Democrats are sounding the alarm that they may be losing support from Hispanics, America's biggest minority and a formally solid Democratic voting block. The Hill. A poll from Wall Street Journal showed that only 44% of Hispanics would vote for Joe Biden in 2024 compared to 43% for Donald Trump. Democrats also feel that Hispanic Republicans cost them Texas and Florida in the 2020 election. Though some Hispanics, such as Cubans and Venezuelans, have been solidly Republican, other groups are no in play as well.
My Comment:
The Hill post commented a lot on what is happening but not at all on why it is happening. I think it is pretty obvious that the Hispanic community is in no way the solid voting block it used to be for Democrats. Indeed, I've seen the change myself. I work with many Hispanics and I have heard a few of them trashing Joe Biden. And we have seen solid blue Hispanic congressional districts in Texas and Florida flip to the Republicans since 2020.
So what is causing this? It's important to note that some Hispanics have been Republicans from the start. The Cubans and Venezuelans are especially strong GOP voters for what should be obvious reasons. They hate communism, having experienced it personally, and see the Democrats, correctly in my view, heading down that same direction. It's no surprise that they would go for the Republicans instead.
Some of it has to be due to how utterly incompetent Joe Biden has been at his job. I know I sound like a broken record at this point but Biden screwed up Afghanistan, wrecked the economy, failed to manage the pandemic and has been a huge embarrassment. When your party is lead by someone as terrible as Joe Biden you are going to have defections.
I think the culture war has a lot to do with this as well. I don't think Hispanics are really into "woke" politics. Nothing is more illustrative of this than the furor over the term "Latinx". Most Hispanics call themselves Hispanic's, or Latinos/Latinas. Others call themselves after the country of orgin, like Cubans or Mexicans. But what are the not calling themselves? Latinx.
Indeed, the term is extremely unpopular among Hispanics but the, mostly white, Democrats are pushing it. It's for gender politics reasons as Spanish is a "gendered" language and the woke left hates anything to do with traditional gender roles. So that's why they ditch Latino/Latina for Latinx. As someone who works with Hispanics, they are all about traditional gender roles and don't appreciate this kind of thing being pushed on them. And that's just the most obvious example, there are many others.
I also think that immigration is not the silver bullet Democrats think it is for them. A lot of Hispanics are resentful of illegal immigration, especially if they are recent legal immigrants themselves. They don't like to see people being rewarded for skipping ahead in the line. Plus, it's not like Hispanics are some homogenous group. Why should we expect Mexican or Cuban Americans to be angry if a bunch of Central Americans are getting deported? They aren't the same group and it's silly for the Democrats to think that they are.
It should be noted that Republicans deserve credit for peeling off quite a few Hispanic voters. They have made a push for them and made getting their votes a priority. Not the way that the Democrats do it, but by reasoning it out with them. Indeed, the GOP has tried to expand it's tent lately and it's not just Hispanics they have been going after. We have seen inroads with Asians, Blacks and even LGB (though probably not T) voters.
But the Democrats? I think they have been taking almost all of their voters for granted. Indeed, in The Hill article all the Democrats had to say is that the so called "Build Back Better" bill would fix everything. Which is going to be very awkward for them if it doesn't pass. Regardless, when I see the Democrats interacting with the Hispanic community at all, it's usually in the form of a woke lecture, like with the Latinx issue.
Keep in mind though that the Republicans don't have to win the vote of every single Hispanic voter in the country. All they need to do is peel off enough of them to keep purple states in play and defend red states. If the Republicans can really get Hispanics down to a 50/50 split than the Democrats are in serious trouble in 2022 and 2024.
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