Another Group the Democrats Should Stop Taking for Granted
Trump didn’t just defy the assumption that his demonization of immigrants would cost him Hispanic voters; he turned those expectations upside down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/opinion/trump-latino-hispanic-vote.html?smid=em-share
Thomas B. Edsall
By Thomas B. Edsall
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump portrayed Hispanic immigrants as “rapists,” “bloodthirsty criminals,” “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people” and the “most violent people on earth.”
Myah Ward of Politico reported on Oct. 12, 2024, that “the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes.”
Trump’s language, Ward continued, “is a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.”
Less than a month later, Trump set a record for a Republican presidential candidate, winning 46 percent of the Hispanic vote, 18 points more than the 28 percent he received in 2016 and 14 points more than his 32 percent in 2020.