The Republican Party is less white than ever. Thank Donald Trump.

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.

Polling suggests that voters at large remember the Trump-era economy fondly and view Trump’s policies more favorably than Biden’s. Black and Latino voters in particular may have more negative memories about Biden and Democrats’ economic stewardship because they experienced worse rates of inflation than white Americans and Asian Americans did during 2021 and 2022.

Those memories came up constantly on a recent Black Voters for Trump voter outreach swing this September through predominantly Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

“We have got to get somebody in the White House that has been there, knows our economy, knows what a bad economy looks like, and will get us where we need to go,” Signa Griffin, who described herself as a Black Trump supporter living in Philadelphia, told me.

Sharita White, another Black voter planning to support Trump, said not enough people want to admit how much better life was when Trump was president. “They talk so bad about him, but they forgot what happened,” she said. “I don’t know too much about politics, but the only thing I know, my income changed, and if I need that man to get in here to fix my income, I’m all down.”

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Article URL : https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/373535/3-theories-gop-donald-trump-nonwhite-voters-hispanic-black-latino-asian