Latinos unleashed a political earthquake after voting for Donald Trump, who has lengthy painted the nation’s largest minority as an existential menace, in unexpectedly giant numbers within the fall.
This swing to MAGA helped Trump win, kicked Democrats into the political wilderness, launched a thousand thought items and confirmed politicians that they ignore Latinos at their very own danger.
Now, Latinos as soon as once more maintain the facility to make or break American politics, because of redistricting fights shaping up in Texas and California. And as soon as once more, each Democratic and Republican leaders suppose they know what Latinos need.
Within the Lone Star State, the GOP-dominated Legislature final week permitted the redrawing of congressional districts on the behest of Trump, upending the standard course of, to assist Republicans acquire as much as 5 seats within the 2026 midterms. Their California counterparts landed on the other aspect of the gerrymandering coin — their maps, which is able to go earlier than voters in November, goal Republican congressional members.
Texas Republicans and California Democrats are each banking on Latinos to be the swing votes that make their gambits profitable. That’s comprehensible however harmful. If ever a voting bloc fulfills the cliche that to imagine one thing makes an ass out of you and me, it’s Latinos.
Regardless of President Reagan’s well-known assertion that Latinos had been Republicans who didn’t comprehend it but, they rejected the GOP in California and past for a technology after the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994. When Hillary Clinton supporters whispered in the course of the 2008 presidential race that Latinos would by no means vote for a Black candidate, they gladly joined the coalition that put Barack Obama within the White Home. Trump elevated his Latino help every time he ran — to the purpose that in 2024, a much bigger proportion of Latinos voted for him than for any earlier Republican presidential candidate — though Democrats insisted that Latinos couldn’t presumably abdomen a person that racist.
Many Latinos hate being taken as a right and don’t just like the institution telling them the best way to suppose. It’s basic rancho libertarianism, the time period I created within the period of Trump to explain the political leanings of the folks with whom I grew up: Mexican Individuals from rural inventory who concurrently believed in neighborhood and individualism and hated the racist rhetoric of Republicans however didn’t care a lot for the woke phrases of Democrats, both.
Such political independence exasperates political leaders, but it’s lengthy been a factor with Latino voters throughout the U.S. however particularly in Texas and California, the place Mexican American voters make up an amazing majority of every state’s Latino citizens. As Republicans within the former and Democrats within the latter launch their preliminary redistricting volleys, they appear to be forgetting that, but once more.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), poses for a portrait within the Rayburn Home Workplace Constructing in 2021.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Occasions)
The GOP is hoping voters in South Texas, one of the vital Latino areas of the U.S., will carry their Trump like to the 2026 congressional races. There, two of the three congressional seats are held by Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, regardless of a swing from many of the area’s 41 counties supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 to only 5 going for Kamala Harris eight years later.
Of their new maps, Texas legislators poured extra Republican voters into these South Texas districts. In addition they configured new districts within the Houston space and central Texas in order that Latinos are actually the bulk, however voters favored Trump final 12 months.
However a lawsuit filed hours after the Texas Senate moved the maps to Gov. Greg Abbott for his approval alleged that each one the finagling had created “Potemkin majority-Latino districts.” The intent, in line with the lawsuit, was to dilute Latino energy by packing some voters into already Democratic-leaning districts whereas splitting up others amongst red-leaning districts.
The legislators particularly threw San Antonio, a longtime Democratic stronghold that’s a cradle of Latino electoral energy, right into a political Cuisinart. Three Latino Democrats at present symbolize the Alamo Metropolis and its metro space: Cuellar, Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar. Beneath the brand new maps, solely Castro is really secure, whereas Casar is now in a district represented by Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who has introduced he’ll retire.
“We now have three Hispanic-predominated districts in South Texas that we consider we will carve out for Republican management,” state GOP Rep. Mitch Little bragged on CNN this month. “It’s good for our occasion. It’s good for our state. And we have to be certain that Donald Trump’s agenda continues to be enacted.”
The factor is, fewer and fewer Latinos are supporting Trump’s agenda. In Reuters/Ipsos polls, his Latino help dropped from 36% in February to 31% this month. Solely 27% of Latinos permitted of his efficiency in a Pew Analysis Heart ballot launched this month.
If this slide continues via subsequent 12 months and Latinos proceed to reject MAGA, Texas Republicans would have performed Trump’s gross gerrymandering and sparked a nationwide legislative civil battle for nothing.
In California, Latino voters are additionally essential to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting push — however Democrats are hoping they’ll be GOP spoilers, regardless of their current tack to the correct.
Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley’s district would swing into Sacramento, selecting up many extra Latino voters than he now has within the majority white Jap Sierra.
Proposed districts for Democrats Josh Tougher and Adam Grey in Central California and Derek Tran in Orange County, all of whom the occasion is making an attempt to buttress after they squeaked via in shut elections within the fall, additionally embrace areas with extra Latinos. A brand new congressional district in southeast L.A. County would most likely be crammed by a Latino Democrat.
Highly effective Latinos within the state have already come out in favor of Newsom’s so-called Election Rigging Response Act, and the governor is relying on them to persuade Latino voters to approve the maps in November.
However all this shuffling is occurring a 12 months after these very voters jolted state Democrats. Though the occasion nonetheless holds a super-majority in Sacramento, Democratic legislators serve alongside the most important variety of Latino GOP colleagues ever. The largest swings to Trump occurred in areas with bigger Latino populations, in line with a Public Coverage Institute of California report printed final month.
The president’s reputation is particularly souring in California as a consequence of his deportation deluge — however whether or not Latinos will help redistricting is one other matter.
Though 51% of Latinos help Newsom’s efficiency, solely 43% mentioned they might vote sure on his redistricting push — the bottom proportion of any ethnic group, in line with a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research ballot carried out for the Los Angeles Occasions. The ballot additionally discovered that 29% of Latinos are undecided on redistricting — the best proportion of any group.
Such skepticism is the bitter fruit of a technology of Democratic rule in Sacramento, at a time when blue-collar Latinos are discovering it more durable to realize the great life. Politicians blaming all of it on Trump finally created a Rooster Little scenario that pushed these Latinos into MAGAlandia — and Newsom, by consistently casting redistricting as a mandatory uppercut in opposition to Trump, is in peril of creating the identical mistake.
California Latinos have helped to torpedo liberal shibboleths on the poll field extra usually than Democrats will ever admit. A Occasions exit ballot discovered 45% of them voted to recall Gov. Grey Davis in 2003 whereas 53% voted sure on the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in 2008 at the same time as a much bigger majority voted for Obama. So egghead arguments about how redistricting will save the way forward for democracy received’t actually land with the rancho libertarians I do know. They need cheaper costs, and Trump isn’t delivering them — however neither is Newsom.
Latinos, as one other cliche goes, aren’t a monolith. They may very nicely assist Republicans win these further congressional seats in Texas and do the identical for Democrats in California.
However any politician betting that Latinos will robotically do what they’re anticipated to … remind me what occurs while you assume one thing?
