The people at Equis Research have released a
very interesting post-mortem of 2020 overviewing the changes in voting behavior seen among Hispanics from 2016, to 2020, to now. They plastered the word "Latinx" all over their website so expect some Democratic bias in the conclusions, insights and observations they make. The post is big because there's a bunch of images, but a picture tells a thousand words.
The post-mortem begins by stating the obvious: Trump got more Hispanic support last year than he did in 2016. It proceeds to dive into some of the reasons they believe this happened:
- Hispanics were more willing to vote for Trump because Covid meant that they were no longer having messages about racism and refugees and the border bored into their skulls every single moment
- Hispanics voted more for Trump because they value the "American Dream" more
- Democrats didn't try to contest Trump's rhetoric about socialism and border security
Among others. Now, here's the more juicy details:
In 2016, Equis found that some Hispanics they thought might vote for Trump didn't want to, because of two things: Trump's immigration policy, and their Hispanic identity.
But then, loe and behold: in 2020, Trump's immigration policy and Hispanic identity had little relevance. Voters opinions on these two topics did not significantly influence whether they voted for Trump or not.
The #1 issue that dominated Hispanic voters decision-making was the economy and then Covid. Trump's economic and Covid policies were really popular - even among liberal Hispanics.
Trump actually had surprisingly high approval among Hispanics on some immigration policies: namely, more border funding, limiting of asylum seekers/refugees, deportations and for building the wall.
Hispanics living along the border were the ones who approved of Trump's immigration policies the most.
Painting the Democrats as socialists was a really effective strategy for Trump, everywhere:
They then include some quotes:
“In the last elections, 2016, I didn’t vote. For me I saw [Trump] as a clown. He’s a clown… But he changed my mind. In my case, I felt a difference in stability. And he was running the country. Things that were problems a long time, he came in and did something about them quickly at the beginning… He was doing things, not just talking about them.”
- 40-year-old male Democrat in Miami, Colombian/Venezuelan, Clinton/Trump voter
“Last year I didn’t know who to vote for... I hated Trump for everything he said against my people, hated him for everything he did against my people… But it was the lesser of two evils… Economy-wise, Trump would have handled it a little better.”
—33-year-old male in Chicago, leans Democrat, voted Trump ’20
“Black Lives Matter…I don’t agree with that. Where are the Latinos? I feel like [people] have forgotten about the Latino community. A majority of us Latinos are immigrants, we are the ones who make this country run, and they don’t always appreciate us.”
- Latino Male in Miami, 33, Peruvian-American, didn’t vote ’16/voted Trump '20
Equis proceeds to characterize the types of people most succeptible to what they call "the weaponization of the American Dream", aka calling out leftist Democrats for the socialist wannabes they are:
- "Those who get news from WhatsApp or right-wing outlets"
- "Those who distrust the media"
- "Those who believe in social mobility through hard work"
Simultaneously, they note that 1/3rds of Hispanic voters who say they are concerned about socialism in the Democratic Party still plan on voting Democratic. It seems to be a "vote with the rest of the herd" sort of thing.