Is Donald Trump losing his Latino base?

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1:17BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. We're going to revisit one of the biggest surprises of the 2024 election. the huge numbers of Latino voters who backed Donald Trump. Normally, they're pretty solid reserve for the Democrats, but instead Latinos came out in their highest ever numbers for a Republican candidate in modern times. But might he be losing some of that support already? There are questions around ice raids targeting undocumented migrants across the country, global tariffs and the persistently lagging economy. Some Latinos are saying this is not what they voted for in November. So can the president keep hold of them for the midterms?

1:57Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. President Trump's message is very simple. We are done being taken advantage of. Mr. President, in the name of our God, have mercy upon the people who are scared now. Are you supportive of these onesies? I'm supportive of vaccines. What is happening? Like, this is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. This is what victory feels like. Yeah!

2:39Hello, it's Sarah here in the BBC's Bureau in Washington, D.C. And it's Justin, out west, west of England in the fair city of Bath. Well, we're going to be heading west in American terms in this episode, Justin, because we're going to be talking about the Latino, the Hispanic vote in America. Donald Trump made massive gains, as you know, in 2024. And in fact, new analysis has shown he actually did even better than we thought at the time. 48 % of Latinos voted for Donald Trump. That is a huge increase in what he got in 2020 and 2016. It's more than any Republican candidate has had in modern history.

3:18Yeah, and it's staggering. And it was particularly men as well, wasn't it? who broke for him. So the question we're going to try to answer now is, are they still with him? Do they reflect a kind of wider electoral shift, which has basically been to an extent away from him? Are they sticking with him? And how much do they matter as well, I think is also important. Plus, how can the Democrats get them back if they are souring a bit on Donald Trump? We're going to talk to Mike Madrid, great friend of the pod, veteran Latino pollster, who's going to join us. He's been involved with some of that latest polling, which is very interesting.

3:52And a few surprises, actually, as well, I think, for some people, particularly when it comes to how Latinos regard the crackdown on illegal immigration, which may surprise people the extent to which, frankly, they have taken it in their stride. First, though, we need to hear Trump himself, don't we? This is Donald Trump's pitch to Latino voters when he was campaigning during the election in New Mexico. So I'm here for one simple reason. I like you very much and it's good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.

4:31As I was saying, I love the Hispanics. I love them. I love Hispanics. And they are. They're hard workers and, boy, are they entrepreneurial and they're great people and they are warm. They are warm. Sometimes they're too warm, you want to know the truth. It's just nakedly transparent, isn't it? And so cynical, saying I'm here to improve my credentials with the Hispanic community. Maybe it's not cynical if you say it out loud. Yeah, somehow if you're Donald Trump, you can get away with this kind of thing. And don't forget, Justin, I'm sure you haven't, just really shortly before the election in November, there was this infamous joke made by a comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe at that big rally in Madison Square Garden in New York that Donald Trump had just before the election.

5:18Remember this? I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it's called Puerto Rico. And the thing is, Sarah, I went as soon as he told that joke, we were in Pennsylvania. I was there with Mariana and we met some Puerto Ricans and one was upset, actually, and said he was intending to vote for Donald Trump and had decided because of that joke and because nobody had condemned Tony Hinchcliffe enough from the Trump camp, he wasn't going to vote for him anymore. But the others just said, oh, it doesn't matter.

5:53It wasn't, we weren't particularly offended by it. It didn't matter to us at all. And frankly, I think it's fair to say, isn't it? It didn't really have an electoral impact at all, did it? When he turned it round, if you remember, in great Trumpian fashion, This was a perfect example of how he does this. And because Joe Biden was caught on a call saying that it was Donald Trump supporters who were garbage rather than Puerto Rican voters. Well, let me tell you something. I don't know the Puerto Rican that I know or Puerto Rico where I'm in my home state of Delaware. They're good, decent, honorable people.

6:29The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. And he seized on that. So while you were in Pennsylvania, I was up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he turned up in a garbage truck with Trump written on the side of it, him in a high-vis jacket and in the cab of the truck, really highlighting the fact that Democrats, according to him, thought that all Trump voters were garbage. It was like that thing Hillary Clinton had said in the 2016 campaign about deplorables. We're leading in every state. We're leading big. And I think that the comment made by really both of them, because there are really two of them, about being garbage, maybe 250 million people, they shouldn't be talking.

