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It's well known that older voters tend to be conservative. It's also known that hispanic immigration to the US really took off in the 1960's, meaning the first big waves of children born to hispanic immigrants are entering their 60's.

Has anyone considered if the recent upswing in latino support for Republicans is just because they're aging, rather than R's doing better courting them? Perhaps one way to answer the question would be a study that looked at latino support for Republicans over time, broken up by age. If most of the increase in support is older latinos, it would seem the swing has more to do with age than better pandering.

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  • Careful: many of those voters also had children, which increases the number of younger voters, so the fact that they are aging does not necessarily mean that the age demographics of the Latino population are tilting toward older categories.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 7:48
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    The great discovery (semi-ironically) of recent election cycles is that Hispanic voters are NOT monoliths. For example, Cuban voters appear to be tilting heavily towards Republican whereas voters from other South American countries lean Democrat. This is something that requires further years of study.
    – QuantumWalnut
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 9:08
  • The border intercepts this year are also heavily skewed towards failed neo-Communist states (Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba ) meaning that, if Dems don't leave considerable water between themselves and actual Communists, this problem will get worse. It should be easy to so, except when overly woke Progressives open mouth without engaging brain. nationalreview.com/corner/…
    – Italian Philosopher
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 18:07

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That Democrats have treated Hispanics as a monolithic voting block is perhaps a mistake.

There are large segments of people living in the US southwest who are of Hispanic heritage but whose ancestors were living in those states while those states were part of Mexico. They have accumulated wealth over the centuries and are not the stereotypical recent Hispanic immigrant.

There are many small cities and towns in the southwest where restaurants are not open during hunting season on weekends because the owners, cooks, and servers of the those restaurants are out hunting. They believe strongly in the second amendment, and not just for hunting. They own guns to protect themselves against varmints of all kind, whether zero-legged, four-legged, or two-legged.

The Cuban and Venezuelan refugees (and their descendants) in Florida are yet another bloc that does not conform with the stereotypical Democratic view of Hispanics. Any views that come close to those of the communist countries from which they escaped are treated with disdain. The Democratic party's views on taxation, welfare, etc. are too close to communism for that strongly conservative segment of Hispanics.

Finally, many Hispanics remain strongly Catholic. The Catholic Church has rather strong views against abortion.

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    The Democratic Party does not have economic policies that are even close to Communism. They cannot even agree on a wealth tax, and they certainly haven't nationalized even a single industry.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Nov 14, 2022 at 2:55
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    @Obie2.0 That's not what many MAGA Republicans think, who admittedly don't have the foggiest idea what communism is (but that doesn't stop them). They'll point to AOC, Bernie, and universal basic income supporters such as 2020 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang as examples of advocates for communism. And of course, Nancy Pelosi.
    – David Hammen
    Commented Nov 14, 2022 at 8:15
  • Universal basic income is not the same as Communism. Marxist Communism, which is by far the dominant version, aims (or claims) to uphold the maxim "to each according to their needs"; universal basic income is distributed to everyone, not only the working class or those who otherwise need it, so that is one point against it being communist, and it does not prevent some people from making much more money than others, which is another point against it. Communism in most of its practical large-scale realizations has tended to implement some type of command economy, which is still far from UBI.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Nov 14, 2022 at 8:43
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    @Obie2.0 Re Universal basic income is not the same as Communism, and related comments. I know that, but many Republicans apparently do not. More importantly, the Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida appear to be of the opinion that anything that comes close to reeking of what they experienced as communism is communism. Note that Marx's concept of communism has never existed. He envisioned that there would be transitional forms of government that eventually would lead to his Shangri La communistic utopia. It is those transitional forms that Cubans and Venezuelans fight against.
    – David Hammen
    Commented Nov 14, 2022 at 8:57
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    @Obie2.0 Perception is important in politics. The Latino communities in the US who in the last 70 years escaped from leftist dictatorial regimes tend to be Republican rather than Democrat. They do not want the country to which they fled to become the countries from which they fled. Latinos are not a monolithic bloc. Look at Miami-Dade county, which is where a lot of these Cuban and Venezuelan refugees now live. It has turned red (Republican red, not communistic red).
    – David Hammen
    Commented Nov 14, 2022 at 9:11

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