mr. Negron added. “Many of us, I think, have woken up to the Democrats’ lies that things were better. We realized things were better back then.”

Polls leading up to the election also suggested that many Latinos — in the U.S. and particularly in Pennsylvania — were attracted to Trump's proposals to block migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and impose much tougher immigration laws.

Daniel Campo, a Venezuelan-American, said Trump's claims of creeping “socialism” reminded him of the situation he left behind in his home country.

“I understand what (the migrants) are leaving. But you have to do it right. I came on the right path,” he said. “Things have to be done legally. Many of us were concerned that the borders were simply open under the Biden-Harris administration,” he said.

Overall, Latinos' turn to Trump, his influence among white working-class voters, and his increasing support among non-college-educated voters in general presented an insurmountable obstacle for the Harris campaign.

But Trump also improved his position in some surprising areas.

In 2020, Joe Biden had a 24-point lead among voters under 30. This time that lead shrank to just 11 points. While the vast majority of Black voters nationally still supported Harris (85%), Trump's support among that demographic has more than doubled in Wisconsin, from 8% in 2020 to 22% this election.

Among the most significant battlefields in Wisconsin were the three counties surrounding Milwaukee known as the Wow Counties – Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. Harris failed to significantly improve Biden's 2020 vote share in these suburban areas, while he also slipped in rural, whiter parts of the Trump-dominated state.

Preliminary results also suggest that Harris did not receive as many votes as Biden in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest and most diverse city.

Michael Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said her direct appeals to working-class voters may not have made much of a difference given the national political climate.

Ted Dietzler cast his vote at a fire station on the edge of the small town of Waukesha.

“I’m voting for Trump because of the border, the economy and because there are no more wars,” he said, wearing a Green Bay Packers cap.

“We saw a big difference when Trump was president,” Dietzler said, adding that he was drawn to Trump’s embrace of former Democrats like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom appear to be taking on roles in the Trump administration become.

“Inflation is a big deal, and I don’t think Harris fully understands it,” he said. “I think we’ll all just be better off when Trump is back.”

Trump's national economic messages also resonated with working-class voters in the Midwestern state of Michigan.

After almost all votes have been counted, Trump is around 85,000 votes ahead of the state he lost in 2020. He increased his share of the vote both in rural areas and in Macomb County, where many working-class voters live in the Detroit suburbs.

One of them, Nahim Uddin, a delivery driver and former Ford auto worker, voted for Trump because he said the former president would lower prices.

“I wanted to buy a car – the interest rates had skyrocketed,” said the 34-year-old. “That’s the whole reason I voted for him.”

The same was true for Yian Yian Shein, a small business owner in the town of Warren, who said Trump would cut income taxes and help people like her.

Democrats tried to adjust their economic messaging in Michigan by touting their investments in electric car manufacturing while securing the support of United Automobile Workers President Shawn Fain, a frequent Trump critic.

But Republicans were able to “neutralize” those messages by arguing that the transition to electric vehicles would come at the expense of jobs, said Matt Grossmann, a professor at Michigan State University.

What ultimately cost Democrats among blue-collar voters across all demographic groups was the perception that they were responsible for high prices and slashed budgets.

“Voters have largely felt economic pain from the post-Covid inflationary period, and they are skipping Biden,” and Harris, said University of Michigan professor Jonathan Hanson.