7:11That's like deplorable. This is the deplorable for Hillary. And I think this is worse, actually. For Joe Biden to make that statement, it's really a disgrace. He turned that around beautifully. Anyway, we are getting away from the point of the Latino vote that he did so very, very well with in that election. Since we've seen these immigration raids across the country, since we've seen some of his policies actually being enacted, are they still supporting him is the big question. Yeah. You see, I'm not sure we are getting away from it because I think one of the appeals of Trump was his sort of vividness as a candidate and his ability to say things that were shocking and all the rest of it, and particularly to Latino men, that ability, the thing you've just described, the way in which Trump turned around that, oh, potentially very sticky situation with a comedian who made an off joke and all the rest of it, into, as you said, a real plus.

8:07That kind of thing actually did appeal to these kinds of voters. And what I'll be really interested to hear from Mike Madrid is the extent to which that is still the case, because of the personality of this guy and the cautiousness, actually, of the Democrats. And it's the cautiousness itself that puts these people off them. And Mike Madrid is the right person to be talking to because he is a Republican pollster who focuses on the Latino vote. He's the author of a book called The Latino Century, which was particularly fascinating about the voting trends of Hispanics. And he has been doing some work looking into not just why, They supported Donald Trump in such numbers in 2024.

8:52But where they are now, eight months into Donald Trump's presidency and what that could mean for the midterm elections. So, yeah, let's welcome to the podcast, Mike Madrid. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, Sarah. Great to be with you. All of these immigration raids across the country. What does that do to Latino voters who are here perfectly legally, probably second, third, fourth generation Americans, but watching what's happening to so many Hispanics in America? Well, it's certainly not helpful to his cause or his energy. It seems to be the shortest political honeymoon in modern history.

9:27We're witnessing a real collapse amongst Latino support for Donald Trump after a historically high level of winning those votes, as you mentioned in the introduction. But I do want to cause a pause and provide some insight into this as well. There's this overemphasis, this overfocus on the immigration issue with the Latino voter. By a wide, wide measure, the collapse in Donald Trump's support is about economic decline. All of his numbers on his polling started to collapse on what he called Liberation Day, the day he announced his tariffs. The ICE immigration raids actually happened about six weeks after, after the collapse of his numbers had already begun in earnest.

10:13So their ICE raids are not helping. There's a common media narrative and focus on this because it's driven politically for this purpose. But that's not what's driving these lower support levels down. And of course, you know, we should say it's difficult to generalize about voters. Not all Latino voters are going to be driven by the same things. They're not all going to agree on anything, whether it comes to immigration, economy or anything else. But but in so much as we can generalize, I'm really interested in this. You explained to us before that immigrants who are here legally actually have probably more cause than anybody else to want to see illegal immigrants removed from the country.

10:48But the way this is being conducted, the way it is being focused on the Latino community and the way some people are being treated around the edges of this. I'm sure, Justin, you probably remember Senator Alex Padillo, who was dragged out of a Kristi Noem press conference when he was protesting about ice raids in L.A. U.S. senator who was knocked to the ground and handcuffed. Difficult to imagine that happening to him if he was white, if he hadn't been Latino. So, Mike, that kind of thing, is that not giving people pause about having voted for Donald Trump? It certainly is. But I do want to clarify something.

11:25These are not sweeping generalizations. We have very clear data on generational segmentations about which parts of the Latino community are being driven by what issues. And again, I'll answer the question specifically, but let me clarify for your listeners. This is overwhelmingly an economic issue. Now, Senator Alex Piddy is a friend of mine. I interviewed him shortly after this horrible situation unfolded, and I will say that there's no question that it has shocked the community. But it was happening after most of these support levels already began to collapse. So it's cementing a drop. It's not causing the drop.

12:04Is it motivating people to show up and vote in the midterms? Goodness, I would hope it does. I would hope that it would be. But we don't have that data yet. We won't for another year. I'm interested if we get to the economics of it, Mike, I'm particularly interested in this segment of the Latino vote who were Democrats, had either toyed with the Democratic Party in the past or had actually voted Democrat and then were taken by Trump, as it were. and the extent to which, number one, they're still with him, but number two, those who aren't with him, what the economic reasons are? In other words, are we talking inflation?

12:40Are we talking they didn't do for small businesses what he promised he was going to do? Or is it tariffs? Or what is it? That's a great question. And let me try to address all of those. So the economic issue, which is by far the dominant issue on the minds of Latino voters, was believed to be a jobs issue because Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the non-college educated working class. And jobs, however, are polling at the lower range amongst Latino voters. It's something quite anomalous that we've never seen. What is the number one issue economically by far is affordability. It is these tariffs are compounding on top of the inflation problem that happened during the Biden administration, the weakening dollar abroad.

