Donald Trump is officially the country’s president-elect after beating out Vice President Kamala Harris.
His victory came after securing support from voters in key battleground states. That includes winning over a number of Latino men who had historically backed the Democratic party.
According to an exit poll conducted by NBC, 46% of Latinos voted for Trump in 10 key states, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. Historically, he surpassed former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, which in turn resulted in the worst showing among Latinos for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years.
By sex and race, 55% of Latino men voted for Trump compared to 38% of women. Previously, the polls were showing a close race between the two candidates, but by election night Harris failed to make the necessary gains.
The same exit poll shows she won 52% of the Latino vote — a significantly lower percentage than the 64% Democratic candidates typically needed in the past to win the presidency.
“I was pretty surprised. But I think the biggest concern for Latinos was the cost of living and how quickly it was rising,” said Jose Sanchez Molina, communications and political consultant. “Rent, groceries and health care were at the top of the list. And I think what voters decided was that they choose president elect Trump over Vice President Harris.”
Trump’s historical wave didn’t stop at gaining in the Latino vote. He is the second person in U.S. history, since Grover Cleveland, to win two non-consecutive terms as commander and chief. He sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and is the first elected president convicted of felony charges.
“Those were political prosecutions, so we feel that that was completely motivated all by politics,” said Chuck Hernandez, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party.
Throughout his campaign,Trump didn’t share many details about his presidential proposals but he did make explicit statements outlining wide-ranging agendas varying from the economy, reproductive rights, climate change, social security, education, DEI, LGBTQ, civil rights and immigration.
The president-elect has plans to implement the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
“We love immigrants. We want immigrants, but we want them to come here the right way,” said Hernandez. “We need an organized immigration system, something that works and right now we have a broken immigration system. And we have an invasion that took place, and it's unsustainable. So we do need to deport people.”
Trump has pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he’d reinstitute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations.
“I think the way that you improve people’s lives is not by conducting raids that separate families, and not setting a precedent where you begin to trigger things that were happening 10,15, 20 years ago, where police were deporting people for running over stop signs,” said Sanchez Molina. “I think it'll cause chaos. I think it'll destabilize the economy, and I think it's not a good way to bring people up.”
The U.S. reliance on an available low-cost workforce and the loss of immigrant workers could result in a negative impact on the economy, some say. Trump’s agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
