The new swing vote: Why more Latino voters are joining the GOP

Bible study has ended at Rep. Mayra Flores’ campaign headquarters, and volunteers are passing around steaming plates of chicken tamales. One staffer excitedly announces an all-female “Block Walk,” where participants will wear red high heels during an upcoming door-knocking effort.

“We all used to be Democrats,” says Minerva Simpson, vice president of Cameron County Republican Women, whose Facebook group ballooned to almost 800 members over the past two years. Mary David, who voted for a Republican for president for the first time in 2016, nods in agreement. 

“My dad, my grandmother, everyone I knew was a Democrat. It was passed down,” says Ms. David. She and Ms. Simpson chuckle, remembering the same John F. Kennedy wall rug that hung in their childhood homes. 

These women sitting in a Texas strip mall near the Mexico border are at the forefront of a potentially tectonic political shift. For decades, Latino voters in the United States have been overwhelmingly Democratic, drawn to the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson and its reputation of fighting for workers and marginalized groups. But recently, that partisan alliance has been showing unmistakable cracks.

In 2016, Donald Trump won 29% of all Hispanic voters – 2 points higher than Mitt Romney had done in 2012, according to exit polling by Edison Research. Then in 2020, Mr. Trump improved on his own performance, winning 32% of Hispanic voters.

Republicans have hit high-water marks with the Latino electorate before: In 1984 Ronald Reagan won 37%, and in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush won 35% and 40% respectively. “Trump’s performance isn’t out of line with what we’ve seen historically,” says Mark Hugo Lopez at Pew Research. The big question is whether the Republican Party can keep, or continue to grow, Mr. Trump’s margins over the next few election cycles.

Many of these new Latino Republicans say their conversion is for good. Yes, it was former President Trump who brought them into the GOP – in part because he made them start paying attention to politics. Whenever they turned on the TV, it seemed, he was there, and they often found themselves agreeing with him. But they also came to see Mr. Trump’s party as reflecting their own values on economic and cultural matters. Notably, the shift has largely tracked with the nation’s growing education polarization: The Republican Party is making its biggest inroads among non-college-educated Hispanics, who make up more than 80% of the Hispanic population, just as it has with white voters without college degrees. 

Hispanic voters are hardly monolithic, and a majority overall are still loyal Democrats. In 2020, their support helped deliver several key swing states – including Georgia and Arizona – to Joe Biden. But the recent erosion has been significant enough to upend political assumptions on both sides of the aisle. The trend, which has been particularly evident among Mexican American voters in Texas and voters from Cuba and Central and South America in Florida, can be seen nationwide. It is likely to shape November’s midterms, the 2024 presidential race, and, it’s not an exaggeration to say, the future of U.S. politics.  

Perhaps nowhere has this realignment been as stark as in the Rio Grande Valley, a triangle of land in Texas’ southernmost tip. The most Hispanic area in the country, it has also historically been among the most Democratic. Starr County, for example, is 96% Hispanic and holds the longest Democratic presidential voting streak in the entire country at the county level.  

But between 2016 and 2020, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, the region’s three biggest cities, all moved toward Mr. Trump by an eye-popping 20 to 30 percentage points – the largest shifts of any metro areas in the country. Similarly, Starr had the biggest shift of any county in the country, going from a 60-point Hillary Clinton victory in 2016 to a mere 5-point win for President Biden four years later. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

“This is about all of us. All of us wanting recognition. All of us wanting Washington to hear us and not take us for granted,” says Rep. Mayra Flores, Republican representative of Texas’ 34th District and the first Mexican-born woman in Congress.

In June, Ms. Flores shocked the political establishment when she won a special election to replace a retiring Democrat, becoming the first Republican in 151 years to win a House seat from the Rio Grande Valley – and the first Mexican-born woman in Congress. A former respiratory therapist who moved to the U.S. when she was 6 years old and became a citizen in her teens, Ms. Flores ran on the simple motto “God, Family, Country.”

Now, she and two other Republican Latinas, Cassy Garcia and Monica De La Cruz, are making strong plays for all three of the area’s congressional seats in November. 

“Trump just opened up our eyes,” says Ms. David, back in Ms. Flores’ campaign office. “We saw all this change in our culture, against our values, and now we – Latinas – are standing up.”

While polling shows that Hispanic men are more likely to support the Republican Party than Hispanic women, Equis Research found that Mr. Trump’s approval rating among Latinas had increased 12 points by the end of his term – a shift much greater than that among Latino men. When weighted by subgroup size, Equis said Latino women likely made the “greatest impact” electorally. 

With this newfound political activism, many women here say they’ve gained a sense of agency. After years of struggling to provide for their families and feeling politically disengaged, they’re having a tangible influence on local and national elections. And that, they say, feels powerful. 

