Majority-Minority Districts: Southern Border
Battleground is a reader-supported publication. Consider supporting the newsletter through Buy Me A Coffee. Majority-Minority Districts: Southern BorderLearn about the diversity in the Latine American experience by state.
Buckle Up! This is the final post in my series on majority-ninority congressional districts and its a long one. The last two presidential elections underscored the importance of appealing to Latine voters, especially in states along the Southern Border. These recent elections also proved the dangers of treating this demographic group as a monolith. Today, we’ll be taking a tour of our nation’s majority-Latine congressional districts and explore the ethnic differences that explain their diverse political attitudes. Topline Takeaways
Tejanos in TexasThe Tejano community in South Texas traces its ancestral roots back to Spanish colonists settling in the Rio Grande Valley. Today, many of these voters do not identify as “people of color” and instead largely see themselves as “White.” (On self identification forms, this group would identify as “Hispanic or Latino of any Race” and would also mark the box for “White.”) While many on the left gambled that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric toward Mexican American immigrants would alienate these voters, many on the ground saw it differently:
The reality is that this community is deeply patriotic, religious and socially conservative. As the national Democratic party moves left, voters in South Texas are increasingly noticing that they share more in common ideologically with Republican candidates than Democrats. After persistent outreach from Republican operatives, many voters finally made the switch in the 2020 election.
There are currently 15 majority-Latine districts in Texas and roughly half of them are currently represented by Republicans. South Texas specifically sits in the political spotlight as it is a historically Democratic region that has been trending toward Republicans in recent elections. Many believe the US House majority will be decided by these voters. Cubans and Puerto Ricans in South FloridaSouth Florida’s Latine population is much different than South Texas’s as these voters hold stronger ties to their island homelands of Cuba and/or Puerto Rico. When reviewing both of Donald Trump’s Florida campaigns: many characterize Trump’s approach as a campaign that “never stopped in its efforts” to court Cubans living in and around Miami.
The difference that brought Trump the largest presidential margin in Florida since 2004 was his ability to court several different Latine communities that previously voted for Hillary Clinton by appealing to fears of socialism.
Despite Trump’s tough-on-immigrants rhetoric, many of these Latin American arrivals resonated with his “America First” approach that mirrors their aspirational patriotism. Cubans who fled dictatorships and/or poverty came to America to evade what they viewed as failed socialist governments and now lean on American nationalism to espouse their preference for capitalism:
Republican party leaders leaned in on the negative perception of socialism in ways that hearkened back to each individual community’s history with their home country. Democrats made it even worse with their proposals of packing the Supreme Court: that practice was employed historically by several socialist governments in Latin America to retain power. Some voters saw the parallels:
Trump’s campaign also made successfully targeted pitches to Puerto Ricans. In the 2020 presidential election, Osceola county saw a massive, nearly 10-point swing toward Republicans when compared to 2016. This county has a disproportionately large Puerto Rican community and its residents have higher rates of educational attainment and were much less likely to live in poverty than Florida’s other Latine communities. Trump’s campaign specifically leaned on these markers of middle-class identity and frequently nodded to evangelical Christianity as these voters have embraced evangelicalism at relatively high rates. The contrast between each party’s approach was noticeable to voters on the ground, “We saw these double standards, of how [Democrats] treated faith-based communities and how they treated small businesses.” Indigenous Latines in New MexicoBefore we can dissect the demographic challenges faced by Indigenous Latine voters in New Mexico we need to review the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality describes the ways that various identities intersect to create unique social dynamics. (Think the unique struggles faced by queer Black people or trans Asian people.) Keeping this concept in mind: it is possible to have both indigenous ancestry AND ethnic ties to Latin America. This includes descendants of the Pueblo peoples and the Mayan civilization. To be clear: many would say that it is inaccurate to call these people “Hispanic.” (The term Hispanic refers to people who descend from Spain: y’know… colonialists who captured Latin American countries to service European interests.) Now that we’ve cleared up our definitions, we can address the fact that Indigenous Latines have been routinely disenfranchised in New Mexico for generations and targeted outreach toward “Hispanics” still ignores this group. In the most recent redistricting cycle, indigenous voters felt disenfranchised in favor of Hispanic voters. Mapmakers redrew congressional district lines to make NM-2 the state’s only majority Latine district. (The other two districts have majority nonwhite populations but are not majority Latine.) In order to create this majority Latine district, mapmakers had to avoid creating a majority Native district where the state’s Navajo population would hold electoral power. This put indigenous Latines in an awkward bind: their Latine ethnicity was (somewhat?) respected while their indigenous roots were ignored. Mexican Americans in Arizona and CaliforniaThe final group of the Latine diaspora that we’ll explore are Americans with ancestral ties to Mexico. In both Arizona and California, Mexican Americans makeup the largest proportion of Latine voters. While many would expect this ethnic group to be in favor of liberal immigration policies, many Mexican Americans share a conservative view on immigration, especially towards “illegal immigrants.” This group is partly responsible for buoying the Republican party in California. Of the state’s 10 House districts currently represented by Republicans, four are districts with a majority-Latine voting base. Several of these areas are also split-ticket districts: places that supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election alongside a Republican House representative. These voters, typically living in the more rural regions of the state, often go forgotten in California politics as they don’t align neatly with the liberal lean seen in and around the state’s larget cities. Leftover Links |
Older messages
Majority-Minority Districts: The New West
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Districts where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have a seat at the table.
Majority-Minority Districts: The Old West
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Organized labor helped ease racial tensions as several major migrations completely upended the ethnic makeup of many midwestern cities.
Why Majority-Minority Districts are so Important
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Back to our regularly scheduled programming next week!
Majority-Minority Districts: The Black Belt
Thursday, September 15, 2022
16 House districts across the South are majority-Black districts where African American voters have a voice in the US House.
Majority-Minority Districts: The Urban Coalition
Monday, September 12, 2022
These 27 House districts form the backbone of today's Democratic Party.
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