Is Donald Trump on track to win a historic share of voters of color in November’s presidential election?
On the surface, it’s one of the most confounding questions of the Trump years in American politics. Trump — and the Republican Party in his thrall — has embraced anti-immigrant policies and proposals, peddled racist stereotypes, and demonized immigrants. So why does it look like he might win over and hold the support of greater numbers of nonwhite voters than the Republican Party of years past?
In poll after poll, he’s hitting or exceeding the levels of support he received in 2020 from Latino and Hispanic voters. He’s primed to make inroads among Asian American voters, whose Democratic loyalty has gradually been declining over the last few election cycles. And the numbers he’s posting with Black voters suggest the largest racial realignment in an election since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
There are a plethora of explanations for this shift, but first, some points of clarification. The pro-Trump shift is concentrated among Hispanic and Latino voters, though it has appeared to be spreading to parts of the Black and Asian American electorate.
Second, things have changed since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket in late July. Polling confirms that Harris has posted significant improvements among nonwhite voters, young voters, Democrats, and suburban voters. In other words, Harris has managed to revive the party’s standing with its base, suggesting that a part of Trump’s gains were due to unique problems that Biden had with these groups of voters. Thus, it’s not entirely clear to what extent this great racial realignment, as some have described the Trump-era phenomenon, will manifest itself in November.
Still, Democrats aren’t in the clear. That same polling suggests that, despite Harris’s improvements, she is still underperforming both Biden’s support at this point in the 2020 polls and the margins of victory Biden ended up winning on Election Day. These numbers, especially the results among Latino and Hispanic voters, should be worrisome to Democrats: Biden did rather poorly among Latino voters relative to other candidates from the current century, resulting in Trump posting numbers not seen by a Republican since George W. Bush ran for reelection in 2004, and Harris could perform even more poorly.