By Alexis Alvarez, Nov. 19, 2024
Despite the alarming concerns that he is actually not for all the American people, in his win for the second presidency former President Donald Trump particularly capitalized on Latino votes, according to CNN.
There was a 14% increase of Latino voters for Trump compared to the 2020 CNN exit polls. Trump won 55% of Latino men votes during this year’s election, a 19% increase compared to the 2020 CNN exit polls.
According to Mario Guerrero, the department chair and professor of political science at Cal Poly Pomona, there was an increase in the number of Latino voters for Trump; however, Latinos were not the only ones who secured Trump’s victory – there was a support increase across all demographics.
“So, it’s a little silly to say, ‘Well, it’s just Latinos,’” Guerrero said.
He explained not all Latinos voters are the same across the country: Latino population differs across states and across generations.
Guerrero reinstated that there are many complex reasons why people vote the way they do, including an individuality perspective, voters’ dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, the current economy and fear instilled from Republicans.
“American voters don’t have a tremendous amount of information in front of them policy-wise and going off the sense that, ‘Trump better represents my interest; He’s going to protect my interest versus Kamala Harris,’” Guerrero said. “It’s a very rough estimation that I think people are making.”
Support for Trump among Latinos nonetheless comes as a surprise because the mass deportation of immigrants, which tends to target Latinos, was one of the main promises during the Trump’s campaign.
According to the 2024 CNN exit polls , 87% of Trump’s voters believe most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. should be deported.
“These policies are very unsympathetic to how people have built their lives here and I think that’s going to be the first super apparent effect of the Trump administration on Latino communities.” Guerrero said.” I think that’s one of the first things that we’re going to see is really aggressive detention of undocumented immigrants.”
Trump’s plan for mass deportation includes hiring excess Border Patrol agents and willingness to deport citizens who protest for their undocumented family members, according to Guerrero.
He explained it could be a mass deportation of individuals, including people who are documented, then a mass deportation of immigrants.
Although Trump’s plans target Latinos, there was a huge sway in supporters because of his ability to be critical towards the Democratic party and current presidency regarding the economy, according to Guerrero.
“In the last four years the economy’s been difficult for a lot of people.” Guerrero said. “It’s been hard to just make it day to day.”
He further explained that for Latinos and all Americans it was about which candidate was going to make change and make Americans life easier, regarding the economy.
For Ernesto Gonzalez, a mechanical engineering student, Trump’s win was a disappointment.
Gonzalez is against Trump’s promises of mass deportation and believes it’s a fear-mongering tactic, and there should be a better way to handle immigration.
“He (Trump) says, ‘They’re coming over here doing crime’, and that’s not happening on a mass scale,” Gonzalez said. “Most of the people are not criminals. I hate when they paint that picture of immigrants.”
In relation to the increase of Latino male voters, Gonzalez said he believes that it relates to machismo, a social construct of masculinity that is rooted in strong masculine pride.
“Latino cultural values are very male-oriented,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t think they think a woman’s fit to run for presidency or a country.”
According to Gonzalez, voters favor Trump because he’s entertaining and speaks of the country as the one with an elite status.,
“That gets people riled up the most, but they don’t actually dig deeper,” Gonzales said. “He’s just delivering false promises to get more media attention and publicity.”
Gonzalez said he believes a sway for Latino voters for Trump was of the culture’s strong religion values when dealing with abortion and transgender rights.
According to the CNN 2024 exit polls, 64% of Latino voters for Trump are Protestants or other Christians, while 53% are Catholic. According to the same poll, 86% of Latino voters for Trump are conservative, an ideology who tends to hold more religious values.
Anthony Caballero, a political science student, also faced disappointment with the election results.
“I’m disappointed because I thought we would be better as a country to not elect him, but I guess we did,” Caballero said. “As disappointing as it may seem to have him in office again, we are in a democracy. People do have a right to choose, and we have to respect what the citizens of the United States want.”
Caballero said he is confused about why Latinos would vote for Trump because his base does not have Latino’s best interest in mind.
Aside from being Latino, Caballero fears as an American citizen that Trump will not stay true to the Constitution with the recent Supreme Court ruling of Trump v. the United States that passed this year, allowing Trump full authority to commit actions in office that may be considered a crime, as well as having a fully Republican government.
“Look at Jan. 6, 2021, they were denying the American citizens the right to choose a country, to choose a president that they wanted,” Caballero said. “Him (Trump) and his base were not respecting that, and that’s a violation of our world’s basic right to vote in this country.”
Guerrero said it’s uncertain to predict what is going to happen in the next four years and even after Trump’s presidency.
“There’s a lot of question marks, and the next four years are going really tumultuous, but who knows what’s going to happen with how Latinos will support either party,” Guerrero said.
Feature image courtesy of Joel Martinez