After the Bible study, a group of Flores volunteers heads outside, lining up along the strip’s fast-food restaurants and Mexican grocery stores. As they wave their American flags and Mayra Flores signs, cars and trucks honk back in support. One woman begins to cry, saying she’s overcome with gratitude that God has prepared Ms. Flores, Ms. Garcia, and Ms. De La Cruz – these three Latinas – for this moment. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“We’re very faith-based, family-oriented down here in South Texas. I don’t think people realized that [Republican] values are their values. ... They’ve just always voted Democrat – but it’s not your abuela’s party anymore,” says Cassy Garcia, the GOP candidate for Texas’ 28th Congressional District, with Border Patrol officers Oscar Vela Jr. (left) and Sergio Moreno (right) at a barbecue on Sept. 10, 2022, in Laredo, Texas.

For decades, many strategists from both political parties largely subscribed to a theory that, when it came to the nation’s elections, demography was destiny. That view was prominently put forward in a popular 2002 book, “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” which argued that America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity was inexorably putting the Democratic Party on a track to permanent majority status – a prediction that later seemed to play out with President Barack Obama’s resounding 2008 and 2012 victories. A Time magazine cover from May 2009 even featured a Republican elephant below the headline “Endangered Species.”

Crucially, the book’s authors emphasized that this future Democratic dominance would depend not only on an electorate made up of more voters of color, but also on the Democrats maintaining their support among the working class. And while the diversity projections have held up – Hispanic voters have made up an increasingly large share of the electorate in every state since the turn of the 21st century – the Democrats’ hold on the working class has been slipping.

Mr. Trump’s appeal among white voters without college degrees has been well documented since he crashed through the Democrats’ “blue wall” in the industrial Midwest to win the presidency in 2016. But in his second presidential bid, that same working-class appeal began showing signs of crossing racial lines. In a post-2020 election analysis, Pew Research found a wide education gap among Hispanics: While Mr. Biden won college-educated Hispanic voters by a robust 69% to 30%, his margin among those without college degrees was slimmer, 55% to 40%. According to Edison Research’s exit polling, Mr. Trump won 26% of nonwhite voters without a college degree in 2020 – up from 20% in 2016, and Mr. Romney’s share of 16% in 2012.

“So many people here have grown up believing that the Democratic Party is the one for lower-income families,” says U.S. Border Patrol agent Oscar Pollorena. He’s attending a “law enforcement appreciation” barbecue in Laredo featuring Ms. Garcia, the GOP candidate for the 28th District. In January, the National Border Patrol Council endorsed Ms. Garcia, after years of endorsing Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who’s running for reelection.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle can be seen at the border fence with Mexico on Sept. 12, 2022, in Brownsville, Texas. The National Border Patrol Council endorsed Republican Cassy Garcia for Congress after decades of support for Democrats.

“It’s the way the Democratic Party sells itself: ‘Vote for us and we’ll give you free food, free health care, free everything,’” Mr. Pollorena says, after his young family poses for a picture with Ms. Garcia. “And then they never actually come through.” 

When asked about their main voting issues, dozens of Hispanic voters across the Rio Grande Valley name the same two priorities: the economy and immigration. Not only is this the poorest region of Texas, with more than 1 in 3 people living in poverty, but it also has more than double the amount of illegal immigration as most other locales along the U.S.-Mexico border. To many here, the issues are interconnected. 

“When my mom was coming over, the crime rate was not like it is today and there wasn’t the flooding of people like it is today,” says Ms. David in Ms. Flores’ campaign office. (Experts note that border enforcement wasn’t the same then as today, with a greater capacity to find and register illegal crossings.) “She came from a culture of really hard work and never had any help. And today in the valley, as I see it, there is a lot of abuse of the system.”  

Congresswoman Flores, who came to America as a young girl to help her father pick cotton, says Congress needs to overhaul the immigration process. “Let’s make the legal process more affordable, faster, and safer,” she tells the Monitor, “so good immigrants that want to come here to work hard, for the American dream, to provide for themselves and their family, can do so legally.” 

Half a dozen Border Patrol agents tell the Monitor their jobs got harder under the Biden administration, with many more migrants now feeling emboldened to cross the border. They are also bracing for the end of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that Mr. Biden is trying to jettison, which will allow unauthorized migrants to once again wait inside the U.S. for processing. Title 42 is currently being held up in court.

“We feel like Uber drivers,” says Mr. Pollorena, back at the law enforcement barbecue. “These people are crossing and looking for us. They believe that as long as they set foot on American soil, they will have their free ticket. And in a sense, they’re right.”

For the first time, according to government data released in mid-September, the number of unauthorized immigrants arrested on the southwestern border has exceeded 2 million in one year. 

