Counterpoint: this forum is missing a big-time swing toward Trump among minorities

[ottermax]

Looking through the data, South Texas and Miami-Dade show that Trump got record turnout for Latino voters. This makes me wonder a few hypotheses:
1. Trump's rhetoric and populism appeals to many working class folks - why wouldn't it apply to working class Latinos in rural areas like South Texas? Maybe this is just a readjustment to a mean as Latinos - especially in South Texas are some of the poorest in the country and now are voting more like other poorer, rural counties.
2. South Florida looks like an area where Trump's 2016 rhetoric discouraged voters, but after 4 years where the rhetoric didn't necessarily play out in ways that directly affected those voters, Cuban-Americans decided to show up. Also throughout the 2020 cycle there have been concerted grassroots and official efforts to court Cuban-Americans and other Florida Latinos.
3. Both in South Texas and South Florida Latinos generally are less college-educated (I assume?) which is just a group being lost by Democrats across the board. Exit polls don't show this in the data, but having worked with Latinos most of my career I get the sense that the anti-PC, law-and-order type rhetoric appeals very well to non-college educated voters.
4. Finally as seen in Hawaii, South Texas in the past there is generally an incumbency swing by non-white voters each re-election campaign (see 2004). In some cases maybe voters just voted for Trump because their day to day lives have been fine, Trump is familiar and they showed up.

I do think it's very interesting that the places with the highest turnout so far this year (Hawaii and Texas) have high non-white turnout for Trump - not Biden as one would expect.

[ottermax]

Looking through the data, South Texas and Miami-Dade show that Trump got record turnout for Latino voters. This makes me wonder a few hypotheses:
1. Trump's rhetoric and populism appeals to many working class folks - why wouldn't it apply to working class Latinos in rural areas like South Texas? Maybe this is just a readjustment to a mean as Latinos - especially in South Texas are some of the poorest in the country and now are voting more like other poorer, rural counties.
2. South Florida looks like an area where Trump's 2016 rhetoric discouraged voters, but after 4 years where the rhetoric didn't necessarily play out in ways that directly affected those voters, Cuban-Americans decided to show up. Also throughout the 2020 cycle there have been concerted grassroots and official efforts to court Cuban-Americans and other Florida Latinos.
3. Both in South Texas and South Florida Latinos generally are less college-educated (I assume?) which is just a group being lost by Democrats across the board. Exit polls don't show this in the data, but having worked with Latinos most of my career I get the sense that the anti-PC, law-and-order type rhetoric appeals very well to non-college educated voters.
4. Finally as seen in Hawaii, South Texas in the past there is generally an incumbency swing by non-white voters each re-election campaign (see 2004). In some cases maybe voters just voted for Trump because their day to day lives have been fine, Trump is familiar and they showed up.

I do think it's very interesting that the places with the highest turnout so far this year (Hawaii and Texas) have high non-white turnout for Trump - not Biden as one would expect.

Excellent analysis, Max. I'm going to tie in one additional thing that another poster somewhere in these recent election threads pointed out.

Long-standing Theory, at least among Democrats, has been that the non-voting and irregular voting population of America is poor, less white, and that's more friendly to Democrats. That is at least true with irregular voters like Hispanics, African Americans, and younger voters who fail to show up for midterms. However, there is a smaller but well-respected pulling company whose Name Escapes me that has convincingly hypothesized that this is not at all the case 4 people who rarely if ever vote. The argument was essentially, if you think that right-wing virile Fundamentalist Christians are bad, you should see what the non-voting population really believes in. They're the lowest of low info voters who tend to actively buy into BS conspiracy theories of the worst sort. Think of every crazy BS fuzzy bear themed Facebook or other internet meme you've ever seen from your lowest low info relative, and put it on steroids.

Trump arguably spoke to these people and brought them out in a manner never-before-seen.

You nailed it on the head. I know these people in my day to day life and I fear what happens when they vote... but usually they don't!