Donald Trump attends a town hall hosted by Univision in Miami, Florida, on Oct. 16, 2024. | Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
In the hours after the election was called for Donald Trump, some of the finger-pointing started quickly: Latinos were to blame. Democrats lost Latinos, and it cost them the election.
According to Carlos Odio, co-founder of the firm Equis Research, which focuses on Latino polling, that’s not quite true. While Kamala Harris won Latinos by much smaller margins than Joe Biden did in 2020, she still won a majority of them — and her losses among the group didn’t cost her the election.
“You could erase the Latino shift in those [Blue Wall] states, and Trump would still win,” Odio said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.
That should still be cold comfort for Democrats. Trump made gains across every group in this critical demographic, cutting into Harris’ wins with Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Central Americans. He did well in Florida and Texas and New York and New Jersey.
Even though many analysts expected a shift toward Trump this year, its extent was remarkable.
“You have to say it certainly looks and sounds like a realignment,” Odio said, before giving Democrats some slim hope. “Realignments are neither inevitable nor irreversible, especially when you’re talking about an electorate like Latinos that have been very swingy and very dynamic.”
Read the full story at POLITICO.com
