My issue on why I don’t think it turns is because the Hispanic population due to its strong ties to Christianity fall more into the right than left. Not to mention, Hispanics tend to think of themselves as white people at times. I mean we had a resident Dominican who was darker than some of my black friends who did. That’s just a bad combination which is why I’m pessimistic.
“Hispanic” is probably overly reductive when talking about demographic voting trends in Texas. I suspect that a lot of the new Republican Latino voters are 3rd or even 4th generation Mexican-Americans. Immigration from Mexico has dwindled. There’s no longer as much of the influx of friends or family tha keeps the plight of immigrants in focus . I don’t believe they identify much with Salvadoran immigrants, much less Venezuelan or other South Americans.
Furthermore, many have achieved a certain degree of middle class American life, and because they live in areas with very high Mexiacan-American populations, like the RIo Grande Valley, Laredo, or other parts of South Texas, they may encounter very little anti-Mexican sentiment. So they now follow a path long-established by the Irish, Scandinavian, Italian, and Eastern European descendants of immigrants into nativism. It’s sad to watch for me, but ultimately predictable.
I suspect naturalized voters from South and Central America (who vote) are reliably Democratic.
I also suspect that these Mexican-American voters (especially women) can be brought back with issues like education, cost of elder care, and public health, but the Dems will have to message them separately and not assume that “we like immigrants” is a compelling message to people whose families have been here a century.
