The second-largest racial voting bloc in the country surprised Democrats this week, breaking heavily from the left and helping to send President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House. The sprawling Latino vote looked past some of the Republican’s more inflammatory rhetoric to focus on one thing in particular: the economy.
“Latinos clearly hated inflation and they remember that Trump was in charge when prices were not what they are now,” Luis Jimenez, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said in an email. “I don’t think it’s anything more complicated than that.”
While it appears a majority of Latino voters still leaned left toward Vice President Kamala Harris, election data and multiple exit polls show a decline in support for the Democrat both nationally and in Massachusetts.
A Globe analysis of town-by-town results shows that among communities with significant Latino populations, Trump saw gains in support from 2020. In Lawrence, for example, which is more than 80 percent Latino, Trump received a nearly 16 percentage point increase in vote share. And in Chelsea, where Latinos make up 67 percent of the population, Trump gained 9 points. Both cities also have poverty rates almost double the statewide average.
Nationally, a CNN exit poll showed 52 percent of Latinos said they voted for Harris, down from 65 percent who voted for President Biden in 2020.
Latino men especially supported Trump, with 55 percent voting for him, according to the CNN poll, compared to 59 percent who said they voted for Biden in 2020. By comparison, about 61 percent of Latinas supported Harris this year, a decrease from the 69 percent who voted for Biden.
David Gonzalez, originally from El Salvador, has always voted Democrat since he became a US citizen in 2012. But on Tuesday in Chelsea, he cast his vote for Trump, in part because of immigration. He recalls the gang violence he saw back in Latin America and believes a more secure border can prevent that from happening here.
“I’d like for this country to take the first steps to avoid all that,” Gonzalez said.
The shift in Latino turnout this year was especially confounding to some, as the Trump campaign’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was increasingly scrutinized in the weeks leading up to the election. Political analysts are poring over data to break down the oft-misunderstood Latino vote, which is often overhomogenized and underengaged.
The Latino and Hispanic demographic is complex, drawing people from more than 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean who often fall under the umbrella of Latino. That’s 65 million people in the United States — or nearly 1 in 5 people who differ in opinions across gender lines, generations, immigration status, and more.
“Democrats cannot take these groups for granted anymore,” said Richard Parr, the senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group. He said he has been watching Latino voters shift further to the right over the last few elections.
Like many other voters, Latinos said “strengthening the economy” was among their top priorities in this election, according to the Pew Research Center.
Gender may also have played a role as men across all ages trended toward Trump. A Fox News/Associated Press exit poll found nearly one-third of respondents said they were somewhat or very concerned US society has focused too much on the gains for women at the expense of men.
Parr at the MassINC Polling Group points to the Trump campaign’s messaging and media outreach as successfully courting male voters: Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance both appeared on numerous podcasts, including hours-long episodes on the “Joe Rogan Experience: podcast, which has 14.5 million followers on Spotify.
“I think sometimes in our heads we think, ‘Well, that’s for white men,’ right? But that’s not, it’s everybody,” he said.
Kevin Guevara, who owns a cleaning business, is Dominican but was born and raised in Jamaica Plain. Though he grew up in a family that largely voted for Democratic candidates, he said he “never understood them.”
Guevara voted for Trump on Tuesday and said he mainly gets his news through social media and the “PBD Podcast,” which is hosted by Patrick Bet-David and has 2.7 million followers on YouTube. Bet-David has hosted guests such as Andrew Tate, a controversial, self-described misogynist British-American influencer who’s facing various criminal charges including human trafficking. Trump himself has appeared on the “PBD Podcast” recently.
“I don’t watch news channels. News channels are all propaganda,” Guevara said. “If I want to find something, I’ll just look at YouTube channels.”
Guevara said he felt news media portrayed Trump in a negative light, so he leaned on other sources that would highlight his preferred candidate. “The narrative that’s put out is that everything blue is positive and everything red is bad for the people,” said Guevara.
Karla Alvarez, a resident of Chelsea, came out to the polls for the first time this election. She is Puerto Rican, and has been in the continental United States since 1989. For her, abortion was a major issue and Trump aligned with her values as she doesn’t agree with the practice, except in special circumstances.
“I don’t like the way he speaks, I don’t agree with everything he says,” she said, but still favored him over Harris.
She added that recent comments made by a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, where Puerto Rico was described as a “floating island of garbage,” were “blown out of proportion.”
Parr from MassINC said that so far, data doesn’t show that comment negatively affecting the Trump campaign. But he also points to one last piece of information that he finds intriguing.
“There’s a lot of ink spilt on minority groups changing or going to Trump,” Parr said. “But let’s remember that white people have been going for him for three elections in a row.”
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio and Rachel Umansky-Castro contributed to this report.
This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
Esmy Jimenez can be reached at esmy.jimenez@globe.com. Follow her @esmyjimenez.