For years, high-ranking Republicans believed that Democrats had them backed into a demographic corner: The Latino electorate would continue to grow, providing Democrats with more votes and permanently squeezing Republicans out of power.
Donald Trump has, for the moment, proved that theory wrong. Overall, Trump won 38 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2020. That’s better than John McCain or Mitt Romney did against their Democratic opponents in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and a big improvement over his 2016 showing. In the most heavily Latino areas of the country, Trump’s share of the vote expanded dramatically between 2016 and 2020. …
So who are Trump’s Latino supporters? And how did he gain so much ground?
A good way to understand Trump’s Latino support is to break his voters into three groups: loyal GOP voters, Democratic converts and new voters who broke for Trump. Each group came to support Trump at different times and for different reasons. CONTINUED
David Byler, Washington Post
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