By NADIA LATHAN and VALERIE GONZALEZ, Associated Press
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (AP) — Jorge Bazán’s family has lived on the U.S.-Mexico border for generations and has voted Democratic for as long as he can remember.
He broke with family tradition this year and voted for Donald Trump because he doesn’t trust the Democratic Party’s economic policies.
“I think they forgot the middle class,” said Bazán, who works for the utility company in Rio Grande City, seat of the most Hispanic county in the country. “People are suffering right now. Everything is very expensive.
The South Texas region — stretching from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley — has long been a Democratic stronghold. A shift toward Trump in 2020 shook Democrats in the predominantly Hispanic region, where for decades Republicans had rarely bothered to field candidates in local elections. But few Democrats expected the sweeping realignment that came Tuesday, when Trump completely flipped several counties along the border, including Hidalgo and Cameron counties, the two most populous in the Rio Grande Valley.
In Starr County, where Bazán lives, voters just supported a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in a century. This predominantly Hispanic, working-class rural county, where the median household income of $36,000 is one of the lowest in the country, gave Trump a 16 percentage point margin of victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s victory revealed that working-class voters across the country are shifting toward Republicans, including those in border Texas, where many Democrats have long argued that the immigration crackdown promised by Trump would discourage voters.
“I’ve always been a Democrat my whole life, but I decided to become a Republican with the current political landscape,” said Luis Meza, a 32-year-old voter in Starr County. “I thought becoming a Republican was the best choice, especially with the immigration issues and everything that’s going on.”
Meza said he was initially against Trump, but noticed too little change under Biden to justify voting for Harris.
President Biden won Hidalgo County by less than half the margin that Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Since then, Republicans have invested millions of dollars to persuade largely Hispanic and working-class voters embittered by Democratic policies.
A similar scenario played out in the state’s three most competitive races in neighboring counties. Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz won a decisive victory in the 15th Congressional District, and in the other two elections, veteran Democratic incumbents barely held on to their seats.
Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar narrowly escaped defeat to a political newcomer in the most competitive race of his two-decade career. Cuellar, whose district includes the city of Rio Grande, was indicted this year on corruption charges for allegedly accepting $600,000 from a foreign company. His support for abortion restrictions makes him one of the most conservative Democrats in the House.
Democratic Rep. Vincente Gonzalez also narrowly escaped defeat to an opponent he comfortably defeated two years ago.
Nationally, Black and Latino voters appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were for Biden four years ago, according to AP VoteCast data. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that figure is down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who supported Biden in 2020. Support for Trump among these groups appears to have increased slightly compared to 2020.
In McAllen, Texas, José Luis Borrego said inflation and the promise of tighter border restrictions led him to vote for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time.
“I wanted to see change and that’s why I voted for Trump. I voted red. I wouldn’t call myself a Republican,” Borrego, 30, said. He said he voted for Hillary Clinton and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders in previous elections.
Borrego’s entire family voted for Trump.
“We just (made) that choice, because we didn’t have any other choice that we felt comfortable with,” he said.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said he made visits to the area for months during his election campaign against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. In an Election Day victory speech, he said immigration was the reason Hispanic voters are leaving the Democratic Party.
“They are returning to conservative values that they have never left. They understand something that liberal elites will never understand: there is nothing progressive about open borders,” Cruz said. “There is nothing Latino about letting criminals go free.”
Michael Mireles believes that Democrats did not sufficiently engage with Hispanic voters on the issues they cared about in this election. Mireles is the director of civil engagement for the labor rights group La Unión del Pueblo Entero.
“I think people on the Democratic side have been very slow to have these conversations with Latino homes and families.” Mireles said at a news conference in Hidalgo County after Election Day.
“We can’t wait for a big election to have these conversations. At this point, it’s too late.
Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues.
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