Some here concede that the former president’s rhetoric toward immigrants – he famously accused them of “bringing drugs” and “crime” and of being “rapists” – sounded overly harsh at times. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“Look at the policies that were in place [during the Trump administration]. We had some of the best policies on immigration,” says Cassy Garcia, the GOP House candidate for the 28th District in Texas, on Republican immigration policy. Ms. Garcia (center) greets the Pollorena family as they arrive at a law enforcement appreciation event on Sept. 10, 2022, in Laredo, Texas.

“I don’t condone, like, everything that was said, you know? A lot of times it’s like ‘Ugh,’” says Cassy Garcia, who previously served as Sen. Ted Cruz’s deputy state director, in an interview between campaign events. “But you look at the policies that were in place [during the Trump administration]. We had some of the best policies on immigration.” 

Some analysts see the Hispanic movement toward the GOP as part of a larger political sorting that’s been slowly happening over decades, in which the two major parties have become far more ideologically “pure.” Voters who identify as liberals are now overwhelmingly likely to be Democrats. Voters who hold more conservative views – and that includes many Hispanics, particularly in Texas – are increasingly likely to be Republicans. Many here cite an old quote attributed to former President Reagan that “Hispanics are already Republicans, they just don’t know it yet.”

“We’re very faith-based, family-oriented down here in South Texas,” says Ms. Garcia. “I don’t think people realized that [Republican] values are their values. ... They’ve just always voted Democrat – but it’s not your abuela’s party anymore.”

From a conference table at a law office-turned-local Democratic headquarters in Pharr, Texas, surrounded by yard signs for Texas’ Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, Irma Garcia, president of the Rio Grande Valley Democrats, and Richard Gonzales, chair of the Hidalgo County Democrats, say claims of a Hispanic political realignment are greatly exaggerated. And they feel confident that a Republican wave in the Rio Grande Valley isn’t going to happen this November – particularly among Latinas. 

They point to the 300,000 new voters added in Texas this summer following the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and women’s right to an abortion. Many of these newly registered voters, they note, are young women.

“Latinas are the ones who are going to be moving [to the polls] because of Roe v. Wade. They are not happy with what’s going on,” says Irma Garcia. Polling data supports that view: A Public Religion Research Institute survey from July found that 66% of Hispanic Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

“[Abortion] is a tangible situation that affects millions of women across this country,” agrees Mr. Gonzales. “Whereas immigration, yes, it’s an issue that needs to be fixed, but it isn’t life or death right now.” That, along with the fact that COVID-19 and gas prices seem to have receded as top-of-mind issues, makes them confident about their party’s chances in November. 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“Latinas are the ones who are going to be moving [to the polls] because of Roe v. Wade. They are not happy with what’s going on,” says Irma Garcia (left), president of the Rio Grande Valley Democrats, at the offices of Richard Gonzales (right), Hidalgo County Democratic chairman, in Pharr, Texas.

There are other reasons the Latino Republican shift in Texas may be more “shallow” than it appears, says Mark Kaswan, a political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville. Ms. Flores won her seat here in June by just 2,000 votes amid dismal turnout: Fewer than 29,000 voters even bothered to cast ballots in the special election, less than 6% of the district’s voting-age population. 

And this fall, Ms. Flores’ campaign and other House races will be significantly impacted by new district lines. Previously, the 34th, 28th, and 15th congressional districts were all considered “toss-ups,” with Democrats holding a less than 5-point partisan edge according to FiveThirtyEight. But after the latest round of redistricting – the decennial process in which House districts are redrawn to reflect population shifts within and between states – Ms. Garcia’s 28th District now “leans Democratic,” and Ms. Flores’ 34th District is classified as “solid D.” 

Ms. Garcia is challenging Mr. Cuellar, a conservative Democrat and one of the few remaining lawmakers in his party who opposes abortion rights. In office since 2005, he has had to fend off primary challenges from the left over the past two cycles. In 2020, Mr. Cuellar defeated progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros by 4 percentage points. In 2022, she ran again and the race went to a runoff. Mr. Cuellar won by fewer than 300 votes. Meanwhile, Ms. Flores faces a challenge by Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, who moved into the new district.

Democratic activists also admit they’ve learned a lot from the past two years. “Of course Republicans did well here, we’d be naive not to acknowledge that,” says Mr. Gonzales. “But we’ve gotten a lot better with messaging,” adds Irma Garcia. A few blocks from Mr. Gonzales’ law office, a white yard sign advertising the Rio Grande Valley Democrats is tied to a house’s front porch. In big blue letters, it reads “Faith, Family, Freedom” – an almost exact echo of Ms. Flores’ campaign motto.

“[Republicans are] trying to claim those words,” says Ms. Garcia. “But those are our words too.” 

Tumbleweeds blow past empty buildings in downtown Rio Grande City, where the beige adobe exterior of Caro’s Restaurant disappears into the surrounding desert. Inside, TVs and taxidermy animal heads are mounted on the walls, as well as decades-old newspaper clippings praising Caro’s signature “puffy taco.” 

