Hispanic voters shift to the right, leaving Texas Democrats seeking answers

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was reelected Tuesday with a margin of victory that defied forecasts of a tight race against his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred of Dallas.

When an exuberant Cruz took the stage at his Houston watch party, he singled out Hispanic voters, including those living near the U.S.-Mexico border, for moving away from their traditional support of Democrats to back GOP candidates.

“We are witnessing incredible results, especially with Hispanics across the state of Texas,” Cruz said to cheers. “And we are seeing tonight generational change in South Texas. The results tonight, this decisive victory, should shake the Democrat establishment to its core.”

NBC News reported that its exit poll showed 52% of Hispanic and Latino voters in Texas said they voted for Cruz, compared with 35% who voted for him in 2018, when he beat Beto O’Rourke by 2.6 percentage points.

With nearly all of Tuesday’s vote counted, Cruz was beating Allred by about 9 percentage points.

President-elect Donald Trump performed better in Texas than he did in 2020, which was noticeable in seven counties close to the border that flipped from blue to red. The Washington Post found Texas counties with high Hispanic populations shifted toward Trump more than others.

Trump carried the overwhelmingly Hispanic Starr County, the first time a Republican presidential candidate did so in more than a century.

The Texas movement reflected national trends, with a 14 percentage point swing in Trump’s share of Hispanic voters nationwide, according to exit polling by Edison Research. About 46% of self-identified Hispanic voters picked Trump, up from 32% in the 2020 election, when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Hispanics have largely favored Democrats for decades, but Trump’s national share this year was the highest for a Republican presidential candidate in exit polls going back to the 1970s, topping the 44% share won by Republican George W. Bush in 2004, according to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Cruz indicated he had seen the Texas shift coming as he made frequent campaign trips to the Rio Grande Valley to visit families, small businesses and churches.

The people he met, he said, understand common-sense messages like lower taxes produce more jobs, secure borders provide safety and more energy production means more prosperity.

“Our Hispanic communities aren’t just leaving the Democrat Party. They’re coming home to conservative values they never left,” Cruz said. “They understand something the liberal elites never will. There’s nothing progressive about open borders. There is nothing compassionate about chaos and there is nothing Latino about letting criminals roam free.”

CNN exit polls also showed a jump in national Latino support for Trump, from 32% in 2020 to about 46% this year.

The shift has particularly strong ramifications in a state like Texas with a large and growing Hispanic population. Recognizing the voting bloc’s importance, the Cruz and Allred campaigns appealed to Hispanic communities with Spanish-language advertising and other strategies.

“This was a pocketbook election generally, but this was most true for Latinos,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston political science professor. “They were hit hard by higher prices and worried about oil and gas jobs along the Texas border.”

The shift could mean trouble for Democrats in future elections.

“If this shift of Latinos to the Republicans is durable, Democrats will have to find another constituency to offset those losses,” Rottinghaus said. “They certainly didn’t find them this cycle.”

Wayne Hamilton is a longtime Republican operative who is part of a grass-roots group working to elect GOP candidates in South Texas. He said Democrats have been saying for years the state would turn blue thanks to the increasing Hispanic population.

“It’s wishful thinking,” Hamilton said. “It’s delusional.”

He said Hispanic voters have traditionally supported Democrats despite holding conservative views on issues such as abortion and transgender rights.

Many of those voters also are grateful for the economic development that comes from the oil and gas industry, he said. They worried how Democrats’ policies on energy and the environment may affect those jobs, he said.

“The incredible growth they’ve seen, the high-paying jobs, the opportunity for people to break out of poverty has been brought about by the Texas energy sector,” he said.

Monique Alcala, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said the Latino vote shift in South Texas reflected a national trend but said Democrats remain competitive in the region.

Alcala cited reelection victories by U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, and state Rep. Eddie Morales Jr., D-Eagle Pass, and said Democratic state Sen. Morgan LaMantia’s loss to Adam Hinojosa was by 1 percentage point.

“Margins in Hidalgo — South Texas’ largest county — and Webb were similarly tight at 2 to 3 points,” Alcala said in a statement. “While we are disappointed by the shifts in Cameron and Nueces counties, these narrow spreads and critical victories show that the Democratic message still resonates in South Texas and provide us with a foundation to build on and solidify our path forward.”

Democrats across the country faced a lot of soul searching about how to appeal to Latino voters.

“There is no denying that we have work to do to deepen our engagement with Latino voters,” Alcala said. “We remain committed to strengthening our focus on shared values of economic opportunity, affordable health care, and quality education, and making sure South Texas communities know that Democrats are working toward solutions that reflect their priorities.”

This report contains material from Reuters.