Chris Gonzalez, 33, just voted in his first presidential election. A resident of Tucson, Arizona voted for former President Donald Trump.
“I just want the economy to be better,” said Gonzalez, now a salesman for a roofing company. “I remember I was unemployed at that time [Trump] It was when he first came into office and I was always getting job offers. The price of consumables was cheaper. … And in this administration, it seems like we barely make it for a few months.”
Gonzalez is one of a growing number of Latino men who say they will vote Republican this election cycle compared to 2020. according to a Sept. NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC pollreducing the leading Democrats held over this key demographic.
While Vice President Kamala Harris led Trump 54% to 40% overall among Hispanic voters, each candidate won 47% support among Latino men, a sharp contrast to Harris’ 26-point margin among Latino voters. .
Huemac Badilla, 54, who voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and again this year, said he remembers attending Trump’s first rally in 2015. He saw the Republican Party’s pool of candidates slowly dwindle and eventually decided to investigate Trump’s campaign. . It won’t be long before he and his wife travel from Chandler, Arizona to Phoenix for the first of several Trump events.
“That’s where I took my first picture with a colorful hat,” he said, pointing to Trump’s Make America Great Again hat. “After that photo, there was an argument in the family, there was an argument with friends, but we didn’t care.”
For Republican political consultant Mike Madrid, Republican gains in Latino support, especially among men, is a long-term trend.
“I think it’s really important that we look at it that way — because it’s not just a swing with a candidate or a personality, but a long-term demographic shift in the Latino vote,” Madrid said.
Madrid, author of The Latino Century and co-founder of the anti-Trump super PAC The Lincoln Project, said he increasingly sees Latino voters becoming pocketbook voters. “They don’t see themselves as ethnic or racial voters – they see themselves primarily as ethnic working-class voters,” he said.
The divide is becoming more pronounced as more Latinos are born in the U.S. and more Latina women earn college degrees than their Latino male counterparts, who prefer blue-collar occupations, she said.
Democratic political strategist Chuck Rocha, founder of Solidarity Strategies, a bilingual political consulting firm, said he disagrees with the idea that Latino men voting Republican is a sign of a long-term trend. But he said future conversations around political messaging need to be more inclusive of that demographic, especially those without a college degree.
While gains have been made among Latino male voters, pro-Trump sentiment has not been widespread. Miami resident Raul Gonzalez said he has family members who support Trump, but chose to vote for Harris in part because of his work in the Biden-Harris administration.
“I absolutely love, I love what they’re doing,” she said. “Inheriting the pandemic recession and getting out of it, all the laws they can pass.”
Gonzalez, who now makes TikTok videos in support of the vice president, said he was a Day 1 supporter — even after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July, Harris joined Latinos for a Zoom call.
Addressing constituents’ concerns
When it comes to unemployment and labor participation, Latinos have fared pretty evenly overall under the Biden and Trump administrations. According to Poynter’s analysis: Spaniards saw record job losses during the pandemic at the end of the Trump administration, but then the case picked up again under Biden.
Latinos have seen gains in health insurance coverage, home ownership and inflation-adjusted wages under the Biden administration.
But frustration with high prices has consistently been a top concern among Latinos in various surveys. The sense among some voters that they are better off economically than they were in the Biden-Harris administration four years ago is a sentiment that Trump campaigned on and that Harris appealed to in his campaign.
In a recent interview with Noticias TelemundoHarris voiced some of it economic proposals of the campaign that can expand Opportunities for Latino menincluding more funding to start small businesses, eliminating college degree requirements for 500,000 federal jobs, expanding work certificates in high schools and more loans for first-time home buyers. He also conducted a campaign regarding his proposal fight rising grocery pricesas he discusses in a the last town hall with Univision.
Michael Perez, a 60-year-old mechanic in Pennsylvania, said immigration is his biggest concern.
“Border. Shut it down,” he said, referring to media reports of the presence of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang in several U.S. communities.
He said he watched Harris’ Fox News interview but said nothing he said would change his support for Trump.
In a September NBC News poll, Trump led Harris among Latino voters on the economy, inflation and border security, while Harris led on all other issues, including getting the country going in the right direction, dealing with abortion, and dealing. crime and having the right personality to be president.
In Miami, Gonzalez said she and one of her sons, who are first-time voters this year, plan to vote early for Harris.
“The biggest thing for me is character, integrity and ethics in a person,” Gonzalez said. “To me, Trump is the antithesis. He is the complete opposite.”