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

“We’re very poverty stricken, if you couldn’t tell. Democrats are worried about the environment 20 years from now – but I need to feed my kids today,” says Claudia Alcazar, chair of the Starr County Republicans (left), with Toni Treviño (right), a local member of the state Republican Party Committee, on Sept. 12, 2022, in Rio Grande City, Texas.

“We’re very poverty stricken, if you couldn’t tell,” says Claudia Alcazar, chair of the fast-growing Starr County Republicans, after ordering a combination plate off the menu. “Democrats are worried about the environment 20 years from now – but I need to feed my kids today.” 

Many voters here say it feels as though Democrats have increasingly prioritized social issues at the expense of a jobs agenda – a perception that increased dramatically during the COVID-19 lockdown. They also say the Democratic Party has shifted sharply to the left on things such as critical race theory, gender ideology, and sex education in schools, and even abortion, without pausing to consider whether voters like them would follow. Some note that not long ago, President Obama was publicly opposed to gay marriage. 

While the majority of Hispanics in the U.S. still identify as Roman Catholic, long the predominant religion in Latin America, Hispanic Protestants, including Evangelicals, are growing in number and are expected to double by 2030. Given that Mr. Trump increased his winning margin among white Evangelicals between 2016 and 2020, it’s not hard to imagine this religious shift directly leading more Hispanics into the Republican fold.

Pastor Luis Cabrera opened City Church Harlingen with his wife, Crystal, in August, 2021, after founding his congregation in his home a few years earlier with just three other families. The Rio Grande Valley has the highest concentration of Hispanic Protestants in the country.

Sometimes people can go for years just blindly accepting the status quo, says Mr. Cabrera. But all it takes is one moment of awakening to bring real change. “They are waking up and asking, ‘Why are we going to this church?’ or ‘Why are we quiet about politics?’”

In his view, those two things – church and politics – go hand in hand. To truly live their Christian beliefs, Mr. Cabrera tells his congregation they need to “be involved civically” and support candidates who share their values. His sermons inspired one congregant, Ms. Flores, to take her activism all the way to Washington.

Historically, Hispanic Americans have had lower voter turnout rates than their white, Black, or Asian peers. Mr. Cabrera considers it part of his duty to change that. The hallway between his office and the church auditorium is lined with photographs of congregation members singing, holding potlucks, and participating in political rallies – proudly posing with guns in hand. 

When Mr. Cabrera takes the Sunday stage, the music turns up and the audience sways to the beat beneath American flags and a “Make America Godly Again” sign. 

“Lord, help us fight for this country,” says Mr. Cabrera, as the crowd murmurs in agreement.  

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

A band performs during City Church Harlingen’s Sunday service on Sept. 11, 2022, in Harlingen, Texas. Many evangelical Latinos are joining the Republican Party.

On a warm fall day in Washington, D.C., a few dozen people in red “Si Se Puede!” T-shirts have gathered on a patch of grass outside the U.S. Capitol building to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month. Speakers take turns with a bullhorn, talking in both English and Spanish about the need for equality and respect.

A few blocks away, Ms. Flores sits on a leather couch in her congressional office. She hasn’t had time to do much decorating since moving in over the summer – the coffee table is bare except for a Monster energy drink and Bible reading guide. And there’s a chance she may not be here for long, given her redrawn district’s more Democratic tilt. But she’s determined to make the most of it. Over the past several months, Ms. Flores voted against protecting the rights to access contraceptives and abortion, as well as against expanding firearm regulations and requiring states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages performed out-of-state.

“This is not just about Mayra Flores,” she says, gesturing to the office around her. “This is about all of us. All of us wanting recognition. All of us wanting Washington to hear us and not take us for granted.”

Behind her desk are two leather-bound books. “Jefferson’s Manual: Rules and Practices of the House of Representatives,” several inches tall when closed, lies partially hidden by the Bible, which is open to Psalms. To the right of the books is a framed photograph. It’s Ms. Flores, smiling in front of several American flags on her inauguration day, alongside another woman: her mother.

In the Latino community, “mothers play a huge role,” says Ms. Flores, a mother of four. “We feel responsible for our children’s safety and their future. That’s why you’re seeing so many mothers coming out.”

She’s talking about women like JoAnn Garcia, who recently came into her campaign headquarters with her 7-year old daughter Mia, asking for some “Flores for Congress” yard signs. “I was surprised she won,” as an anti-abortion Latina, JoAnn Garcia says. “But I was so excited. ... She represents my own family.”

JoAnn Garcia excuses herself to call her mother to confirm that she wants a Flores yard sign as well. Yes, her mother tells her on the phone, the biggest one they have.