"In 2020, Trump carried Latinos who identify as conservative by nearly 40 points—roughly five times his advantage with them in 2016. By contrast, he made only a small gain among Latinos who identify as liberal, and he lost ground among moderates"
Trump still
gained with self-identified "liberal" Latinos, whether due to reduced turnout among liberals/progressives, persuasion due to lockdown conditions, or dislike of the D establishment status quo.
Shor offered two other theories that provoked substantial debate, but there’s disagreement among Democrats about their accuracy.
The first: Shor believes that large numbers of Latinos who voted for Clinton in 2016 switched to Trump four years later. Although they agree that some switching occurred, Valencia and Odio (among other Democratic analysts) believe that most of Trump’s improvement came from turning out Latinos who didn’t vote at all last time, just as he did with non-college-educated and rural white voters. (Still, that’s hardly reassuring for Democrats. Valencia and Odio’s research has found that those new Latino voters are predominantly young, male, and less assimilated into mainstream American culture; if Democrats can’t reach them, they say, this group could become a lasting headache for the party—blunting the advantage it expects from the current of young Latinos steadily entering the electorate.)
Second: Shor (along with many Republicans) says that Trump was helped by Latino backlash against last year’s racial-justice protests and calls to defund the police.
