There are new signs of growing Hispanic support for Republicans | WORLD

Just 45 residents of Texas’s Starr County voted in the state’s Republican primary two years ago. Last week, however, nearly 1,100 republicans went to the polls in a sparsely populated county, mostly hispanonext to the border with Mexico.

Throughout South Texas, historically a stronghold of the Democrats, an increase in Hispanic participation was noted. In five counties along the border with Mexico, nearly 30,000 people voted in the Republican primary, representing an increase of more than 25% in their participation compared to 2020.

The vote in Texas, which launches the campaign with a view to the mid-term elections in November, appears as an alarm signal for the Democrats, who have a slim majority in both houses of Congress. The growing Hispanic support for the Republicans that was perceived during the presidency of Donald Trump could be a lasting political phenomenon and force the Democrats to rethink their electoral strategy.

The impact is felt far beyond Texas. In South Florida, where Democrats lost two House seats in 2020 that they had won in the previous cycle, some say the party should resume efforts that were interrupted during the pandemic. And, more than anything, they must pay more attention to the priorities of Hispanic voters and not take their vote for granted.

“It reinforces the elitist image that Democrats fight so hard for,” said Devon Murphy-Anderson, a former finance director for the Texas Democratic Party. “You can’t point your hand at a person and say, ‘We know what’s best for you. What’s best for you is our candidate,’” said Murphy-Anderson, co-founder of Mi Vecino, a Florida Democratic group that plans to invest at least $2.3 million in the November election and register a minimum of 30,000 new voters in areas with a strong Hispanic population.

In general terms, Hispanics continue to support Democrats by wide margins. 59% of them voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and only 38% voted for Trump. The Democrats, however, lost votes compared to the 2016 presidential elections, in which Hillary Clinton won 76% of the Hispanic vote, according to the Pew Research Center.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and adviser to the former president, said at last weekend’s Republican National Committee meeting she reported on the Republicans’ gains among Hispanics.

“The left sees them as voters interested only in the issue of immigration,” Conway said. She added that Trump won Hispanic votes by addressing issues such as job creation, education and traditional religious beliefs. “There was an intellectual, economic and spiritual connection with them,” Conway said.

Abel Prado, executive director of the Rio Grande Valley organization Cambio Texas, acknowledged that Republicans have stepped up their Hispanic recruitment drives and may have made some gains in turnout. “But if you look at the numbers, we still outnumber them 3 to 1″, he added.

He also stated that the Republican efforts could harm them, mobilizing the Democrats.

“Hopefully the bad headlines will encourage candidates to invest more in the Rio Grande Valley,” he said. “Republicans are pouring a lot of money into the Valley, with no regrets. It’s not the same with the Democrats.”

Mayra Flores, who won the nomination for a vacant South Texas seat last week, said Trump “played a very important role” in winning Hispanic votes by labeling Democrats as socialists. But she added that Hispanic support does not depend exclusively on Trump. She said that she established a personal connection with the electorate.

“They finally saw a Republican who looks like them, who has a history like theirs and the same values,” said Flores, who was born in Mexico and came to the United States at the age of six. The Flores district includes the border city of Brownsville.

The good turnout of Hispanics in the Republican primaries could disprove the argument that Democrats have been using for decades in the sense that the strong growth of the Hispanic population would make the Democrats conquer Texas. That trend made California, a historically Republican state, today dominated by Democrats.

Flores voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but later became a Republican, convinced that party better represented her community’s traditional values ​​of family and religion.

He says Hispanics often vote Democrat out of habit rather than conviction. “Unfortunately, most people didn’t know who they were voting for,” she noted.

Flores indicated that the Republican National Campaign Committee has pledged to support her financially even though she is not the favorite. Her rival in November will be Democratic representative Vicente González, who after changing districts received more than 23,000 votes, more than double that of Flores.

Texas’ population grew more than any other state between 2010 and 2020, reaching 29.1 million people. That population growth was driven above all by Hispanics. Trump received 35% of the Hispanic vote nationally in 2020, about the same percentage as in Texas, according to AP VoteCast, an organization that studies the electorate.

VoteCast, however, indicated that Trump gained ground in some states, including Florida (45% of the Hispanic vote) and Nevada (42%). Florida also saw strong growth in the Hispanic population, according to the census, but Trump won the state twice and Republicans took seats from Democratic Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Polell in Miami in 2020.

Juan Carlos Planas, a lawyer specializing in electoral matters and a former Florida Republican state representative who crossed over to the Democratic ranks, said Democrats will have to make up lost ground between now and Aug. 23, the date of the primary.

“Things are not looking good today, but nobody knows what is going to happen. Do I think the Democrats need to register more people? Yes, totally. You have to mobilize at the grassroots level,” she opined.

Trump did very well among Cubans in South Florida and further reduced the Democrats’ lead in Miami-Dade in 2020.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is seeking re-election and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, organized roundtables in support of anti-government protests in communist Cuba last summer.

The Biden administration, on the other hand, is seeking a rapprochement with Venezuela’s Chavista government after suspending oil imports from Russia, which could drain votes from Florida’s strong Venezuelan community.

Dan Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Florida, said that voters in sectors with a large Cuban population did not strongly support Trump in 2016, but they did in 2020.

“It is true that the Democrats lost the advantage they had,” said Smith, who believes that the Republican strategy of labeling Democratic candidates as socialists was very effective among Cuban and Venezuelan exiles.

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