WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump has ramped up media appearances targeting Latino voters in the weeks before the election, participating in a roundtable with supporters and community leaders on Tuesday, as well as a town hall on Univision on Oct. 16.
The events are part of Trump’s push to wrangle one of the most influential voter blocs in a remarkably close race, which both him and his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris have been trying to appeal to.
“We’ve done really well with the Hispanic people, as you know,” Trump said at the Univision town hall. “No Republican has ever done like this, and most people haven’t, but I’ve had a great relationship.”
Latino Americans are the second-largest group of eligible voters and one of the fastest growing ethnic groups, with an estimated 36.2 million eligible to vote this year, according to a September 2024 report from the Pew Research Center.
While a majority of Latino voters are still voting Democrat, they are backing the party by a smaller margin than in the four most recent presidential elections. The September report found that 57% of Latino registered voters said they would vote for Harris and 39% said they would vote for Trump, compared to 66% who supported democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s campaign events will be able to sway Latino voters further. While some polls indicate that Latino voters are shifting right, the issue is more complicated than it appears, said Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics and international relations and director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum at Florida International University.
According to Gamarra, the roughly 30 to 36% of the Latino electorate that is solidly behind Trump is important because those voters are some of the most disciplined among Latino voters.
“It’s the activists who vote, and today, the activists are really primarily conservatives,” Gamarra said.
Gamarra added that Latino Americans aren’t a monolith and studies show that political attitudes often differ across state, national origin and generational lines, to name a few.
At a roundtable event on Tuesday, Trump boasted his alleged popularity among Latino voters at Trump National Doral Miami Hotel. Miami-Dade County has a population of about 2.7 million, nearly 70% of which is Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The county is a stronghold for Trump among Cuban American voters, 68% of whom said they would vote for Trump in a recent poll by Florida International University.
The panel included several Latino Americans, including businessmen and local Republican officials like Doral Mayor Christi Fraga, who all touted their support for the former president. Robert Unanue, CEO of the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the U.S. Goya Foods, called Trump a “builder” and “uniter” in contrast to his opponents.
“The Cuban community, the Colombian community, the Venezuelan community have built Miami, and they built this country. We are working class,” Unanue said. “And when you build, you don’t destroy.”
During Trump’s Univision town hall, undecided Latino American voters from across the U.S. asked the former president questions about his plans to fix the economy, among other issues.
Across the board, 85% of Latino voters say the economy is very important to their vote in November, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Over the years we know that Latinos have said that they’ve been very concerned about the price of food and consumer goods, the cost of housing,” said Sahana Mukherjee, associate director of race and ethnicity research at the Pew Research Center. “So it’s not that surprising to see that mirrored in the issues that are most important to them.”
But compared to the general U.S. electorate, Latino voters are more divided on which candidate is best equipped to handle the key issue. Among all registered voters, 55% say they have confidence in Trump to handle the economy, while 45% say they have confidence in Harris to do so, according to the report from the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, Harris had a slim 3-point lead among Latino voters on the issue.
Trump said he would bring jobs back to the U.S. in the energy sector. He alluded to his tariff plan, one that could cost a typical U.S. household over $2,600 a year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
After the economy, the top issues for Latino voters in general are health care, violent crime, gun policy and immigration, according to the Pew Research Center. Participants brought up many of these issues and more at the town hall.
Ramiro González cited the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s lack of transparency during the coronavirus pandemic as moments that he found disturbing. A former registered Republican, González said he wanted to give Trump the opportunity to win back his vote.
In response, Trump called Jan. 6 “a day of love” and said that he told the crowd to protest “peacefully.” He also falsely claimed that none of the protestors had guns.
González appeared unimpressed, tilting his head, and some audience members made confused expressions, a contrast from the deadpan crowd throughout most of the night.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
In trying to persuade undecided Latino voters, Trump and Harris not only have to gain voters’ trust, but also encourage them to show up at the polls. Low Latino voter turnout could be a problem, particularly for Democrats, Gamarra said. Nationally, Latino Americans lag behind white, Black and Asian Americans in voter participation of eligible voters, according to the Pew Research Center.
Gamarra pointed to three main contributors to low voter turnout among Latino voters: parties taking voters for granted, fielding poor candidates and starting campaigning late. Gamarra finds that Democrats tend to take their Latino constituents for granted and start campaigning in Latino communities later than Republicans.
“Democrats err on the side of basically taking Hispanics for granted, because historically, Hispanics have been a certain vote for Democrats,” Gamarra said. “So that becomes problematic.”
Gamarra also noted that Republicans tend to field candidates who appeal more to the activist sector of Latino voters, especially at the local level. In South Florida, for example, Republicans have fielded several candidates who run on the anti-communist message, a direct appeal to the large population of conservative Cuban American voters in the region.
Although some data suggests that Latino Americans are shifting rightward, Gamarra also considers the growing contingent of Latino independents. The Latino Public Opinion Forum conducted a survey of Hispanic voters in 2024 and found that 14.5% of Latinos said they’d switched parties, more than half of which said they’d switched out of the Democratic Party to either Republican or independent.
Gamarra cautioned candidates not to take Latino voters for granted, especially in swing states like Michigan where the state’s estimated 400,000 Latino voters could decide the election, according to local media.
“Is there a movement? Yes,” Gamarra said. “Is it huge? No. Is it important? Absolutely. Could it be defining? Yes.”
