Black and Latino votes strengthen Trump, but Harris could also benefit from a realignment of voting rules

• Kamala Harris may be the first black president of the United States, and she is also the daughter of immigrant parents. Meanwhile, Donald Trump makes racist statements, but according to polls, he is a big hit among minority voters.
• According to a recent New York Times survey, Harris With Latin American roots Voters 56, a They are black He can get 78% of the vote, which is a convincing lead, but still below Joe Biden's performance in 2020.
• How can this trend be explained? Who within each group is most receptive to Trump's messages?
• The two candidates are currently competing face to face, but reorganizing voting rules may redraw the electoral map. Losses among Latinos may limit Harris' path to victory, but offsetting that with gains in white suburbs could make his electoral strategy more effective.

On October 16, Donald Trump participated in a forum for Univision, the largest Spanish-language television network in the USA He replied For audience questions. This was surprising if only because, while Kamala Harris was in the midst of an all-out media blitz—going everywhere from friendly podcasts and Stephen Colbert's talk shows to the downright hostile Fox News—Trump and his advisers seemed to have just realized that less It could be more for them. The former president pulled out of the second debate, canceled a fair number of appearances, including the traditional presidential candidate interview on CBS's 60 Minutes, and even when he did appear before the public, he attracted more attention with his antics to music. From his answers.

Additionally, Univision has long been openly critical of Trump, who is known for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and comments that portray the Spanish-speaking population in an unfavorable light — true that more recently He would have softened The channel’s position on the former president. What is Trump even looking for on the number one media platform for Latin Americans, and why is he answering their questions when, just a few weeks ago, he spoke of immigrants eating dogs and cats in his TV debate with Harris without any basis? Who is the target audience for this, what kind of votes can be won here?

Incidentally, it wasn't a particularly good performance, or at least the uncertain voters who doubted Trump afterward They were a little satisfied A With what I heard. Trump, who asked a critical question about January 6, did not dispel his concerns, to put it mildly, by describing the Capitol siege as a “day of love.” Another questioner summed up the evening by saying, “Both sides are usually doing the same thing, the only difference is that Harris is not insulting us in the process.” . (He still can't decide between the candidates.) But even if they weren't in the studio, they were among the TV viewers, which is an important sign in itself that Trump cares about them at all. This could draw attention to the changes taking place deep within American partisan politics.

Reorganization of power relations

2020-Joe Biden Ban A diverse Later estimates According to exit polls, he received 59-63% of the Latino vote, meaning he had a significant advantage over Trump – but he was about 7-8 points behind Hillary Clinton's result in 2016, which was also reflected in her weaker performance in Florida. , For example. All of this surprised analysts: Trump had gained strength in this demographic after four years in which he called Mexicans immigrating to the USA criminals and rapists, and made the main political issue a wall to be built on the border — and it largely never happened. Complete – he separated refugee families, made positive comments about the Proud Boys, a white nationalist group, and was known for thousands of other racist outbursts. Moreover, this change did not just affect the Spanish-speaking population: Trump also won votes among blacks, especially young blacks, while Biden's win was mostly due to greater support from whites in the suburbs.

Nowadays, there is no analysis that does not highlight the growing polarization in American politics, but it is often highlighted at the same time. Racial depolarization It also happens that the difference between the party preferences of white and colored voters is decreasing.

Don't get me wrong: The Republican voting base, especially the party's base, is still much whiter than the demographics of the United States, and various racial and ethnic minorities continue to gravitate toward Democrats, for example, in the United States. In the case of blacks, the only question is whether 90 or more, will Kamala Harris' share of the vote be closer to 80 percent this time? But even small shifts can be decisive when victory in a key state depends on a few tens of thousands of votes.

Before Joe Biden withdrew from the campaign trail in the summer, projections showed significant declines in his minority support — last December that was the case. For example such an analogy Also, under which Trump would have completely defeated Biden among Latinos. The situation was stabilized by replacing the Democratic nominee, however, as Nate Cohn, chief election analyst at The New York Times Draw attention to himit just means that Harris A black and Latin In terms of votes, he is ahead of Biden in 2024, but still lags behind Biden's results in 2020, not to mention Hillary Clinton's 2016 numbers. However, in the meantime, Harris has a good chance of achieving a better share of the white vote than anyone else. Democratic candidate in recent decades – Since Richard Nixon's victory in 1968, the majority of whites have always voted for the Republican candidate, but this time Harris Some research According to him, he could get close to Trump, A White women You can even block it in between.

As the Democratic Party has increasingly traded working-class white voters for more educated residents of affluent suburbs in recent years, a strange coalition of upper-status whites and various minorities has emerged. In the United States – as in the Western world generally – the political fault line between urban and rural voters is becoming more and more dominant in some urban areas, for example. In New York Democrats are strong in richer and poorer neighborhoods, which inevitably leads to conflicts of interest. White Democrats They became increasingly liberalOn the other hand, the political and cultural attitudes of black and Latino voters are more mixed – and, at the same time, most have remained Democratic, at least so far.

Focusing primarily on Latino voters, this article considers possible explanations for why we saw changes in this during the Trump era. Similar explanations may also be partly true for American blacks, although there are also significant differences between the two groups: while the vast majority of American blacks who descend from slave ancestors represent a common core force in identity formation, Latinos have always constituted a much greater force. A diverse group, so their political affiliations also fluctuated more. Immigration is a central issue for those of Latin American descent, while blacks are much more concerned with eliminating historical discriminatory practices and preventing their possible revival. At the same time, the shift of some minority voters away from Democrats is a common phenomenon that needs to be explained.