Did Donald Trump Make Bigger Gains with Hispanics than Previously Expected?

Despite constant media predictions that Donald Trump’s Hispanic support was supposed to go completely down the tubes because of his hawkish immigration platform, new Pew Research data shows that Trump not only improved with Hispanics, but his gains with Hispanics were larger than what other polls showed. 

According to Pew, Biden took a solid majority (59%) of the Hispanic vote. On the other hand, Trump received 38% of the Hispanic vote. Trump’s numbers exceed the performances of George W. Bush in 2000 (35%), McCain in 2008 (31%), and Mitt Romney in 2012 (27%). Other exit polls, especially those coming from CNN, had Biden’s Hispanic support at 65% while Trump only picked up 32% of the vote. Similarly, Fox News had Biden’s Hispanic support at 63% and Trump’s at 35%.

Curiously, there was a remarkable educational divide among Hispanic voters. For example, Trump only acquired 30% of college-educated Hispanics, while picking up 41% of non-college-educated Hispanics. This has been part of a broader trend present throughout most of the American electorate, most notably among whites, where the working classes are beginning to drift more towards Republicans, while the professional managerial classes are breaking for Democrats.

For all the talk about Hispanics being obsessed with immigration, and that a Republican with a hawkish immigration platform would be radioactive to them, the data on Hispanics’ voting priorities simply does not bear that out. 

Take the case of a Pew study released on January, 28, 2021. In this report, Pew found that only 47% of Hispanics put addressing immigration at the top of their policy agenda. However, as Hunter Wallace of Occidental Dissent showed, immigration was put at the bottom of Hispanic voter priorities. Wallace noted that “strengthening the economy (83%), dealing with COVID (82%), improving the job situation (69%), addressing issues around race in this country (68%), improving education (66%), improving the political system (64%), dealing with the problems of poor people (64%), terrorism (63%), reducing health care costs (63%), reforming Social Security (59%), reducing crime (55%), addressing issues within the criminal justice system (52%)” were more important issues for Hispanic voters than immigration (47%).

So much for immigration being a deal breaker…. In light of the recent gains Trump made with Hispanics, it’s clear that they don’t really get up in arms about immigration. In fact, a 2020 poll that the Washington Post and University of Maryland poll conducted last April found that 69% of Hispanics supported halting all immigration.

Hispanics’ gradual shift to Trump is not surprising considering that the relatively Americanized segments of the Hispanic populace still hold immigration restrictionists like Cesar Chavez in high regard.

Granted, Hispanics are by no means natural conservatives, let alone a paleolibertarian constituency. Their voting behavior tends to be solidly Democratic. Nevertheless, populists should avoid Hispandering and just focus on populist issues such as immigration restriction and law and order to pry away some Hispanics from the Democrats’ grasp. 

But we should always remember that the white working class should be the re-aligned Republican Party’s focus, while any other gains with non-whites are just gravy in the grand scheme of things.

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