For many years, the received political wisdom has been that the growth in the population of Latinos and other minorities in the US would mean a future where the Republican Party would struggle to win elections. In new research, Álvaro J. Corral and David L. Leal find that across the Trump era, the Latino vote has steadily increased for Republicans in ways that the Democrats had not anticipated. They argue that not only is the idea of demography as destiny increasingly inaccurate, it has also caused both the Republican and Democratic parties to adopt poor electoral strategies.

Every day seems to bring another news story about Latinos moving towards the Republican Party. While American politics has seen similar claims before, recent data indicate that something new is reshaping the “Latino vote.”

In a rare instance of bipartisanship, over the last two decades, both Democrats and Republicans came to believe that the transformation of the US into a “majority-minority” nation would tilt the playing field toward the Democrats and inaugurate a new era of progressive politics. This view has shaped how both parties worked to build electoral coalitions and therefore the public policies they advocated.

In a series of articles and essays, we have argued that this theory of demography as destiny is not only increasingly inaccurate but also has important negative consequences. It causes both parties to adopt suboptimal strategies and may even harm democracy itself, as it suggests that free and fair elections are an existential threat to the Republican Party.

While relatively high Latino vote shares for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were thought to be watershed moments, Latinos soon reverted to prior patterns of strong Democratic support. Today, the new dynamics we see are likely to last. At the aggregate level, in addition to shifting two-party vote totals, Latino voting dynamics are breaking away from prior patterns in notable ways. And at the individual level, factors such as religion, class, ideology, gender, and generation are reshaping the Latino vote from within.

When demography Is (not) destiny

Demographic determinism may have reached its apex in the aftermath of the 2012 election, when Latinos were one of the few groups to move toward Obama in his re-election campaign. The Republican National Committee was so panicked in the election’s aftermath that its famous autopsy report warned Republicans nationwide about the party’s demographic challenges and urged them to recognize “how precarious our position has become.” Many expected the GOP would return to George W. Bush’s brand of compassionate conservatism, but then came Donald Trump.

Despite a long tradition of Latino Republicanism, many were surprised in 2016 that over a quarter of Latinos supported Trump and even further perplexed by his improved showing in 2020. While some activists and scholars questioned this data, our research has documented such changes and began revealing the underlying causes.

Our 2020 election analysis not only found that the GOP continued to make gains with Latino voters but that this reflected factors such as ideology, gender, religion, and immigration attitudes. This builds on our previous work, which found that Trump in 2016 made inroads among Protestant, lower income, and third generation Latinos. This reflects changes in the overall American electorate as well as assimilation effects, so there is no reason to think it will stop or reverse.

Our research also points out new and alarming changes (for Democrats) in Latino voting patterns. In particular, the Latino vote in 2020 increased for Trump while the white vote moved toward Joe Biden. In the past, these two votes almost always moved in similar directions. This also means that the Latino vote in 2020 moved towards the losing presidential candidate, a change from prior patterns. In addition, the 2022 midterms saw increased Latino support for Republican congressional candidates. The relatively high Latino support for Bush in 2004, by contrast, did not carry over into the 2006 midterm elections for Republicans.

One emerging response is that demography as destiny is still taking place, albeit at a slower pace. We find this misleading. For instance, some data suggest that Latino partisanship changed very little during the Trump years, but shifts in voting often precede changes in party identification. While one might argue that the Trump vote in 2020 was just a return to the historic average of one-in-three Latinos voting for Republican presidential candidates, his campaign and presidency were contrary to all Latino outreach theory. And although the 2022 “Latino red wave” failed to materialize, this reflected pundit hype that went beyond the data rather than cooling Latino Republicanism.

“CLRC_BO_20220508-67” (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Strategic Student Support Programs

The New York Times recently proclaimed “A rebound [for Harris] among Black and Hispanic voters,” while also noting that current levels of minority Trump support “would still represent the highest level of backing a Republican presidential candidate has received in pre-election polls since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.” For example, the YouGov weekly tracker has shown the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, struggling to poll above 60 percent with Latino voters since she became the nominee. This is a “rebound” that Republicans will gladly accept, and it suggests nothing but trouble for Democrats.

Recent patterns in Latino partisanship and voting behavior 

As Figure 1 shows, across the Trump era, the Latino vote has steadily increased for Republicans in ways that are new and unanticipated. In addition, the Latino vote and the overall popular vote have started to move in different directions. Although Biden won a larger percent of the total popular vote than did Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump saw his Latino vote share increase by at least several percentage points across between 2016 and 2022. 

Figure 1 – Latino Two-Party vote choice percent (2016-2022)

Sources: Exit Polls/AP VoteCast 2022 (Chen et al. 2022); AP VoteCast 2020 (New York Times 2020); 2020 Exit Polls (CNN 2020); AP VoteCast 2018 (WSJ 2018); Exit Polls 2018 (CNN 2018); Exit Polls 2016 (New York Times 2016). Note: AP VoteCast debuted in 2018.

Our examination of multiple political science surveys also indicates that many Latinos are interested in alternatives to the Democratic Party, as Figure 2 shows. Party affiliation declined by five to eight percentage points across the 2016 and 2020 versions of the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, Cooperative Election Study, and American National Election Studies. This cooling trend away from Democrats has been accompanied by simultaneous increases in Republican Party identification (by as much as five percentage points) and independent identification (by as much as seven percentage points).

Figure 2 – Latino Voter Partisanship (2016-2020)

Democratic Party overconfidence

Our new work identifies many ways the demography as destiny narrative lulled the Democratic Party into a false sense of security. In addition to wishful thinking that mistook New Deal-style voters as ideological progressives, Latino conservatives have been misunderstood as religious extremists, the victims of misinformation, or fringe outliers. We also suggest that because of the hold of such narratives on the party, Democrats were unprepared to respond to Trump’s populist appeals and their resonance among Latinos.

Perhaps most importantly, Democrats overinvested in the expectation that Trump’s immigration politics would motivate a major backlash from Latino voters and underestimated the appeal of restrictive border policies among many Americans, including Latinos.

Republican Party under confidence

Republicans have also been led astray by the demography as destiny narrative. Understandably worried that demographic change inevitably meant electoral doom, some have responded with so-called “voter suppression” laws with the justification of “ballot security” and “election integrity.”  We should not see such politicians as cartoon villains who oppose democracy, however, but as strategic actors who are responding to the (perceived) incentives of their electoral environments.

The problem for the GOP is threefold. First, this response allows Democrats to claim they are the party of democracy (even if many are also strategic politicians, but who believe higher levels of voter turnout will advantage their party). Second, it runs the risk of unintentionally suppressing the GOP’s own voters. Third, it overlooks a better strategy – winning Latino voters, not suppressing them.

The GOP would be more competitive if it expanded its successful outreach to Latino Evangelicals and mobilized the working class, multi-generational families, men, and those hit hardest by inflation and interest rates. In other words, the GOP has many opportunities to build on its recent successes and grow its Latino vote.

It’s time to retire demography as destiny

While demographic trends can be important data points for campaigns to consider, the demography as destiny narrative should be retired. It has done more harm than good to both parties, and it threatens fundamental freedoms by implying that democracy itself favors one party over another. Both Democrats and Republicans would do well to dispense with these simplistic narratives and embrace the full complexity of Latino voters in 2024 and beyond.

• This essay is based on the following Political Science Quarterly article, and the authors gratefully acknowledge the permission of the PSQ editors to draw from it: “El Cuento del Destino: Latino Voters, Demographic Determinism, and the Myth of an Inevitable Democratic Party Majority.”
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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics. 
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