Reflecting on the role of Hispanics in this year’s presidential election
David R. Jones, La Nueva Mayoria / The New Majority
Last week I had the opportunity to talk to many of our state elected officials about the outcome and implications of the 2024 Presidential election while I was attending the SOMOS legislative conference in Puerto Rico. SOMOS is an annual gathering of New York politicians, lobbying firms, and advocates that serve as a forum to discuss legislative and budgetary initiatives of concern to Puerto Ricans and the Hispanic community in New York.
This beautiful island and its people became a focal point in the last days of the presidential campaign because of disparaging comments made by a comedian during President Trump’s political rally in Madison Square Garden. Many thought those comments would drive many undecided Puerto Ricans and Hispanics in battleground states to vote for Vice president Harris. Unfortunately for Democrats, exit polls from last week’s election shows that this did not materialize. Some 46% of Hispanic voters chose Trump, up from 32% in 2020.
This must be a time of reckoning for the democratic party. To be sure, there are many lessons our political leaders can learn from this election, perhaps no more important than the need to revisit strategies to reach Hispanic voters who feel that their needs are not being met or addressed. Latinos are one of the fastest-growing demographic groups in the nation and represent the second largest racial/ethnic group in New York City.
It’s not surprising that Democrats are struggling to decipher the Hispanic electorate when you consider the vast spectrum of countries, cultures, and experiences that Hispanics represent. Yes, many of them share a unifying trait in the form of language and cultural traditions, but their values and political leanings can widely differ depending on the country they hail from.
Take for instance Venezuelans living in the U.S. Under normal circumstances, they would be likely drawn to the democratic party’s message of welcoming and supporting new immigrants. However, Republicans, despite their anti-immigrant rhetoric, have made big inroads into this voting block by pandering to their fears of socialism and equating democrats to the unpopular Maduro regime in their native country. On the other hand, Hispanics coming from countries with histories of military juntas, like Argentina and Chile, may be put off by Trump’s autocratic style and anti-democratic stances.
Another layer of complexity in tailoring a message that resonates among all Hispanic voters lies in the fact that those who have lived in the U.S. for generations, like Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, may hold very different views than most recent Hispanic immigrants because of their lived experiences in this country.
We also cannot ignore the socio economic, race and gender variables that apply to voters across the board, which might better explain for instance why 54% of Hispanic men, compared to 37% of Hispanic women, voted for Trump in this election, and seem increasingly drawn to Trump’s macho message.
The bottom line is that approaching the Hispanic electorate with a one-size-fits-all message is clearly not a winning strategy. It’s time for Democrats to go back to the drawing board and come up with a more nuanced strategy to expand their Hispanic base. They will need to do this while also fighting back against any efforts from the next administration to undermine rights and freedoms of Hispanics and other immigrant communities.
In New York, the stakes are particularly high because of the large number of Hispanics and other immigrant communities the live in our state. New York’s top elected officials must show unity and defiance to protect our immigrant communities. Governor Kathy Hochul and State Attorney General Letitia James took the first step last week by announcing a new task force that will focus on developing strategies to protect New Yorkers from policy and regulatory threats on key areas, including immigration, that could emerge under President-elect Trump. It’s time for Mayor Adams to show the same leadership and make it unequivocally clear that his administration will protect undocumented immigrants from Trump’s mass deportation threat.