Many Hispanic South Texans shared something else with non-Hispanic white rural Texans: their racial identity. Ideology suddenly became polarizing for the group in a way it never had been before. What changed in 2020 is that conservative Hispanic South Texans voted like their non-Hispanic white neighbors. And for decade after decade, part of being Hispanic in South Texas, just like wrapping tamales on Christmas Eve or listening to Selena at family reunions, meant voting Democratic, even as the party became less welcoming to those with conservative views. Those numbers don’t vary much by race or ethnicity, whereas party loyalty does. David Shor, an iconoclastic data scientist who has polled South Texas extensively, explains that about 40 percent of American voters are conservative, 40 percent are moderate, and 20 percent are liberal. While ideology has been strongly predictive of whether white voters opt for Republicans or Democrats since the late eighties, that had not been true of the state’s Hispanic voters. demographic similarities with some of the more conservative strongholds and white rural communities in the state.”īut so much more than just ideology-whether one is conservative or moderate or liberal-determines how a person votes. congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose district stretches from the banks of the Rio Grande all the way to San Antonio, told me, “Aside from our Mexican heritage, much of South Texas has . . .
In hotels, mud-caked boots line the hallways at night as oil workers travel from job to job. On Sundays, churches-mostly Catholic but also evangelical-swell to the brim. Many Democrats in South Texas are ardent supporters of gun rights who spend fall and winter weekends hunting white-tailed deer. Indeed, for decades, the dominant ideologies in South Texas have been the same as in other rural areas and small towns across the state-that is, conservative. Republicans, by contrast, recognized that Hispanic South Texans share many of the same values as non-Hispanic white voters elsewhere in Texas and swept in with a pitch about defending gun rights, promoting the oil and gas industry, restricting abortion, and supporting law enforcement. And most Hispanic Texans-more than 60 percent in 2016-voted Democratic.īanking on an identity-based appeal, Democrats last year trotted out the sort of bilingual messaging in South Texas that has played well among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and Puerto Ricans in New York, focused on a celebration of diversity and immigration. In the early 2020s, according to the state demographer’s projections, Texas’s Hispanic population would achieve plurality status, constituting around 41 percent of the state’s total and surpassing non-Hispanic white Texans as its largest demographic group. Democrats ranging from Barack Obama’s Latino outreach coordinator, Cuauhtémoc Figueroa, to former San Antonio mayor and presidential candidate Julián Castro had long maintained that Hispanic voters would be the party’s salvation in the Lone Star State. This shift has shattered years of political assumption-and perhaps arrogance. And in Zapata County, which didn’t even have a local Republican party, Trump became the first GOP presidential candidate to win since Warren G. In Webb County, home of Laredo, Trump cut his 2016 margin of defeat by more than half. While Hillary Clinton won there by sixty points, Joe Biden barely scraped out a five-point victory. In Starr County, just upriver from McAllen, Republicans increased their turnout by almost 300 percent between 20. But Varney had apparently not learned the name of the town where Villalobos had been elected, mistakenly (and repeatedly) referring to McAllen as “McLaren.” What did Villalobos think of the border wall? What about “illegal entry” of migrants? This part of the interview should have been routine. Satisfied, Varney moved on to other questions familiar to South Texans who make national news. “I think a lot of people know, or should know, that Hispanics generally are very conservative.” His triumph, he explained, wasn’t stunning he had simply met his voters where they were, with a “conservative agenda” of low taxes, limited government spending, and pro-business policies. Can you explain that? Because not many Americans expect a Hispanic electorate to go for a Republican mayor!” “Your honor,” Varney addressed Villalobos, “you are right on the border, eighty-five percent of the voters in your county are Hispanic, you are a Republican, and you won.
Varney, barely containing his glee, wanted the politician to help viewers understand the victory. Villalobos, a Republican, had just won the mayoral election in McAllen, the Texas border town at the end of the last great curve of the Rio Grande. In an interview with Javier Villalobos in early June, Fox Business host Stuart Varney presented his guest with a riddle.