13:26All of this is compounding to hit lower income workers right in the gut, right in the economic heart of the Latino community. And this is what Latinos are responding to. Overwhelmingly, that is what is driving this de-alignment. And that's the best way to put it. There's very little evidence that Latino voters are moving towards Donald Trump because they're somehow becoming more conservative or even more Republican. They're overwhelmingly disenfranchised and disengaged from the Democratic Party. And it's a de-alignment as opposed to a realignment. It's very important to understand. And that's why we're seeing the fluidity of these voters moving back and forth between these two parties in a rejection of the economic conditions of which they are facing.

14:13The idea that such a huge voting bloc can be so fluid is really, really interesting to me because I'm sure you're very well aware, Mike and Justin, about what's happening in Texas at the moment where they are attempting to redraw the House districts on the map to potentially give the Republicans five extra seats. But in at least three of those districts, that would only happen if the Latino vote that turned out for Donald Trump in 2024 did so again in 2026. And it sounds as though you're saying, Mike, Republicans cannot rely on that. That's a brilliant observation. That's exactly right. I've been writing about this extensively since the maps, this whole maps discussion began.

14:53This is a really profound change in the Texas Republican Party in their approach. Again, they have carved out five new Republican seats. Three of those five, as you accurately pointed out, are Hispanic majority seats. That in and of itself is inconceivable for somebody who's been looking at this for 30 years, that Republicans are now drawing Hispanic majority seats because they are so confident that this is now a new Republican-based vote. I believe that's an untested assumption. I think it's a faulty assumption. I think it's one that is likely to backfire if Democrats can get back into the game and actually start talking about economic issues again instead of racial identity issues.

15:33And that remains to be seen. But Beto O 'Rourke in 2018, the year I was just talking about with the highest Latino turnout in history, literally won three of those five seats, the new seats. So it's not only possible for Democrats to win these new Republican gerrymandered seats, it's probable that they will. And that's what is missing in this whole dialogue in America right now as the redistricting war heats up is both of these parties, both the Republicans and Democrats, are making faulty assumptions based off of bad data from the past and not understanding the fluidity of culture and an economic voter.

16:15Republicans and Democrats in California are making the same historic error by redrawing their lines off of 30 years of history that has changed about Latino voters. So both of these parties, again, are making a very big mistake and they're basing their assumptions off of faulty foundation. That is fascinating. What you've just told us is amazing because we've actually done quite a lot about the redistricting because it fascinates us and it's a bit hilarious in a way when you look at the shapes of the districts and all the rest of it. We've done a couple of parts about it. So AmeriCasters will be well, well versed in all of this stuff.

16:48But you are now telling us, hang on a second, it may actually come to nothing at all. They might be completely cocking up what they're doing in Texas because they will not get the support that they think the Republicans think would have brought them these extra five seats and possibly the midterm elections and all the rest of it. It might be a mirage. That's what we call a dummy mander. That's very good. You made them based off of false assumptions. You think you're gaining political advantage when And there's literally, I don't want to say no evidence or basis for this, but the evidence is so thin that you're banking a huge generational moment on very, very limited data sets.

17:29So look, if we turn to the Democrats then, and you have said to us, they're not really picking up properly on what's going on. They need to do more. Can they at this stage do the kind of work that needs to be done to get the vote on tap, first of all, get Latino voters back? But also, crucially, and I think this is a really important point, Sarah kind of hinted at this, didn't she? Could it make a real difference in the election? It's very rare to see a political party get a second chance the way the Democrats have been gifted this by the Republicans. If Donald Trump had just gone golfing and not messed with tariffs and done anything to the economy, he would probably be sitting in the low 60s in terms of his approval rating right now.

18:20Instead, he did what he can't help himself to do, but it's to cause some chaos and mess up the markets and start alienating a lot of our allies and trade partners. And as a result, again, it is working class people specifically who are hurt the most, people in construction. One in five Hispanic men in this country are involved in the construction trades. That's 20 % of the Latino GOP is building houses. Most of our lumber comes from Canada. Most of our sheetrock drywall comes from Mexico. So you can't build houses at an affordable rate if you're tariffing both of these two countries. So the question as to whether the Democrats can fix this is absolutely they can.

19:01They've always been able to. And the problem that Democrats are having a real struggle with right now is an identity crisis because they still believe themselves to be, we've talked to the politicians and the consultants, that they are the party of the working class because in academic circles and in policy coffee clashes, they believe they've got the answers and the solutions. In the meantime, for the past decade, the working class and people of color have been moving away from them at a very, very rapid clip. But we're also seeing creeping numbers of no voting at all, just a disengaging from the process entirely.

