Latino Vote: Trump or Biden?

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Daniel Benet

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Publicado: 19/6/2024 · 3:50 a.m. MX | Actualizado: 11/9/2024 · 10:27 a.m. MX

There is a growing number of Trump supporters who are of Latino origin. This is despite the racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric of the former Republican president. Recent polls show that the difference in voting intentions among this minority between Biden and Trump has narrowed. The campaign of the virtual Republican candidate recognizes the value of votes from this group. Indeed, the Latino outreach organization in his campaign, “Latinos for Trump,” was recently renamed “Latino Americans for Trump.”

There are several reasons why the Latino community in the United States a guaranteed vote for the Democratic Party and its candidate is no longer.

To understand the development of political participation of the Latino community in the United States, Heraldo USA interviewed Dr. Estefanía Cruz Lera, a full-time researcher at the Center for North American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

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Dr. Cruz Lera recounted that the Mexican diaspora in the United States has been in the country for over a century. It began with the laying of railroad tracks during the expansion of this mode of transportation. Subsequently, they moved to agricultural jobs, which are more related to prolonged stays in the territory. Due to the high rate of work-related accidents in these two activities, migrants decided to organize to meet their needs. These mutual aid associations allowed them, through cooperation, to have resources to pay for accident treatment, repatriation of remains, or support their families in Mexico.

As the presence of Mexicans in the United States grew exponentially, these organizations grew and identified the need to have links with the government of the country.

Initially, the participation was very local and with little presence of Mexicans or Latinos in state and federal congresses. Meanwhile, in Mexico, migrant communities did not receive the attention they needed.

Dr. Cruz Lera explained, “During election campaigns, everyone remembers the migrants. When there are no election campaigns, all the promises made to them in policies or specific programs do not materialize.”

Legislative initiatives that criminalize migrants, such as the recent SB4 law in Texas and similar efforts in other states like Georgia and Oklahoma, are not new. In 2006, a proposed law known as the “Sensenbrenner Bill” after the Republican congressman who proposed it was being discussed. According to Dr. Cruz, this initiative considered undocumented presence in the country a crime, implying jail time for undocumented individuals. Additionally, the initiative considered the seizure of undocumented individuals' assets.

The initiative was approved in the House of Representatives; however, before its vote in the Senate, the Latino community, primarily Mexican, organized.

What followed is known as the “immigrant spring”, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest in cities with a high Latino presence, such as Chicago, where around 100,000 people marched, and Los Angeles, where half a million demonstrators gathered in what was the largest public gathering in the city’s history. These mobilizations generated a change in the perception of participation among the Mexican community; they had been more interested in political participation in Mexico when laws affecting their daily lives were being discussed in the United States.

The so-called Latino vote is not a monolith, and the various nationalities of origin within the migrant communities have clear tendencies regarding their preferences, although these are also undergoing changes. It was during Barack Obama’s candidacy that significant efforts were made to mobilize the Latino vote with the “Sí se puede” campaign, a phrase highly recognizable to the Latino community.

However, Dr. Estefanía believes that the Democratic Party has not yet run a campaign aimed at the Latino community.
The expert on U.S. politics stated, “We have a candidate, Donald Trump, who runs a campaign based on anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-Mexican, openly racist rhetoric. It was very unlikely that the community would support a candidate with this rhetoric. What Joe Biden said is: ‘Trump is campaigning with Latinos; I already have their vote secured.’”

Nevertheless, Latino men have very low approval ratings for Joe Biden’s presidency, unlike women, who maintain a progressive tendency and support for the Democratic Party. The researcher believes that former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has moderated, which could result in a significant vote for the virtual Republican candidate from the Latino community, including Mexicans. This could increase the phenomenon of the now-called “Latino Americans for Trump.”

However, not all Latino votes are the same.

On one hand, there is the Cuban American community. These citizens, primarily residing in Florida, left Cuba during the height of the Cold War or subsequent generations and have been a stronghold against the island’s policies. Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, is an important representative of this political stance.

At the other end are Puerto Ricans, originally from a U.S. unincorporated territory, who, despite being U.S. citizens, cannot vote in presidential elections unless they reside in one of the other 50 states. This group is a bloc, mainly in New York and New Jersey, that supports the Democratic Party, more specifically, they are the most progressive wing within that party.

The Mexican community with political rights in the United States is the largest group of eligible Latino voters. They could be considered moderate voters, making them interesting to both Democratic and Republican campaigns.

daniel.benet@elheraldodemexico.com
@23gradosnorte

Daniel Benet