Analysts say Republicans have the potential to reshape the national political landscape if they continue making inroads in Latino communities.
DeBerry, pointing to one of the “Back the Blue” signs, said the campaign trail this electoral cycle looks different from what it was more than a decade ago when she ran for mayor. “There have always been conservative pockets on the South Side,” DeBerry said. “Now it’s more than just pockets.”Vicky Garcia, a paraprofessional for a local school district, grew up in a Democratic household but today identifies with neither party. “I vote for the people,” she said.
Down south, the Rio Grande Valley’s tectonic shift toward Republicans — allowing the party to take Zapata County for the first time since Reconstruction, after the Civil War — was one of the biggest political stories of 2020. This map illustrates how each precinct shifted between 2016 and 2020. Republicans gained ground in red precincts. Democrats gained ground in blue precincts.
In 2020 in Bexar County, Trump saw gains in his voting share of nearly every precinct where more than 70% of residents are Hispanic, according to a San Antonio Report analysis. In precincts where Hispanic residents account for 70% or more of the population, Trump carried 28.5% of the vote, up from 24.5% four years earlier.
Weeks later, Cassy Garcia wore a T-shirt that said “Unique as a breakfast taco” while giving her own speech at a small venue on the South Side of San Antonio, where a few dozen Republican voters and staffers had gathered. She began with praise for Mayra Flores, the Mexican-born congresswoman who recently won a special election in Texas’ 34th Congressional District.
Martinez, a former Trump campaign staffer in charge of monitoring Spanish-language news media, said the campaign suspected gains would be seen in Florida because Trump’s anti-socialist messaging appealed to some Cuban emigres. But Texas? “We didn’t think it was going to happen. It was a tectonic shift that took us by surprise.”
Cassy Garcia cites this values-based explanation in her own appeals to voters: “I am running to defend faith, freedom and family,” she said, but she also offers a second explanation of her ethos: It’s about kitchen-table problems she says Democrats aren’t addressing. “They don’t talk about issues,” she said. “They take your vote for granted.
Equis, a Democratic-aligned firm that focuses on Latino voters, found an 8% shift toward Republicans among Latino voters nationwide. In Bexar County, it was closer to 5%, said Maria Isabel Di Franco Quiñonez, a research associate with Equis. “There’s a more complicated story here,” said Michelle Tremillo, co-executive director of the Texas Organizing Project , a progressive advocacy group. “Working-class Hispanic communities have proven through their votes that they value progressive ideals,” she said, pointing to the election of progressive candidates on San Antonio’s City Council Teri Castillo and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez , as well as the votes in favor of Proposition B found in many neighborhoods.