19:39In fact, Kamala Harris's campaign blamed these voters for her defeat, that these people just didn't show up. But that not voting is as strong a statement as leaving your party and voting for somebody else, in my opinion. And this is a problem that has plagued Democrats for a very long time. So the short answer is, yes, they can solve it, you know, at least theoretically. But culturally, I think the Democratic Party still has some reckoning to do to understand that it is not what it thinks it is. So the Democrats need to, they need to change their image and they need to change their idea of how to appeal to this voting bloc, concentrate on the economy, not on ethnicity.

20:20But to what extent does it matter about visibility? We're asked by our AmeriCast listeners all the time, where are the Democrats? Who is leading the opposition? Who is arguing against Donald Trump's policies? And when it comes to something that would presumably hit this community, like the restriction on Medicaid benefits that are going to be coming in at the end of next year, should there be Democrats loudly explaining what this is going to do to people who rely on Medicaid and taking a national lead on this to attract these voters? Or can you do it when you come to the midterms with local campaigns?

20:54Well, I think I would. That's a great question. I would absolutely, as a political strategist, advise, and I have, and raise the alarm bells to the Democrats, you need to start talking about the economy. There's a million different shiny objects in Trump's world that you can be taking your attention distracted from, whether it's the Epstein files or whether it's, again, the ice raid crackdowns. They're important, but they're not the prime driving issue. We can go on and on about the litany of issues that Donald Trump brings up that you can be distracted by. But to focus on an economic policy, the Democrats have to get back into rebranding and building trust with the working class in this country again.

21:35One, if it's ever going to win in the midterms, but two, if it's going to be a viable party going forward. The New York Times just published an amazing report yesterday showing dramatic declines in Democratic registration over the course of the past eight years in this country. It's collapsing, and it's collapsing amongst core, what we traditionally believe were core democratic constituencies. Young people, immigrants themselves, all immigrants, by the way, of every country around the world, every immigrant's dense precinct in America has seen a rightward shift both in registration and in voting propensity.

22:11Women, working class people. This is the core of what used to be the Democratic Party. It no longer is that. And that's the real reckoning. That's the real struggle that a lot of our institutions are coming to terms with, is these parties no longer are what they were in the 80s and the 90s or early 2000s. They're the exact opposite. And Donald Trump is leaning strongly into that, and he's capitalizing on it, while the Democrats still have not figured out why it is that their policy proposals aren't working because they make a hell of a lot of sense in the corridors of the Capitol or in classrooms in academia.

22:47Mike, that was trenchant, fascinating as ever. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Thanks. Thanks so much. And stay in touch. We'd love to talk to you again, maybe before the midterms next year. It's always a pleasure to be with you guys. Thanks for having me. Bye, Mike. Thanks, Mike. Bye bye.

23:12Justin, he was so interesting, wasn't he? There's so much to unpack from all of that, including, I think, his prescription for what the Democrats need to do isn't just what they need to do with Latino voters, is it? It's what they need to do across the entire country. Change your policy prescriptions, change the way you're selling it. But, I mean, he's right, isn't he? They have lost their connection to the working class of America. And without that, they will never return to government. And they've lost their connection, as we've said many times before, and as they admit, because it's simply factually true.

23:48They've lost their connection to all sorts of rural areas, you know, the Dakotas, all the sorts of other places. We're actually in not just living memory, in our memory, both of us have covered an America where there was at least a Democratic Party senator from West Virginia, from South Dakota, from all of these places. And now it's kind of unthinkable. And it seems to me that the Mike Madrids of this world are saying to the party, you need to address this. And if you don't address it, then, as he was saying, all the polls suggest a sort of long term decline. But I tell you what, though, Sarah, I don't think that is uncommensurate with the party also being quite radical and having quite radical people in it, like Mamdani in New York, who almost certainly is going to become the mayor of New York and is a socialist.

24:41I think there's got to be a way of them being a broad church still and they often have been a broad church in the past and it doesn't mean that you can have a kind of message I think Bernie Sanders thinks he would have won back in 2016 if he'd been running instead of Hillary and I think he's got a point in other words the party can still appeal but it's got to be a breadth of appeal that isn't just sort of stuff from the senior common room of a fine university It's got to be stuff that's gritty and that hits home. And I don't know what you think, Sarah. I just think the party doesn't seem to be able to grasp that.

25:20And at the moment, I can't see any sign that they are properly. I've been talking to some pretty senior Democrats behind the scenes here in Washington about what's going on. And pretty much, frankly, saying to them, look, where are you guys? We're not hearing anything from you. You're not putting up opposition to what you think is the most dangerous presidency in modern history. and we're hearing nothing from you. And basically what I've been told is not that they're just away licking their wounds, but they know they've got to go absolutely back to the beginning, back to brass tacks to look at not just what policies they're offering, but how they're communicating to people, what candidates they're putting up, absolutely everything.