Eduardo Gamarra Americas Insights

Latino Voters Came Back to Democrats. They Did Not Come Home. Eduardo A. Gamarra Two years ago, the Latino vote was a Republican story. Donald Trump won roughly four in ten Latino voters nationally, carried Florida's Latinos 56% to 43%, and Republicans spoke of a new, multiracial working-class coalition. On Tuesday, that story changed. About six in ten Latino voters backed Democrats for the House, according to the NBC News exit poll—a swing of roughly nine points in two years. Democrats are projected to control both chambers of Congress, and Latino voters are part of the reason. It would be a mistake, though, to read this as Latinos returning to the Democratic Party. They came back. They did not come home.  I´ve been calling this a dealignment, not realignment.   In mid-October, the Latino Public Opinion Forum at Florida International University, in partnership with YouGov, surveyed 2,040 Latino registered voters nationwide: 1,539 nationwide and 570 in Florida. In our national...