Is Donald Trump on track to win a historic share of voters of color in November’s presidential election?
On the surface, it’s one of the most confounding questions of the Trump years in American politics. Trump — and the Republican Party in his thrall — has embraced anti-immigrant policies and proposals, peddled racist stereotypes and demonized immigrants. So why does it look like he might win over and hold the support of greater numbers of nonwhite voters than the Republican Party of years past?
In poll after poll, he’s hitting or exceeding the levels of support he received in 2020 from Latino and Hispanic voters. He’s primed to make inroads among Asian American voters, whose Democratic loyalty has gradually been declining over the last few election cycles. And the numbers he’s posting with Black voters suggest the largest racial realignment in an election since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
There are a plethora of explanations for this shift, but first, some points of clarification. The pro-Trump shift is concentrated among Hispanic and Latino voters, though it has appeared to be spreading to parts of the Black and Asian American electorate.
Second, things have changed since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket in late July. Polling confirms that Harris has posted significant improvements among nonwhite voters, young voters, Democrats and suburban voters. That same polling suggests that, despite Harris’ improvements, she is still underperforming both Biden’s support at this point in the 2020 polls and the margins of victory Biden ended up winning on Election Day.
Putting aside environmental factors and shifts in the American electorate that are happening independent of the candidates, there are a few theories to explain how Trump has uniquely weakened political polarization along the lines of race and ethnicity.
- Trump has successfully associated himself with a message of economic nostalgia, heightening nonwhite Americans’ memories of the pre-COVID economy in contrast to the period of inflation we’re now exiting.
- Trump and his campaign have also zeroed in specifically on outreach and messaging to nonwhite men as part of their larger focus on appealing to male voters.
- Trump and his party have taken advantage of a confluence of social factors, including messaging on immigration and cultural issues, to shore up support from conservative voters of color who have traditionally voted for Democrats or not voted at all.
These three theories place Trump as the central cause for the majority of this racial political shift. But would these dynamics still be happening if he weren’t involved? It could be a product of the growing diversification of America, upward mobility and changing understandings of class, and growing educational divides.
For example, as rates of immigration change and the share of U.S.-born Latino and Asian Americans grows, their partisan loyalties may continue to change. Those born closer to the immigrant experience may have had more of a willingness to back the party seen as more welcoming of immigrants, but as generations get further away from that experience, racial and ethnic identity may become less of a factor in their political thinking.
Concepts of racial identity and memory are also changing — younger Black Americans, for example, have less of a tie to the Civil Rights era — potentially contributing to less strong political polarization among Black and Latino people in the U.S. independently of any given candidate — and creating more persuadable voters in future elections.
At the same time, younger generations are increasingly identifying as independents or outside of the two-party paradigm — a change in loyalty that stands to hurt Democrats first, since Democrats tend to do better with younger voters.
Regardless of whether Trump just happens to be the right kind of populist at the right time of racial and ethnic change in America or if he’s a unique accelerator and contributor to the changes America is experiencing, November may offer more evidence that something has fundamentally changed in U.S. politics. As America diversifies, it makes sense for its political parties to diversify too — and that poses a reckoning for Democrats in elections to come.
Christian Paz is a senior politics reporter at Vox. Based in Washington, DC, he covers the trends, issues and movements changing America’s political parties and American identity.